What was Obama thinking? The Democrats are the party of ideas. The GOP is the party of propaganda.

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/011767.php
by eriposte

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Here's Sen. Obama's statement cited by Markos:

I think it’s fair to say that the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10-15 years in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom.

This statement clearly implies two things. One is that unlike the Democratic party, the GOP has allegedly been the party of ideas. This is completely wrong - whether or not Sen. Obama was referring to "good" or "bad" ideas. In fact, what the Republicans are much more famous for is message discipline and propaganda - which tends to limit the number of ideas they propagate. In contrast, there were plenty of ideas from Democrats - much more so than from the Republicans. If anything, Democrats have failed time and again because they have had far more ideas amongst themselves - ranging from the very liberal to the somewhat conservative - that they have often failed to unify around a single set of ideas the way Republicans have. Don't just take my word for it. That is, in fact, one of the messages in Crashing The Gate. I'd like to point Markos to pages 173 and 174 in his own book:

Ask ten people what the Republican Party stands for and you'll get roughly the same ten answers: <...> Now ask ten people what the Democratic Party stands for, and you're likely to get ten different answers...

...As it turned out, this hasn't been a book about policies or new ideas or message, even though those are critically important in taking back our country. We like to believe the ideas that will lead the Democratic Party to a new governing majority already exist, but they need to be articulated clearly.

Markos unfortunately confused message discipline with ideas. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The Democrats have been the party of ideas, the Republicans have been the party of propaganda. That has not changed much in a long long time.

There's another way in which both Markos and Sen. Obama are wrong.

more...

No, the Republicans have been the party of ideas and has drug us down their path for years.

We complain about it around here every single day.

Now you want to pretend that isn't exactly what we're trying to change??

...the Reagan Legacy...

just watch what Bush pulls for the next year.

We'd better have some good ideas to fix this mess they will leave us with.

with the video saying they have been the party of ideas the last 10-15 years. You know they have operatives who watch our discussions, and see the weakness of candidates comments, they will point out, or save for later use - his saying THEY are the party of ideas!

It's like a 3 point gift in the polls for them... really bad idea to say that. Sometimes, he says too much to try and impress. He has great tone and oratory skills, but he has made some bad choices in what comes out. He's head and shoulders ahead of el dunce-o that we have as the pResident now, don't get me wrong, but Clinton and Edwards are so much more presidential acting.

The Dems are the party of no ideas, and the Republicans are the party of shitty ideas.

but it was ONE DAMN *lively* COUNTRY CHANGING movement - LARGE numbers of Democrats voted for him.

Bill will be remembered as a corporate loving president and one who formed the DLC. Thus, transforming in - only our one party (The Democrats) morphed toward the kool-aid drinking political right. :shrug:

"The Democrats haven't had a new idea since the Beatles broke up. The republicans on the other hand come out with new shit every month. New people to bomb, new ways to screw you over...."

Don't remember who said it, but it made me chuckle.

What Republican didn't? He's totally suspect to speak on this, taking Obama's side.

I've been haunting America Blog waiting for John Aravosis to weigh in on this, because I know he used to worship Reagan too. I just wanted to laugh at how he'd have to twist himself into a pretzel to discuss it.

You're either a true blue "democrat" or you're with the "evildoers."

Sound familiar? :eyes:

You want to deny that? I didn't say all ex-Republicans retain a degree of loyalty to Reagan, but there would be some who claim to have changed 180 degrees, but in fact aren't as liberal as they claim.

As far as the "with us or against us" crap, yes I do detest Republicans, and I'm hardly going to apologize for that on a forum called Democratic Underground.

There is some concern about the war in Iraq. Lee L. Mercer Jr. knows of U.S. government evidence that the war in Iraq is illegal and it can be solved through him representing the United States Government with a peace treaty. He knows there are notations in his ROTC Biography of a guarantee from Iraq through me for peace to the war in Iraq and that Mr. Hussein is innocent of his charges.

