What should we run on 2008

[simcha_6]

Barring any monumental change in the political landscape, how should the 2008 presidential candidate market his campaign. Be creative here- sell me your ideas. Speech and rhetoric format is fine.

[BurgherHoldtheLies]

1. Respect for privacy and fiscal responsibility

IMHO

[Pacifist Patriot]

2. I agree and would frame it as...

a return to traditional American principles.

[safi0]

3. That killing cats is wrong

You guys know were gonna have to talk about it

[Arkana]

4. Assuming Frist gets the nod

Which of course he will.

[EVDebs]

5. Agreed. But be prepared for hand to hand combat RedInkRepublicans

and their CreditCardCongress !

Articles like "Suicide by Free Trade" - Pat Buchanan
www.amconmag.com/2004_04_12/buchanan.html here's the last paragraph:

""Indeed, if the issue is jobs, Republicans ought to be thrown out. For not only are they not creating them, they have no idea how to stop exporting them. In their hearts, some of them think it a good thing. They are like the doctors of old who sincerely believed bleeding the patient was the way to get rid of the disease because that is what their textbooks and wise men told them""

Republicans OUGHT TO BE THROWN OUT ! Have him repeat that on Scarborough's show sometime.

And anything by Paul Craid Roberts on the economy

http://www.vdare.com/roberts/

but on jobs especially like
http://www.vdare.com/roberts/050404_drought.htm

show us that true Republicans will have to switch over in order to avoid being fiscal hypocrites !

[Pacifist Patriot]

8. I am soooo ready for a fight.

[simcha_6]

11. We sort of did that last time

We lost. How do we package it differently to make it more effective?

[EVDebs]

19. Make sure our candidate fights back against the SwiftBoatVetsfor"Truth"

Instead of answering them head-on he should have replayed his Senate Foreign Relation Cmte. testimony and showed the standing ovation he got when the testimony ended. Also, more on the Gulf of Tonkin incident lies that got us into the war.

All of that would have made the Swifties have to answer for LBJs and 'Nixon's Treason' see

NIXON'S TREASON: He Stopped an Early Peace in Vietnam
Drugs, Wife-Beating -- What About 20,000 American Dead?
www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/3621

30-year Anniversary: Tonkin Gulf Lie Launched Vietnam War
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2261

The contrast over the present Iraq situation, with lies over WMDs etc would have made a great underlining of the whole point. Too bad Kerry didn't fight back...

Also, Kerry's service compares nicely with former Repub candidate Bob Dole, a '90 Day Wonder' he called himself in the timeline of his service. Kerry's service on the Swiftboats compares well, indeed.

[simcha_6]

9. So how do we frame that to appeal to the average American?

Maybe we should make it an appeal to patriotism.
Off the top of my head here...

"I dream of an America built on a solid base of trust. Trust in the American economy. Trust in the U.S. treasury to face up to its responsibilities to its citizens. Trust in the dollar to remain (code-word for regain the status of) the strongest currency in the world."

Assuming the Republicans still control the Congress...

"Washington cannot demand our respect and trust until it has its own affairs in order. Right now, we have a defecit of $______________________________________ and debt of $________________________________________________________________. It is scandalous that these people ask us to follow their lead when they cannot keep a simple budget in the black. Only by reestablishing a strong economy and a budget surplus can America be truly great, and only by demanding fiscal responsibility from our leaders can we hope to acheive it." (Insert something about accountability here.)

Needs lots of work, but would something like that work?

[Adelante]

18. Yes, and

I think economic security and national security should be paired. Voters need to trust that Democrats can lead Americans to a safer place in both respects. Exit polls showed clearly that Democrats already are more trusted on economic issues. (Bush 18%; Kerry 80%.) Where we did poorly was on national security. (Bush 86%; Kerry 14%.) Almost exactly reversed. We should build on our strength in the economic sector by showing that Democrats are more capable than Republicans of rational defense policies.

[AP]

15. Boring. That says nothing to me. You need to run on a message that...

...says something concrete and important to people about how they are experiencing life in America.

