Possumblog

Myth? MYTH!?

Yeth?

(Sorry--old Muppets joke) Anyway, prompted by this headline--Democrats urged to abandon election myths. An excerpt:

By WILL LESTER
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — To regain political power Democrats must abandon favorite election myths, adopt a strong position on national defense and pick candidates who connect with average voters, two political analysts from the party said Thursday.

Political scientists Elaine Kamarck and William Galston, both Democrats, warned that the most important first step is to abandon beliefs they describe as "election myths." [...] The [sic] said the current "myths" are:

_The belief Democrats can win if they just do a great job of mobilizing their base. Republicans have improved at mobilizing their own base, so Democrats need to do more than that.

_The theory demographic changes over time will make Democrats a majority, a questionable concept with the Hispanic vote increasingly up for grabs.

_The belief Democrats can succeed politically if they simply learn to talk more effectively about their positions.

_The strategy of avoiding cultural issues, playing down national security and changing the subject to domestic issues. National security is too dominant a concern now. [...]

Well, that's a good start. Might also help to not alienate potential voters by hanging out with folks from CAIR and ANSWER, and quit acting like Michael Moore actually makes documentary films, and quit straining so hard to make various terror groups out to be no worse than the people who fought during the Revolutionary War, and quit blaming America first for every ill of the world, and quit calling everyone Nazis who disagrees with what they say, and quit complaining about how wretched America is and how horrible Americans are, and quit demonstrating their superior intellect and loving inclusiveness by going into apoplectic fits whenever anyone dares mention God within their aural sphere, and quit blaming inanimate objects for the ills that befall people, and quit thinking that the answer to every solution is to throw money at it, and quit jumping on every single conspiracy theory bandwagon to explain things rather than simply looking to their own ineptitude, and quit denigrating people as mindless jingoists who think American government should work to promote the interests of the American people, and quit assuming black people who happen to be conservative are somehow traitors to their race, and quit trying to get by judicial fiat what they cannot get by legitimate legislative acts, and quit "supporting the troops" through the clever guise of actively working to strengthen the hand of our enemies, and quit denying that people might actually be out enemies, or, if we have enemies, it must be because we weren't deferential enough to their goals of a worldwide caliphate, and quit thinking that the automatic gainsaying of something their opponent says is argument.

But, hey, at least it's a start.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at October 6, 2005 10:50 AM