A cogent analysis

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Friday October 05, 2012 · 8:17 AM PDT

2012/10/05 · 08:17

I would recommend this debate analysis to everyone who reads and follows this blog. I hope I don't get in trouble for cross posting this link. I would also be very interested in an equally cogent, detailed rebuttal.

http://gawker.com/...

Preparing our Answer

agrehan

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Wednesday August 15, 2012 · 3:17 PM PDT

2012/08/15 · 15:17

Lately quite a few papers, mainly the WSJ and the like, have started running stories about Social Security. The ones I've seen fall into two categories, 1) that current recipients will receive less in benefits than they paid in, 2) that the trust fund is rapidly moving toward depletion unless something is done. These are clearly crafted by the conservative media to begin to rattle the public and to soften the electorate up for cuts in future benefits.

It seems that this would be a great time for the Democratic Party, if there still is a party, I can't seem to see any evidence of it anywhere outside of the Presidential election, to begin running ads that remind citizens, and hopefully voters that just 12 years ago our country had a substantial budgetary surplus. A surplus that could have been used to address many of our social, environmental, and economic problems including the solvency of Social Security and Medicare. Democrats need to remind voters that this surplus was, to some degree, a demonstration of the economic leadership of the Democratic party which had identified right mix of taxes and expenditures and that Republicans destroyed that surplus through tax cuts for the rich and unnecessary wars around the world.

Why can't the Democratic party begin reminding citizens what the Republican administrations of Georgie Bush did to our economic security. Instead of fighting holding actions trying to avoid discussions of the national debt problem.

Back to the Future

agrehan

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Tuesday June 19, 2012 · 12:40 PM PDT

2012/06/19 · 12:40

As I follow the current political polling and think about the November election, I'm struggling to try to remember the details of the run up to the 1980 election. My memory, which is growing increasingly foggy about that period, is that we progressive Democrats convinced ourselves that on election day President Carter would win, albeit by a slim few percentage points. Surely, the American electorate wouldn't put the fate of the country into the reactionary hands of Ronald Reagan.

As election night came to a close, progressive Democrats had a bitter pill to swallow. Millions of Americans walked into the polls that day and pulled the Republican lever, maybe with some trepidation, because they were simply tired of the current state of the nation. The 1980 election was in fact a bellwether event, still more so that the Obama election in 2008. The ascendancy of the Republican party and it's efforts to end the New Deal, which may come to fruition in the next 4 years, started that day.

I submit that November 2012 will be another November 1980. While the polls suggest a close race, with Obama slightly ahead, rank and file voters will walk into the polls and, sometimes against their better judgement, they are going to vote for Romney. Simply because they want a change. No matter that it will be the beginning of the end of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.

The question is, can Democrats do anything about this? Or is this the natural outcome of a party devoid of courageous leadership and that lacks a consensus on what direction the country should take into the future?

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