More privacy? Balancing budgets? OK. Important stuff. But a world view? A solution to my problems? Nope.

[BurgherHoldtheLies]

17. Agree...these are concepts that need PR

I hope the Democrats enlist some of these top-notch PR/marketing firms to frame issues that DO MATTER to the average American. Invasion of Govt into personal matters is important and pork spending at the expense of our children usually strikes a cord too.

But I agree that these are not the framing terms.

[Fone Book]

6. Fighting Corporatism

We could make that a new buzzword.

And I would like to see corporatism destroyed.

That and religion.

[AP]

14. Although corporatism is the vehicle that's concentrating power in the...

...hands of a few (and fighting it is, therefore, a major part of what I think the message should be (see below), I think Dems need to be careful to point out that we believe hard work should be rewarded and that we believe in achievement and opportunity. What we don't believe in is the super wealthy creating a system where people who want to work hard and challenge the hegemony (ie, with new business ideas) cannot.

We believe in competion, in other words, while Republicans believe in guaranteed wealth for the wealthy and for the biggest businesses.

The small businessman should be the Democrats best friend.

[EVDebs]

21. I'd repaint it as FDR did. FDR SAVED CAPITALISM

Whomever we have running will be forced to tax corporations, not put them out of business. He/She will have to do it FOR THEIR OWN GOOD, just as FDR had to use Keynesian demand-side economics to prime the pump and get the economy going again using the 'marginal propensity to consume' which is greater with those with the least money !

Bush perverted 'tax cuts' by giving them to the richest 1 and 1/2 percent (those making more than $3 million annual incomes). Turn that around and you got yourself an economy that takes care of real people. Then start setting up single-payer healthcare. The insurance companies and HMOs will fight this bitterly but it MUST BE DONE.

Next the problem of affordable housing on our coasts, in CA and Atlantic seaboard cities and New England-- all Blue States mainly. Something needs to free up incomes for people living in these high housing cost states. Less spent on mortgages means more to spend on other things...

[ArtVandaley]

7. Return to moderation

I don't mean run a DLCer, I mean that should be our platform. Reframe "the center" as issues that affect real Americans.

[iconoclastic cat]

10. Civil war.

Really. It's a winner!

[demo dutch]

12. " It's the economy stupid!" With the new pope pushing his agenda

here in the US I think that's the only hope of a victory! Anything else will result in another loss!

[AP]

13. Well, what's wrong with America? A: Power is flowing to a small group of..

...very wealthy people way up high on the top of a steep-sided pyramid.

So, Democrats should run on the argument that we need to do what FDR did (which fixed the exact same problem, which, incidentally, was the cause of the Depression). What FDR did was that he used every tool at his command -- addressing the tax code, addressing corporate law, addressing labor law, and using the power of the government -- to give opportunity and voice to the people so that economic, political and cultural power flowed down to the people and broadly. That power was the seed of the golden age of the American economy which lasted until 1973 when the RW got organized and started to undo what FDR did.

We need to exhume FDR. We need to look at everything he did and understand that there was one coherent idea behind every single one of his policies and programs, and we need to make that idea the core of the Democratic message in 2008. And, ideally, we should pack tha idea into a candidate who is incredibly easy to understand and who is the embodiment of those ideas.

That's what we should have run on in 2004.

[simcha_6]

16. Will that convince people

The Republicans will scream "Communism." FDR had a depression to run on- at that point, emigration was actually higher than immigration, and many went to the USSR. Wouldn't we need similar conditions here to win on that strategy?

[AP]

22. Republicans try to pretend there are no class differences. They ignore...

...class. That doesn't mean the Democrats should too.

We don't need an out and out Depression (although I bet odds are that we will either be in win by 2008 or on the absolute verge of going off that cliff by then).

What happened in the lead-up to the depression is happening now. Every measure shows the polarization of wealth -- everything is moving to the extremes: the rich get richer, the poor poorer. Wages have stagnated, opportunity is disappearing, and the American Dream is just that -- only a dream -- for a more and more people.

