I know, I know. The Democrats haven’t asked for my advice, but I’m going to give it to them anyway. The advice is so good, if I do say so myself, that I actually hesitate to share it with them, but so much of the advice they’re getting now — “Talk values! Talk God! Learn to ‘communicate’ in the language of the heathen rednecks!” — is so silly that I can’t help myself.
Here, for example, is Gov. Janet Napolitano, Democrat of Arizona:
We need a fresh reassessment of how we communicate with people…. How did a party that is filled with people with values — and I am a person with values — get tagged as the party without values?
Hey, America! I do so have values! Even sillier, here is New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson on what was wrong with the Kerry campaign (same link):
I remember being on a trip with him in New Mexico: I put a cowboy hat on Senator Kerry and someone on his staff shuddered and asked me to stop…. This is I think an example of the East Coast not connecting with the West Coast and with the rest of the country.
No, it isn’t. If Kerry had worn that hat, he would have been properly and devastatingly caricatured as “all hat and no cattle.”
Much better advice came from former Vice President Mondale:
We really need to work on the question of what we are for…. Unless we have a vision and the arguments to match, I don’t think we’re going to truly connect with the American people.
Well, yes. It’s always helpful to stand for something and be able to say what it is. You’d think parties would know this without having to be reminded, but, still, after for it/against it Kerry’s campaign Mondale’s reminder may have been necessary.
Now for my unsolicited advice. If the Dems really want to “reconnect” with the heartland, etc., etc., they should not try to start showing their religion on their sleeves, spouting biblical verses, and telling everyone at every turn that they “have values.” What they should do is re-dedicate themselves to some very specific American (not religious) values that they have abandoned (really abandoned, not “come across” as having abandoned). Their problem, Gov. Napolitano notwithstanding, is not how they communicate with people but, as Mondale recognized, what they communicate.
And the best place to start is with the foundational principle that I continue to believe is at the very core of American values — the idea of equal opportunity, with no one receiving burdens or benefits based on race or religion. Doing so would go a long way toward steering them back toward the mainstream, and I think at very little cost beyond the outrage of the academic left and interest groups.
Even Republicans have generally not had enough courage to articulate this principle clearly, for well-justified fear of being called racist. But a Democrat with strong civil rights credentials could, I believe, have an enormous positive impact — both personally and on the party– by calling on his or her partisan colleagues to return to the colorblind principle that was embodied in both President Kennedy’s and President Johnson’s executive orders on affirmative action, that was so eloquently articulated by Martin Luther King, and that was written clearly into the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Who knows? I might even vote for such as Democrat.
Arlo Guthrie reminds us that when you are not sincere about expressing heartland values, you end up feeling bad about it. Recall his draft physical from Alice’s Restaurant:
“They got a building down New York City, it’s called Whitehall Street,
where you walk in, you get injected, inspected, detected, infected,
neglected and selected. I went down to get my physical examination one
day, and I walked in, I sat down, got good and drunk the night before, so
I looked and felt my best when I went in that morning. `Cause I wanted to
look like the all-American kid from New York City, man I wanted, I wanted
to feel like the all-, I wanted to be the all American kid from New York,
and I walked in, sat down, I was hung down, brung down, hung up, and all
kinds o’ mean nasty ugly things. And I waked in and sat down and they gave
me a piece of paper, said, “Kid, see the phsychiatrist, room 604.”
And I went up there, I said, “Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I
wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see, I wanna see blood and gore and
guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill,
KILL, KILL.” And I started jumpin up and down yelling, “KILL, KILL,” and
he started jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling, “KILL, KILL.” And the sargent came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said, “You’re our boy.”
Didn’t feel too good about it.”
“Who knows? I might even vote for such as Democrat.”
But the others Democrats wouldn’t.
John writes:
>>>And the best place to start is with the foundational principle that I continue to believe is at the very core of American values — the idea of equal opportunity, with no one receiving burdens or benefits based on race or religion. Doing so would go a long way toward steering them back toward the mainstream, and I think at very little cost beyond the outrage of the academic left and interest groups.
Cobra – The gov’t doesn’t contribute to religious organizations. That aside, I would consider it affirmative action if the gov’t a) paid a religious organization more than a secular organization for doing the same work or b) gave preferences to religiious organizations over secular ones in selecting recipients of gov’t contracts. I would, and do, consider it discrimination when gov’t excludes religious organizations from participation in programs open to secular organizations, just as I would if a city refused police and fire protection to a church.
Dumb idea. Democrats get 89% of the Black vote BECAUSE of affirmative action. I like the cowboy hat idea better.
“Dumb idea. Democrats get 89% of the Black vote BECAUSE of affirmative action. I like the cowboy hat idea better.”
African-Americans are about 12.8% of the population. Since they tend to vote less often than other groups, they probably represent under 10% of the actual vote.
Even if 89% stopped supporting Democrats because of an AA modification, that would mean Dems would lose less than 9% of the vote. However, the reality is that most African-Americans would still vote Democrat, as the lesser of two evils, for economic reasons, etc. So at most, you might lose 4 or 5 percent.
The question is whether this could be made up from the independent moderates that dominate our nation today. Doesn’t seem that far-fetched, especially when you consider the millions of working-class white voters that have probably been pushed into the Republican camp by such policies.