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November 11, 2005
Won’t get fooled again.
Well last Tuesday was the greatest Democratic victory since Al Gore beat G.W. Bush back before the Y2K crisis. We are, understandably, giddy...
However, and I can’t stress this enough, we didn’t win by dint of our own agenda, we won because the public is fed up with the Republican one. Democrats have done a good job convincing the country that the Republican agenda will toss their grandparents on the streets and force their children to get STDs...
The Republican agenda is to take us back to the halcyon days of July 1929. The Democrats (at least the party), by contrast, are trying to hold the line at about 1955. Meanwhile, the public—the voters—rightly want an agenda that meets the needs of 2005. Things to be addressed:
Healthcare costs are going up.
Our intellectual property rights are a mess (not so much of concern to the Average American, but definitely affecting everyone)
Balancing security and liberty. Hell, do we even _need_ a balance?
Mounting bin Laden’s head on a pike
Balancing the individual need for expression with governmental need to be agnostic on most forms of expression
Educational systems
These are just a few of the ideas which float to the top of my head. Democrats do fairly well on some of these, fail miserably on others. Neither party is making these issues their priority, preferring instead to fight the battles of the past. Our national rhetoric has evolved, but the debates themselves have stagnated. The first part who makes a concerted effort to address these issues will win and win big...
Posted by Andrew at November 11, 2005 12:17 PM
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Comments
I don't see the two parties as quite as far stuck back in time as you do, but the Republicans are stuck in the '80s and the Dems are stuck in the '70s from where I stand.
This probably has a lot to do with the mean age of a member of congress--and of course the constituent groups they're associated with.
Democrats will never--and I do mean never--come up with any meaningful education reform. They've made it their signature issue for at least 35 years and they've never done much of anything to really change the system. Their only meaningful interest in education is giving the teacher's unions whatever they want. And as a former member of a teacher's union, I can tell you that they do not get even a tenth of the kicking around that they deserve. And don't even get me started on their lies and distortions about how "there is no Social Security crisis," when no one said there was one, but meanwhile their reactionary impulses just add to how long seniors will have to remain dependent on their children rather than independent.
Republicans, meanwhile, remain beholden to the religious conservatives on issues that the next generation doesn't give a damn about (like stoppin' the evil queers) and their only solution to the dislocations of free trade is more tax cuts....
Posted by: Dean Esmay at November 11, 2005 10:41 PM