The American people want to hear a positive message.

Who will bring hope to our country?
People are getting tired of war in Iraq.
People are against the immigration thing.
They hate high gas prices.
They see global warming, but don't understand it.
They see good jobs going away.
They see the unresponsiveness of our government.
They see politics.

Who will bring a positive message to the people and stand-up for the people?

Seriously though. If you want to talk about positive messages, I'll a mention a few off the top of my head

The Apollo Alliance

The Department of Peace

The triple bottom line

"In the past our politicians offered us dreams of a better world. Now they promise to protect us from nightmares." -- from The Power of Nightmares

in spite of all the bad things, we can't just point those out the bad stuff. We must speak of positive solutions and give people hope. That was a big part of Clinton's victory and Gore's victory too. We must fix the election process, if it isn't, democracy is lost. Fixing the broken election system is a positive. Accusing rethugs of cheating is a negative.

got beat up for it by the dems, especially here on du

People don't want positive. Kerry tried positive in 2004, and look where it got him.

People want justice. They want Bush's head served on a platter. Him and all the neo-fascists who propped up his corrupt regime.

Only after that can we have any hope for a positive message. You treat cancer with surgery, chemo, radiation, and/or hormones. You do not, do not, do not treat cancer with Barney's happy dance.

I'm talking about reality, speaking the truth firmly but giving hope that with our positive agenda we can do and fix. We must avoid being mean and hateful like the right. We must tell people they don't need to be afraid, let the republics can spew the hate.

I'm talking about every candidate asking themselves one simple question: "How badly do you want to win the election next year? How hungry are you for victory in 2008?"

But then again, I did make and sell a bumper sticker in 2004 that said John Kerry in 2004 - A President That We Can Salute With More Than One Finger. Nothing wrong with making our message a little more aggressive and in-your-face, because the Reds are gonna hit us with everything they can.

Well, if that is the goal then start the coup or revolution. However, if you are talking about elections, remember Bush will not be running in 08.

I think we need to move away from the personal animosity and move toward gravitas on the issues. We need to show how America can be better with Democratic leadership. Focus on the issues. People know that Bush is not the sharpest tool in the woodshed already. What's going to bring them to the polls is someone who can tell us how we can do better.

Or we can, of course, choose the route to failure and just complain about how bad America is.

stands for the people

the "best" the Democrats have to offer is candidates who place politics above all and who likely will do less damage if elected than any of the repukes would continue to do

the "government" (which ceased to exist as such in 1994, if not earlier than that), will remain "unresponsive" (which is a euphemism for "wholly in opposition to the welfare of the people") until we have another revolution or cease to exist as a single country.

I read somewhere last night (maybe from Truthout or somewhere else - in an article about Al Gore) that in 2000, there was the happy candidate (bush) and the unhappy candidate (Gore) and supposedly everybody wanted the happy face. Simplistic but true - especially considering the simplistic MIND SET of too many voters. Remember how too many of them went for the congenial old man with the sunny personality talking about the proverbial "shining city on a hill"? Yeah, they fell for ronnie, too.

It's WELL worth keeping in mind as we start trawling for voters. Some of them simply have to be led. In ways they can understand - with their simplistic minds.

Sigh...

BTW - I've got a new one up:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3276092