The candidate who talks about these things will be talking to people about what they are actually experiencing.

That's why talking about this (talking about reality) will resonate so much more than, say, talking to people about "privacy" or "deficit spending."

[mikelewis]

20. Sail into the future in '08

The Presidential Election in 08 must be about returning to the core prinicples of our democracy. We must promote a government that is open and fair. If the press is the fourth pillar of democracy, we must treat it as such and unfetter our press.

We must have free and fair elections that ensure that all those who wish to vote and are legally allowed to vote have that right and have a guarantee that thier vote is counted.

We must return to our Constitution and set right the reactionary policies that have ignored the majority of the American people and benefitted those few Americans who have already benefitted so much from this country.

We must bring back a respect for religion and that includes separating religion from our government. That is not to say there is no place for faith, we must say, "Render unto Caeser what is Caeser's and render unto God what is God's." We must not ever, I repeat, ever subvert the word of God to the will of Men.

We must not support wars of aggression. We must immediately set in place a plan to withdraw our forces from Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela and turn soveriegnty over to the peoples of those countries.

We must make a commitment to innovations in renewable clean energy that removes the need for our country to maintain this illusion that we are the policemen of the world.

We must make a commitment to human rights and extend those rights to include all peoples of the world. We must make a commitment to put pressure on countries that choose to use methods of control that are vile and repugnant to our citizens. If a country chooses to violate human rights, they must become isolated from the world community and all of our diplomatic, economic and humanitarian forces must come to bear to end these practices.

We must make a commitment to education. This is one of the most vital needs facing our country. Education is the future of our country and we must stop simply paying lip service to our children. We must make education a priority and the American education system must become the shining example of the world for generations to come.

We must make a commitment to health care that includes catastrophic health care coverage for every American. We must also reign in the skyrocketing health care costs and prescription drug costs that is systematically killing Americans and the Economy. This commitment to health care extends to social security for our elderly and infirm. The quality of a country is shown in the care it takes for the needy. We must show our quality by caring for those who cared for us and for those who cannot care for themselves. This includes complete health care coverage for all American children.

We must address our border issues and open discourse that deals with our migrant workers in a compassionate and fair manner. By refusing to address this issue, we are allowing these people to be denegrated to the level of indentured servants; workers without benefits, laborers without justice. A porous border threatens our security and exposes a multitude of people to corruption. A plan must be set into place that adequately deals with this issue and respects both the rights of the migrant workers and the future of American workers.

We must address our labor practices for our own citizens as well. Corporations are vital to the strength of our nation but the strength of that corporation is derived not only by the shareholders but by the laborers as well. A laborer must have the same guarantees to an open and fair assesment of their future and this future should never benefit dishonest people. Retirement accounts are not assests of the corporations but are the property of the worker who has earned that retirement.


Finally, we must open up discussion on values. We must set a goal for our country and set clear guidelines on what a citizen is expected to do to better this country. Our values must include a respect for law and order but also diligently work to protect the individual freedoms we now enjoy. Our values must respect religion and respect that right of a person to practice his or her faith. We must not cheapen one religion to raise another up on a pedestal. Our values must include a desire for truth and the best way to guarantee truth is to unfetter our press. Our values must include compromise and sacrifice for the greater good and offer a method to return to the core of our constitution. We must have faith in our founding fathers and renew our commitment to key democratic ideals.

The Presidential Election must be about defining who we are and more importantly, who we want to be as a nation. This election must not be about an agenda but about a vision, a vision for all Americans from all walks of life. America must have a destination. "If a man does not know to what port he is sailing, no wind is favorable." We have been floudering, now is the time to chart our course and weigh anchor. We are sailing into a new century with a renewed vision inspired by the past and solidified by our new understanding of reality. On November 2, 2008, vote Barbara Boxer for President of the United States of America!

[simcha_6]

23. Exactly what I was looking for, thanks. n/t