We need to mainstream our message

I think our message for the upcoming election has a good foundation laid. But we need to take it to the swing voters. 1) Victory in the war on terrorism with no punches pulled against our real enemy, Al Queda. 2) Fiscal responsibility in our government, and in publicly traded companies. 3) Elected officials who love doing their jobs right a lot more than month long vacations.

The war against terrorism has so far been insufficiently focused on our direct enemies. Our foreign policy needs to gather any stable government in the world as our ally in this fight, and reject alienating potential allies because of imagined insults. The terrorist attacks against us should harden our national resolve to end the threat against us as a nation, not to use as a bludgeon against our domestic political opponents.

Just as we must be responsible in our personal spending, our government must be responsible in managing our national budget. The best way to cut spending is to value a balanced budget and set priorities and honor our committments to our military personnel, our elderly and our children. Without honoring our committments, our nation has no future, and our markets know it. Democrats have demonstrated that when they control the executive branch, that the budget gets balanced, spending is put under control and the detail work gets done.

We have many candidates who have the ability and the desire to do the work that they are standing for election to do. It is not enough to have a grandstanding figurehead who cannot settle turf disputes among his own staff because he doesn't, can't and won't understand the disputes. Figurehead administration and delegation leads to several conflicting policies being carried out by different departments, each defeating the other. Nor is it acceptable to have cabinet level officers who cannot be bothered with the details presented to them. For too long we have not had a laser-like focus on national security so much as national security posing.

Our current national leadership is engaged in endless finger-pointing. They pass the buck to each other, they scapegoat political opponents as foreign enemies, they have made a high art of snubbing foreign allies and pay no attention to fiscal matters. We need leadership that truly can build coalitions domestically and abroad, that understands that financial choices must be made, and who understand that political opponents are not enemies to be humiliated, but whose very differences can be harnessed as strengths to accomplishing all of these ends.

I don't look for the whole ball of wax. What I don't want is a government that promises meaningful reform and then backtracks. In that regard Bush did do us a bit of a favor. We'll be watching more closely now at the players in any admin.

On edit: When I refer to reform, I refer more to reforming the reformers :eyes:

But no politician will say this for fear of looking weak (read: like he/she might cut defense funding).

on Now w/ Bill Moyer. There's a thread or two about it already somewhere in GD. If you haven't seen it you might check it out. I thought he did a good job.

when we diverted virtually all our military resources to Iraq. Hussein was a world problem that should have been dealt with through the UN rather than unilaterally. But apparently the oil was more important than following up on Al Queda for Bush. Hussein would have gone nowhere and done nothing. We should have focused on Al Queda like a laser beam.

Policy has to change, or we'll just have a group with another name to chase after ten years from now.

Somebody might actually think you want to win elections.

I think that we have to stay on top of the press to make sure that when they quote our candidates, the quote isn't taken out of context.

Perhaps, structuring sentences in speeches so that it is harder for quotes to be taken out of context by putting the qualifiers inside of the phrase, instead of after or before. Particularly on a hot topic or a potential catchphrase.

E-mailing news outlets when they misquote or make mistakes will help if that outlet cares about the mistakes/misquotes.

Alerting the campaign staffs of any mistakes will allow them to send someone to straighten out the mistake or misquote.

I like it.

YES! Our message must be clear, short, easily understood, and most importantly, must appeal to mainstream America. We cannot survive as only the party of the fringes. We must be willing to give up thin fringe constiuancies to offer more solid appeal to middle America!Human nature requires us make "the safety and welfare of all Americans" our number one priority. To do that, we must focus on five issues in the following order; 1. Defense of our homeland / elimination of terrorism on Amercian soil. 2. Affordable health care available to everyone. 3. A solid economy that provides good jobs for everyone. 4.A social Security benefit that allows for retirement with dignity. 5. A properly funded and managed public education system.
Yes, we are the party of inclusion, but let us not micro-manage ourselves. We cannot afford to sacrifice the common working man and his family to satisfy the either the extreme right or the extreme left.

n/t

eom