"During the 1930’s, President Roosevelt essentially ended the dominance of the “Bourbon Democrats” in national Democratic politics and moved the Democratic Party solidly behind a political program of economic populism. As a result, the nation saw a couple generations of solid economic growth and mass prosperity. A vibrant middle class emerged from the policies promoted by FDR. The Democratic Party clearly replaced the Republicans as the stronger of the two major parties as a result."

"Beginning with the election of Ronald Reagan, many Democrats in power drifted away from the core values of the Democratic Party and started running as “Republican-lite” candidates. They started trying to compete for corporate campaign money by permitting awful trade agreements that undermined the health of the American economy and weakened the American middle class while helping the economic elite become even more powerful."

"Edwards is the most labor-friendly Presidential candidate of the top-tier candidates.
With Edwards, we have a candidate who both walks the walk and talks the talk.
Edwards is strongly opposed to outsourcing American jobs and is committed to ending unfair
international trade deals or tax policies that encourage corporations to move jobs
out of the nation." more ...

'Edwards is FDR with a Southern Accent'
December 23, 2007 http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=opedne_stephen__071223_edwards_is_fdr_with_.htm

Over the last quarter century, the Repuke Party has cohered around a set of notions called, in our era, conservatism. Some of them are plainly mislabelled, as in strategic megadeficits masked behind rhetoric about fiscal responsibility, but this general framework has guided their party around a fairly consistent platform OF IDEAS (however noxious).

The Democrats have, on the other hand, not lacked for individual or perhaps small group pursuit of ideas, but even "ideas" like a single-payer health care system (a la Kucinich, with a non-profit health sector) have in no way united the Party AS A PARTY. The platform of the Democratic Party is a conglomeration of Repuke lite, and, in some areas (like health care) a "lite" version of a full-throated "idea". The Democratic Party has been REACTIVE to what Repugs have put forward, rather than pursuing any kind of program.

Remember that FDR came to power merely on the most general sort of rhetoric (other than promises to balance the budget). The New Deal itself emerged, largely by trial and error -- and one of the central "ideas" of the first half of the New Deal was essentially a corporatist model of economic development that did not (for the most part) last, although other forms of corporatism have emerged (eg the military-industrial complex). The New Deal emerged as a set of policies with the ideas (eg the embrace of Keynes) coming AFTER the practice largely, rather than before it. Once the New Deal was established, followed in the 50s by the Civil Rights movement and the "Great Society" extension of the New Deal in the 60s, and basically the maintenance of the New Deal held the Democratic Party together for a long time.

In particular, the Democratic Leadership Council approach to the Democratic Party, triangulation and betrayal of both the Left and the Great Society on many fronts (with Al From pushing for dropping the pro-choice platform of the Democratic Party after the 2004 elections) is NOT an "idea" in the same sense as the conservative demiurge of the same period.

I don't understand why people on DU have so much trouble grasping the lack of an overall approach to politics that has characterized the Democratic Party, while the Repugs have pursued WRONG-HEADED ideas which have led the country into a ditch (like they did in the 20s).

The camouflaging of their actual program (eg "Death Tax", to cite one particularly egregious scam) has proceeded with success in large part based on the at least passive complicity (and OFTEN more than just passive) of the Democrats in their programs, including the most unpopular. The Repukes NEVER controlled the House of Representatives under Reagan, yet Reaganism still managed to be 'transformative' and change the direction of the country. When The Democrats gained control of the executive AND legislative branches of the govt (93-5), the Repukes only had to mount a consistent policy of filibustering EVERYTHING and the Democrats (specifically the Clinton "Democrats") accepted it without seriously trying to call the Repukes on it. The Democrats to their eternal shame WERE NOT EVEN ABLE TO MUSTER THE VOTES TO MAKE NEW COLUMBIA A STATE -- indicating the COMPLETE lack of will and GOVERNING ideas for the Democratic Party.

The mere existence in some minds of "ideas" is NOT what is being discussed as ideas; it's IDEAS AS OPERATIONAL IN A POLITICAL CONTEXT that we are talking about -- ideas-in-practice.

and that's what Obama wants to change.

Thank you for that.