Dear Democrats,
You don't release your centerpiece economic plan in the middle of 24/7 war coverage. The idea of campaign messages is to get your plan out to the voters, and perhaps you should choose a time when the news networks will let you on the air to talk about it.
But what do I know?
But what do I know?
posted by mikevotes at
6:56 AM
5 Comments:
How typical is THIS? Is it any wonder that the Dems have become such a marginal player in American politics? They do it to THEMSELVES. I swear, if there were no Rove Machine in DC right now, the Democrats would still be in the same sorry shape.
By
QuakerDave, at 8:52 AM
I'm all for a pay-as-we-go plan. To bad we haven't been on that plan for the last 60 years.
The article only talks about school programs. That's not enough to win the votes of the people. If Democrats want to retake the majority in Washington, they will have to do better than this.
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Unknown, at 9:28 AM
Dave, the stupidity of this just floored me. They wanted to release it at the the big DLC meeting, but I think we agree that they should've held off.
And Time, for election purposes, the actual program is less important than the sizzle. I agree with you that this thing has to be more comprehensive, but at the same time,if it's just a document to win an election rather than a real plan, it's more how they package it.
And, somewhere I read that the plan was to lay on problem on top of problem over time to create an impression of increasing failure. I don't know if that's true, but if it is the case, you would do education this month, real wages next, retiremnet insecurity the next, healthcare in october, etc, etc. There are plenty of issues and lots of time.
I don't know if that's really the plan, but it would fit.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 10:34 AM
I agree that they need to come up with a comprehensive economic plan that addresses the needs and concerns of working class and middle class Americans. People really are hurting (your link to the LA Times article yesterday that reported real wage declines of 5.2% for college educated people between 2000-2004 shows just how widespread the economic decline in America is).
But you're so right about the timing. In the middle of the Hezbollah/Israel conflict is the absolute worst time to do this. No one is paying attention to Iraq anymore, let alone the release of a domestic economic agenda.
As for the education part, I don't think they have to spend too time educating people on the decline in real wages (people know it), the high energy prices, the health care crisis, the enormous costs of college, or the personal debt problem. There is a real opportunity to win on these issues even in some Red districts. But of course, Dems can't show themselves to be clueless about security or allow themselves to be pegged as "pussies" (sorry for the misogynistic pejorative, but that is the Rovian message). Let's see if they can do all of this by November. So far, it seems like they can't. Not to mention that some Dems (like Biden, Carper, Leiberman) are such corporate whores that they can't really run on an econimic fairness for middle class and working class Americans agenda without looking like hypocrites.
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Reality-Based Educator, at 10:44 AM
I'll buy that argument. I would think economic issues are the "two" in the one-two punch anyway. I think you start with the obvious foreign affairs incompetence and then bring it home and make it personal to burn the emotion in.
And, remember that the famous Contract with America came very late, September maybe. So, they've got tons of time. You want to build the wave.
And, last, really good point about the corporate dems. I think if they want to attack economic issues, they should attack oil and dirty industry because their money is often tech, healthcare, banking.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 12:48 PM
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