Very Interesting article on AP about Dean and DNC06/08 strategy

[Perky]

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/R/REBUILDING_DEMOCRATS?SITE=CATOR&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-10-08-14-37-40

This has got a lot of subtle meat in it for the DLCers and their protagonist.

Particularly what DNC found about the "values" issue:

<snip>
A March 23, 2005, memo by DNC pollster Cornell Belcher found that most voters view politics through a values-laden prism rather than through the economic framing traditionally used by Democrats. On a list of issue choices, "moral values" ranked in the middle of the pack and well ahead of abortion and gay rights. That suggested to Belcher that moral values has a broader meaning for voters than do social wedge issues.

"When voters think about moral values, they may in large part be thinking about the strength, leadership and moral fortitude of the candidates ... rather than the candidates' positions on specific social wedge issues," Belcher wrote.

Dean's take on the polling is that Democrats must recast the values-and-morals debate."It's morally wrong that so many children live in poverty. It's morally wrong that we have so many working poor people who can't pull themselves out of poverty," he said. He also believes that voters are more interested in a candidate's intangible leadership qualities than his positions on lists of issues.
"We have to appeal to people's hearts and not just their heads," he said.
<end>

let the merriment begin

[rosesaylavee]

1. Well. Duh.

This is news. Come on, say it aint so.

[Perky]

3. I think it is what the DLCers have been trying to say

(n/t)

[rosesaylavee]

13. Well, as someone says further down

glad they have framed it in a simple way then. I just thought that this is what we had with Gore and Kerry and the many others who ran in the primaries.

[oregonindy]

2. the DNC06/08 strategy. "were not them" at this point it would work .

[Perky]

5. we gotta stand for something other than

"he is a dumbass"

That the whole thing there about branding an image

[bee]

6. agreed. n/t

[AX10]

4. So what the DLC is saying is that all the left has to...

do is use the word "moral" over and over to win?

Are the people that simple? :eyes:

[Perky]

7. No No NO

THe is not what the DND DNC DNC pollster is saying in part.

And yeah people are that siple that is why the we have the idiot in the WHite house that we do,

[John Q. Citizen]

9. No the article doesn't support in any way what the DLC has been

saying.

If it did we would be in the majority in congress. Clinton (one of the founding members of the DLC) lost the house in 1994 and it continued to erode along with the Senate until now.

Paul Wellstone voted against the war in Iraq even though a majority of his constituents were in favor of it at the time. He voted against it because he felt it was wrong, even if it wasn't politically expedient.

So while voters disagreed with him on that issue, they respected him for voting what he felt was the right thing to do.

[Perky]

20. OMG

Clinton won twice n by appealing to the middle.


You folks who thin the only way the Dems should position the party is to move to the left..... When has that ever worked tell me for God's Sakes tell me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[John Q. Citizen]

29. Clinton won his first election after 12 years of Republican rule

and Ross Perot taking 19% per cent of the votes cast, which undoubtably hurt bush more than Clinton. Without Perot in the race he might have lost.

Also, what does your reply have to do with my post? My post was about having a set of values that guide your party, not sticking your finger into the wind on every issue and hoping to lead by following public opinion. Which has been the over-riding trade mark of the DLC since it's inception.

Pandering to corporate cash isn't a centrist position, by the way.

[madfloridian]

28. NOT the DLC.....the DNC...

And that is not what they are saying.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

8. Grover Cleveland springs to mind

He was the only Democratic president we had between the Civil War and Woodrow Wilson. Why was he elected not once, but twice? Because of his integrity. One person was asked why the Dems should choose Cleveland-his reply was: "I have three reasons. He is an honest man. He is an honest man. He is an honest man."

In his first successful run against James Blaine, the Republicans found out he had fathered an illegitamate child (he supported the child and took responsibility for it, even though there was some doubt he was the father)-he acknowledged it. Blaine, though a moral family man, had taken bribes from the railroads to influence legislation. As a newspaper of the day said, "Cleveland is not perfect in his home life, but his public life is spotless. Blaine is perfect in his private life, but not in his public one. So let's send Cleveland to the White House and Blaine back home" or words to that effect.

[adnelson60087]

10. Dean is onto a reasonable plan...

of attack to not just use the current mistakes of the GOP and claim "we're not them...vote for us". He wants to redefine what it means to be a Democrat in this new century. We have been needing it since Bill Clinton last ran. If we hope to have any level of long-term success, Dean's plan is the most likely to succeed. It will allow us to define ourselves, and not let the Right-wing bastards do it. I like the merits of this plan very much. Getting people involved at the local levels, to provide the momentum for the re-branding is a major component of this system.

[madfloridian]

27. Thanks for the common sense post. It is getting crazy here.

I have never seen anything like it, this desire to hurt the party.

I can not believe it is going on from both sides.

[tlsmith1963]

11. Well, at Least...

...he framed it in terms of poverty being immoral. That's a start, because it's the truth.

