http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/2005/1...ett/330297.html

Bush vs. Bush, and Bush loses
Monday, Oct 31, 2005

By John Brummett

A Gallup Poll released midweek showed that President Bush would lose right now to a Democrat, and do so rather badly. A Democrat would get 55 percent, according to this survey of more than 1,000 Americans last week.

What a waste of phone banks.

That Bush would lose to a generic Democrat is meaningless. That's because there is no generic Democrat. There only are Democrats with baggage - existing or awaiting, real or imagined.

You have Hillary Clinton, hated or resented or feared by approximately half the electorate. You have John Kerry, destroyed by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and his passive response to them. You have John Edwards, youthfully overeager and only marginally credible championing poor people.

Evan Bayh, U.S. senator from Indiana, is about as generic as you can get, if generic can be taken to encompass anonymity and blandness. But he wouldn't be generic by the time the Republican hit squads got through with him.

Elections are not about one person, up or down. They're choices, usually between the lesser of bad ones. They're choices based on definitions sometimes imposed by the other side.

Bush could have been beaten in November, but not by Kerry. He could have been beaten in 2000 more clearly than he was beaten by Al Gore. Bush's dad might have been vulnerable in 1988 to a Democrat other than Michael Dukakis. Just after the Democratic convention, when Dukakis was still mostly generic, the elder Bush trailed by 17 points.

This Gallup survey of last weekend essentially pitted George W. Bush against George W. Bush, and he lost.

Democrats lack more than a generic candidate. They lack a message.

Here's a quick quiz: Can you name something Democrats stand for? Opposition to the war in Iraq, you say? Hillary voted for it. Kerry voted for it, and against it. Opposition to the president's Social Security privatization? OK, fine. But that's dead anyway. And, by the way, the question was what Democrats stand "for," and you've responded only with what they're against.

Perhaps our little quiz was harder than you thought.

Democratic insiders will tell you that their most effective political combatant currently is over at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Rahm Emanuel, a leading Clinton White House official now serving in the U.S. House from Chicago, is a go-getter chairman. So, I checked into what Emanuel was saying in terms of a Democratic message. Not much, it turned out.

If you go to the DCCC's Web site and click on "news," you'll find articles about the indictment of Tom DeLay.

And here's the DCCC's current position statement for 2006: "In 1994, the Republicans took over the Congress on a pledge to 'restore the trust between the people and their elected representatives,' and to end a government that they said had gotten 'too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public's money.' Instead of delivering on those promises, this Republican Congress has delivered a record of failures on the issues that matter most to American families. The time for change is now."

Change to what? It might be helpful for the Democrats to remember something else about 1994. It was that the Republicans offered a "Contract with America," outlining more than opposition to Democrats, but an agenda.

Sitting in the House to decry and vote against bills the Republican majority crams down their throats won't cut it for Democrats.

For now, Democrats privately admit that their best hopes for 2006 are to make gains in the House and Senate, but not take back either chamber. And they'll admit that their best hopes tend to be with "conservative" Democrats running for open seats or against weak Republicans. That's more a matter of imitation and expediency than a message.

As for the presidency in 2008, Bush won't be on the ballot to beat himself. Democrats will need a candidate who can perform as well as that powerful generic one.

I think the best possible thing dems could stand for is brining jobs back.

Remember the Last time You Smiled?

Personally, I think it was a Contract On America not with America. A contract sounds too corporate or mobster like, take your pick. The U. S. government should not be thought of as a corporation, a corporation has only one interest profit, nothing else, a corporation has no conscience only public relations. If a government were only a corporation, all the poor, orphans, old, infirm and sick would be sent off to die somewhere else so as not to tax our profits. I believe this is the real meaning behind Gingrich's Contract On America, everyone fends for themselves, we may not send the less well off to a remote island to die, we just let them die here at home with no healthcare. We not only have corporations that profit from aiding the financially well off sick such as HCA, but also profit from imprisoning our citizens such as CCA. What kind of laws do you think a lobbyist representing a for profit prison system would lobby for, more freedom for Americans?

This is why the Democratic Party can easily unite behind Al Gore for President in 2008 because he represents the American People and there are a whole lot more of us than corporations. He also was against the war with Iraq when it was not so popular to be so, not to mention the fact that he was the first to recognize the dangers of global warming and the total pollution of our home; planet Earth.

Whatever we do and however we do it we must be in complete command of every issue and hold that command with confidence and pride. Our problem is we've let the repubs define us for too long and we haven't had bold, strong leadership in both houses or on the ground.
Say what you will about the repubs but they ALWAYS stick together....and case in point...right now they are not unified and look at what's happening to them.
We must pull the plug out from the DLC (the repub lites) and make our message clear and simple. "We want to give America back to the people".
How?....by laying out rational, explainable, fair ideas. We must never let the right explain us to anyone. We've done that for far too long. We must bring all of our ideas together with a candidate who can unite us. I believe that candidate is Gore. I think I have a lot of company in this feeling.I think we have our work cut out for us and a lot of specifics to discuss but we can do it...I know we can. We can create a better America again.

Very well said. :good:

I believe AL GORE is the only one who could make it happen. :good: