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December 10, 2004

Titanic Survivors Demand More Iceberg Encounter

So, all you responsible, moderate Democrats out there; what do you think of this?

A scathing e-mail from the head of MoveOn's political action committee to the group's supporters on Thursday targets outgoing Democratic National Committee (news - web sites) chairman Terry McAuliffe as a tool of corporate donors who alienated both traditional and progressive Democrats.

"For years, the party has been led by elite Washington insiders who are closer to corporate lobbyists than they are to the Democratic base," said the e-mail from MoveOn PAC's Eli Pariser. "But we can't afford four more years of leadership by a consulting class of professional election losers."

Under McAuliffe's leadership, the message said, the party coddled the same corporate donors that fund Republicans to bring in money at the expense of vision and integrity.

"In the last year, grass-roots contributors like us gave more than $300 million to the Kerry campaign and the DNC, and proved that the party doesn't need corporate cash to be competitive," the message continued. "Now it's our party: we bought it, we own it, and we're going to take it back."

Pariser urged MoveOn supporters to help support a DNC chair with a bold vision to represent Democrats outside Washington. Democrats will vote at their February meeting in Washington on a successor to McAuliffe

So, Democrats; MoveOn "bought" the Democrat party?

That McAuliffe has been a disaster as DNC chair has been amply proven in Congress, the White House and state houses around the country.

But - and I'm asking this sincerely of Democrats - does MoveOn's vision seem like a better plan?

Are you really going to rally behind MoveOn darling, Mad Howard Dean?

In an America that's moved to the right steadily for the past forty years, is pushing the party to the left really the answer to your party's continued decline?

Developing...

Posted by Mitch at December 10, 2004 07:53 AM | TrackBack
Comments

in a word, absolutely. Wrongheaded though I think their philosophy may be, the Republicans serve themselves well as a party by attempting to be ideologically pure. The GOP takes an ideology and uses it to entice voters, so that the job of getting them to sign onto policy that the party leaders claim reflects that ideology, is much easier. The Democrats take policies and try to get voters to sign onto them, hoping that the ideology of the latter is a mesh for the particular policy in question.

Short version--
GOP: We stand for this, and because of this we want to do that.
Dem: We want to do that, so you who stand for this should want that too.

Policy is complicated. Ideological frameworks are usually quite simple. It's obviously harder to start with the complicated and work towards the simple, than the other way around--right?

The majority of the party--a large majority--is uncomfortable with the war, pro-choice, and pro-investment. Party leaders ignore that at their peril, and if anything proves that motivated bases can trump dragged-along moderates, it was election 2004.


Posted by: torridjoe at December 10, 2004 12:35 PM

It used to be said that 3 or 4 financiers hold provide the entire funding for a Democratic candidate for President. Now George Soros shows that one guy can indirectly fund the take over of the whole Democratic Party.

Earth-to-McCain-Fiengold .. Earth-to-McCain-Fiengold

MoveOn.org now owns the Democratic Party.

That is all.

Posted by: Neo at December 10, 2004 03:33 PM

Lie down with dogs, get up looking like their chew toy.

I miss Harry Truman.

Posted by: Fred Boness at December 10, 2004 11:26 PM

When torridjoe writes:
> The majority of the party--a large majority--is
> uncomfortable with the war, pro-choice, and
> pro-investment. Party leaders ignore that at
> their peril,

he misses an important concept. While the majority of the PARTY may be ... the majority of the COUNTRY is NOT. You don't win an election by appealing only to the majority of your party.

The challenge for the Dems is to get the majority of their party (starting with themselves) to be more centrist. The leadership fanned the flames of hatred and fear, they allow no compromise on abortion (e.g. against restricting even partial birth abortion), and so on, pushing their party farther left. (For more on this, re-read Zell Miller's speech at the RNC.)

Those same leaders could have led in a more centrist direction, thereby appealing to more of the population. Thank goodness they didn't. And now they drawing the wrong conclusions about why they lost. I thought that Nader 2000 would have shown them how much appeal the radical left gives them.

After all, isn't this the advice the left kept giving the right several years ago when the Republican party was "hijacked" by the right wing extremists?

Posted by: AlrightAlready at December 11, 2004 06:24 AM

A emailer at Instapundit commented that "Our model is the Goldwaterites in 1964."

I've been rereading Barry Goldwater's political memoirs for the past few weeks, because he lived his public life well before I had any sort of political consciousness and he seems like such a pivotal figure in "movement" Conservatism. It's uncanny to me how closely the foreign policies match Bush 43's Administration (you have to replace the word "communist" with "terrorist" but... you know -- it's uncanny how closely it tracks to the rhetorical landscape of today.)

So yeah, MoveOn and its adherents are determined to drag the Democrats left and keep them there until they're once again ascendent.

I think it's also pretty safe to say that a savvy Democrat (a former President's wife) will repudiate MoveOn in 2008 for her Sista Souljah moment.

Posted by: Mark at December 14, 2004 02:08 AM

actually, alrightalready, those ARE the opinions of the majority--all three of those positions.

In any case, when you say:
You don't win an election by appealing only to the majority of your party.

you obviously slept through the 2004 election. That's exactly what Rove did.

Posted by: torridjoe at December 16, 2004 06:43 PM
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