Tammy

[Bernardo de La Paz]

12. Yes, moral values: hurricane relief, healthcare for all, ...

[Starbucks Anarchist]

14. I'm sick of appealing to people's hearts.

In an intelligent country, speaking to their minds would be enough.

While I understand Dean is able to tie it into specific positions, and I applaud him for that, I wish it wasn't this way.

[mandyky]

15. Well, we have to "play the game" the way it is,

not the way it should be, or the GOP will keep winning elections. And I think the heart is just as important as head, when it comes to messages and candidates.

Sense of community is a head and heart issue, which Rush and the other hate radio people have us at each other throats about.

[AX10]

17. Sadly it is and this is why America is failing.

[johnaries]

18. I think you answered your own post - in an "intelligent" country.

Although I think we have a lot of intelligence in our country, I don't think it's in the majority.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

25. That's what I was going for.

[johnaries]

30. Oh, yeah. I get it. It is sad, isn't it.

I think it may have something to do with the current 2-minute attention span of the US. I think we're an ADHD nation.

Is there such a thing as Political Ritalin? :shrug:

[madfloridian]

24. Uh, he just did.

I give up.

[1932]

16. Lakoff's Moral Politics is a detailed argument of this same issue.

Moral Politics makes a compelling argument about how to match up political campaigning to the ways people see and think about the world.

It's not so much that people don't care about their economic well being as much as "values." The issue is that people don't understand the world in terms of laundry lists of positions on issues. They see the world through cognitive frames and making sure that people in the middle and working class have power is something you have to convey through bigger frames about what you value rather than in terms of "we'll give you a better earned income credit."

[Perky]

22. Precisely right

The Democratic Party needs to be seen not at the moralist party but as the party that defends the American Dream AND the party that makes it more attainable for everyone.

[madfloridian]

19. This was all on C-Span....over 2 hours of it.

It was a meeting of the DNC and Cornell presented all this.

The DLC does not include this stuff which is part of DNC's plan.
ORGANIZING:

"Dean is putting four or five DNC staff members in every state with orders to organize every precinct. One of the organizers' first mandates is to conduct four major events a year, one or two of which are mainly social.

Dean learned from his own campaign that it is critical to form relationships that turn into small communities and build into networks of people who feel part of a bottom-up operation with a purpose larger than themselves.

It's a long-term investment that runs counter to the political culture in Washington that, in the last years of the 20th century, has valued multimillion-dollar TV buys over grass-roots organizing.

"You've got to recruit people. You've got to ask them to do something," Dean said. "You have to treat them like a community."

[Az]

21. Its about trust

If you have candidates that promise whatever the polls suggest is popular the people will see it as opportunism and tune out. The candidate needs to stand up and speak the values they believe in. Popular or not. The people can trust a person they disagree with. But they can never trust a person that always seems to be trying to agree with them.

[madfloridian]

23. Your "merriment", your "gloating".....is very misplaced.

Dean's message has been to reframe the issues and take them away from the other side....we set the agenda.

Now he is trying, and both sides are going after him and the DNC.

PDA is on the left, with their leaders attacking. The DC insiders are on the right saying for the activists to go away.

I hope the mods have fun here from now on. I think this is just ridiculous.

[madfloridian]

26. Here are Cornell and Dean at the DNC this summer. Article. Moral Values.

"Dean and the pollster provided the most specific blueprint yet for a party where a multitude of factions and potential candidates are competing to point the way back from Sen. John F. Kerry's (D-Mass.) loss to Bush, 19 states to 31 states. "We have not spoken about moral values in this party for a long time," Dean said. "The truth is, we're Democrats because of our moral values. It's a moral value to make sure that kids don't go to bed hungry at night. . . . It is a moral value not to go out on golf trips paid for by lobbyists." (There were more mentioned)

Belcher, the pollster, said the emphasis that many voters placed on moral values in November is "not a call to move to the right." He said that a lot of what he called "faith voters" -- those for whom religion plays an equal or more important role in determining their vote than conventional issues such as education -- "are up for grabs." He said those voters can be reached by acknowledging their fears about raising their children.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/11/AR2005061100609.html

More:

The Democratic National Committee's lead pollster, Cornell Belcher, said that religious people who have been stymied economically represent a huge opportunity for the party, and that the challenge is to portray moral values as "not just gay marriage and abortion."

It amounted to a call for the party to reclaim Reagan Democrats, the blue-collar social conservatives who have voted largely Republican for the past 20 years. In a possible future play for President Bush's voters, the party announced the creation of a Veterans and Military Families Council.

The party, determined to compete in what Dean called "the Mississippis and the Kansases," has vowed to put paid organizers with four-year commitments in every state, and is starting a monthly donation program for small givers.

You know, there is reasoned argument and just jumping on stuff to divide. The video is still up at C-Span if you really care to see it.