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Edited on Mon Apr-28-08 06:00 PM by journalist3072
One of the first laws of politics is never allow your opponent to define you. You have to define yourself and state unequivocally what it is you believe and stand for.
And this is the problem I see with the Democratic Party: it continues to allow itself to be defined by the other side.
I was thinking about this earlier today as I read about the Supreme Court's decision regarding the voter ID law (a terrible decision, in my opinion).
The facts will tell you that voter suppression is much more a problem than voter fraud. They don't even begin to compare.
However, the GOP has framed this debate in terms of supposedly trying to prevent voter fraud (again, which is almost non-existent).
I am still waiting for the Democratic Party (that would be you, Howard Dean. That would be you, Donna Brazile, former chair of the DNC Voting Rights Institute) to stand up and take control of this issue. Remind people that this is about voter suppression and limiting people's access to the ballot box. It is not about voter fraud.
Another example you see of the Democratic Party allowing the other side to take control of the debate and attempt to define the Democratic Party, is Ward Connelly's attempts to do away with affirmative action.
He gets these initiatives put on the ballot in various states. And the way the GOP words the anti-affirmative action intitiatves, is by framing it as 'civil rights.' They know that if a voter goes to the ballot box and sees an initiative that says something to the effect of 'civil rights,' more likely than not they will think it is a good thing, without reading the fine print.
And they've been allowed to get away with this, without those of us left-of-center calling them out for it.
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