Ted Kennedy: "If Democrats become carbon copies of the opposition, we will lose--and deserve to"

- I found the following excerpts from the article on Ted Kennedy interesting and informative. -



The Senate's Fighting Liberal
by Jack Newfield
This article appeared in the March 25, 2002 edition of The Nation.
This 2002 profile by the late Jack Newfield captures the essence of what this legend meant to the progressive movement.

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The 1995 speech came in the context of Newt Gingrich being sworn in as Speaker in the wake of the GOP's gain of fifty-three House seats in November 1994--the same day that Mario Cuomo was defeated in the New York gubernatorial race and Tom Foley was trounced in the Washington State House race.

In this sail-against-the-wind speech, given at the National Press Club, Kennedy rejected the conventional wisdom that the 1994 elections proved the country was veering sharply to the right. He argued that the reason the Democrats lost so many elections was that they had compromised too much and shed their distinct identity. Kennedy famously declared: "If the Democrats run for cover, if we become pale carbon copies of the opposition, we will lose--and deserve to lose. The last thing this country needs is two Republican parties."

Before Kennedy made this argument in public, he delivered it in private to President Clinton, who was in a deep funk over the 1994 election and being urged by pollster Dick Morris to compromise even more and embrace portions of the Gingrich-Dole agenda.

Kennedy made his populist thinking explicit on January 16, when he became the first senator to urge postponement of $300 billion in tax cuts for the affluent. He said the savings should be applied to prescription drugs for the elderly, extending unemployment benefits and protecting Social Security. Since January, only one other senator has joined Kennedy--Paul Wellstone, the Senate's most progressive member.

What is not at all clear is how Kennedy's mentoring of John Edwards fits into his broader thinking about what his party should stand for, and who should be its nominee in 2004. When I asked a Kennedy friend about Massachusetts junior Senator John Kerry, who is testing his own candidacy for 2004, I was directed to page 565 in Adam Clymer's "definitive" biography of Kennedy.

That page contains an anecdote about a January 31, 1995, meeting of Democratic Party leaders from both houses. It was convened to consider whether to back Kennedy's bill raising the minimum wage, from a miserly $4.25 an hour. Kennedy arrived late for the meeting, and as he walked in, he heard Senator Kerry voicing his doubts about the bill. "If you're not for raising the minimum wage, you don't deserve to call yourself a Democrat," was Kennedy's angry response.

For whatever reason, Kennedy doesn't want to appear dogmatic or overbearing about where Democrats should go from here. But this remark makes vivid his thinking that higher wages, more jobs and more healthcare are the foundations of the future.

Read the complete article at:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20020325/newfield

Yep, and that's still the problem with all those wishy-washy centrists. Either be a Democrat, or not ~ but to be a Dem in name only is meaningless ~ and dangerous for the party.

Well said. :applause:

:dem:

-Laelth

Now all we need is for them to take up some form of religion.

in the right direction

very pragmatic that way.

A few years later we got the next incremental step, disability benefits. And 44 years later we are still waiting for next step, Medicare for All, or even another small incremental step, a slight reduction in the Medicare qualifying age to 55 years old!