Legal Commentary

Fighting Dems

By Big Tent Democrat

In my years as a front pager at Daily Kos, a running theme, perhaps THE running theme, was that Dems needed to fight for their values. The Barack Obama phenomenon and the PPUS sidetracked that theme. But perhaps it is making a comeback. Here is E.J. Dionne today:

Consider the contrast between two groups of Democrats, in Wisconsin and in the nation's capital. Washington Democrats, including President Obama, have allowed conservative Republicans to dominate the budget debate so far. As long as the argument is over who will cut more from federal spending, conservatives win. Voters may think the GOP is going too far, but when it comes to dollar amounts, they know Republicans will always cut more.

In Wisconsin, by contrast, 14 Democrats in the state Senate defined the political argument on their own terms - and they are winning it. [. . .] Here's the key to the Wisconsin battle: For the first time in a long time, blue-collar Republicans - once known as Reagan Democrats - have been encouraged to remember what they think is wrong with conservative ideology.

The Deal was a terrible mistake, in part, because President Obama avoided a chance to fight for the middle class, for the ordinary American, and instead signed on to the "no sacrifice for the rich" Norquistian GOP agenda. He had a chance to fight for what Jim McDermott called the Common Good:

[McDermott]: [I]f there's anything that's lost, that we've lost in the last for awhile, it's being the sense of the common good. [. . .] Reagan started us down the road, not that he was the first, but he was the one that articulated best when he said: "are you better off this year than you were last year or four years ago?" The question should be are we better off than we were four years ago and the fact is that as a country and as a people and as a middle-class, we are not. [. . .] I think the biggest thing that's missing in the democratic party is that we have lost the idea of the common good. That's what Franklin Delano Roosevelt was going with social security, he's saying look, this is the worst that's ever been in this country but we would get together and we will find the way to help our old people in this country get back on their feet and we've driven down the poverty among senior from 50% to 10% and it's not all gone, is not perfect, is not the best system in the world, but it's going in the right direction and herein comes the President who says "we have to get rid off that, we want to put you on in the ownership society." What he means is that we want to put you out on your own and that's splitting again the idea of the common good.

It's always a time to fight for what's right.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on March 10, 2011 (boomark / email).