If Democratic candidates ran on progressive ideas on a consistent basis...

[MADem]

130. No, I am not, but that sounded a bit like a put-down...I am a practical thinker who thinks that it

is important for the Dems to have control of Congress if we want to make any changes. We're not going to do anything by losing.

As all politics is local, all politics is also INCREMENTAL.

Coming out for more efficient cars in MI would not have gotten you "creamed" in MI with the right massaging of the message. Massage of the message matters as much as the message itself, and smart politicians keep their seats because they know how to do that.

A MI politician who identified, to his constituency, and more importantly, to the manufacturing "constituency" (AKA industry lobbyists) a large market for fuel efficient cars (Sample: these people in this country will only buy a car if it gets X MPG) would have been greeted as a liberator. That politician would have had to "make the deal" though, and that takes work. It takes CODELs, meeting with the right people, holding your nose and voting for that other guy's pet project so he will vote for yours, bundling your deal in a "can't fail" piece of legislation, and a fair amount of quid pro quo. You come to a car-making state with a ready-to-roll, money-making deal and, assuming they have the technological capability to make it work, they'll make it work. Why? Because they want to get rich. Because workers on the line want to keep working and getting paid. And once you're making those cars for Indonesia or Vietnam or where ever, and they're good and people like 'em, then you start selling 'em over here--incrementally.

But politicians who just spout lofty ideas that don't solve problems NOW get short shrift with the working stiffs who want answers to those "short term" problems like the rent and the light bill and the heating bill and the telephone bill and that money for school lunches that they are dealing with TODAY.

Again--All Politics is LOCAL. When people can't pay the light bill, they just don't give a shit about solar panels that cost more than their annual salary. They can't buy that electric car because they can't AFFORD it, they're driving a twenty five year old shitbox. They just don't buy arguments that say "It will only raise the taxes a few dollars for each household." A few dollars buys their kid new underwear so they don't get humiliated in gym class.

That IS the bottom line. You either appeal to your constituents, or you LOSE. If that's "short term" thinking, then that's what the people doing the voting are engaging in. They aren't going to think "long term" just because you say so, and they sure as hell aren't going to think "long term" if it costs them their job, it costs them money they don't have, and it lowers their quality of life. They have to be shown the benefit--and that only happens INCREMENTALLY.

People do take into account their OWN SELF-INTEREST when they make decisions about where there vote is going. That's just fact, and it is denied in some quarters to our party's peril. If we're going to be the "party of the working man" we need to stop ignoring the working man and realize that a lot of them depend on things like coal or oil to feed their families. Those people don't give a shit about new technologies unless and until they are assured that they'll have a JOB.

This idea that everyone has to be lofty and worried about the greater good and future generations does NOT resonate across the board. Noting that here, though, is sacrilegious to the Prius driving, six figure types as well as the people who have absolutely nothing, and thus nothing to lose. But that large swathe of people in the middle--the ones who don't post must because they have to work--understand this point.