Be Yourself

From different perspectives, two articles nonetheless preach the same message to the Democratic Party: Stand up and stand for your principles. How true and how sad that they just can't seem to get the message. The Republican machine has created havoc in so many ways, from the war to the deficit and the economy, to dismantling government programs and agencies. They have also successfully marginalized the press and the Democratic Party. The Democrats are much like the "abused spouse;" they've become a dyfunctional shadow of themselves. It's time to free themselves from that mindset and stand free.

Philly Daily News columnist Will Bunch of Attytood, comments about the Party in America's new "silent majority":

We were reading the New York Times on Sunday, which had an interesting article about the political situation in Ohio, where the Democrats have a good chance of wresting control of the statehouse and a Senate and several House seats. But this passage leaped off the page at us:

Mr. Brown is considered one of the more liberal members of the state's Congressional delegation; he supports abortion rights, opposed the constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage and voted against the war in Iraq.

"Sherrod Brown is out of the mainstream," Mrs. Dole said. "I don't think his kind of liberalism will sell across the state. Drawing the contrast is the key here: it's the choice between the two candidates, despite the environment."

Incredibly, that exchange just stood there, unchallenged. So just how far out of the mainstream is Sherrod Brown?

-- A new poll just out shows that a majority of Americans -- some 57 percent -- now believe that sending troops to Iraq was a mistake, in essence agreeing that Brown's opposition to the war was correct.

-- On an amendment to ban gay marriage, a poll released just this week found that voters rank this at the very bottom of issues that they want Congress to take up, and some 63 percent of Americans are either strongly or somewhat concerned about changing the Constitution over this issue.

-- On abortion rights, the nation is fairly evenly divided. A poll taken in April shows 51 percent opposed to most abortion rights and 46 percent generally in favor -- but a majority opposed a law in South Dakota seeking to ban them.

Based on that, Sherrod Brown may be the most mainstream candidate in America. However, you could almost forgive someone for thinking the opposite, given the media's failings to provide any context. The Democrat's positions are very much in the majority -- a new kind of "silent majority" that leans to center-left as opposed to Nixon's center-right grouping.

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And so we watch a Democratic Party that is splitting itself in two, arguing what's the real message and what's the best way to woo over a mass of people who might very well tell you -- if you would just listen -- that "you had me at 'hello.'" And we guess there will always be debates over strategy and tactics -- that's why consultants and even a few bloggers get paid the big bucks.

But at the end of the day, should it really be hard for a Democrat like Sherrod Brown to win in 2006?

Everyone should just stop yelling for a moment...and listen to your silent majority.

Echoing those sentiments was NYT's op-ed columnist Bob Herbert, in Where's the Beef?:

Enough already with the analyses ad nauseam of the strategies and tactics and philosophies that the Democratic Party should pursue to regain power in upcoming elections.

We've been listening to this armchair chatter for years: The Democrats need new ideas. They need big ideas. They need to move to the center. They need to wave the flag. They need to go to church. They need the soccer moms and the Nascar dads. They need to run from the blacks. They need to run from the gays.

I have no more patience with this perennially pathetic patient, this terminally timid Democrat who continues to lie cowering and trembling on the analyst's couch, wondering why the Demolition Derby Republicans control virtually all of the levers of power in the United States.

The Democrats are thinking too much and doing too little. This is a party in need of a moxie transplant. It's time for the patient to climb off the couch, walk outside and mix it up with the gang that has made a complete and utter mess of the country that was entrusted to it.

The polls tell us that the G.O.P. is ready to be routed.

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What the Democrats need more than anything, with midterms coming up in the fall and a presidential election two years later, are personable candidates of strong character who have at least some measure of political courage and are willing to stand up for what they truly believe. This is the stuff that leaders are made of.

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If the Democrats don't know what they believe in yet — if they're still figuring that out — they don't deserve to win. Politicians are supposed to lead, and the U.S. has seldom been in more desperate need of leadership than now.

(Also available at Free Democracy)

It may be now or never.

Tags: Politics, Commentary