Democrats have been handed an opportunity to explain in searingly relevant terms why the public must act to get Dems elected ASAP. Americans everywhere are groping for answers about this crisis and what to do about it. The time is ripe for the public to hear this message from as many Democrats as possible:
- Having a swaggering cowboy as president doesn't protect America. What does protect us is having a president who has appointed competent, experienced professionals, and the long (boring) hours those hundreds of professionals put in to prepare for disaster.
- Whatever anybody thinks of individual policy positions, Democrats have a proven record of appointing consciencious experienced professionals in these positions. Had a Dem been in office, a more competent FEMA could easily have saved thousands of lives. And (we need to emphasize this) Dems are passionate about rebuilding critical government agencies like FEMA by hiring competent professionals and giving them the resources to do their jobs.
In the coming days, prominent Dems should publicly tell the president specifically (and repeatedly) what he has done that ruined FEMA and what must be done to rebuild it. And whether or not the president does anything, the Democrats must develop and present to the public specific plans and steps Bush should take now, or steps we will take as soon as we take power, to fix the agency and do the actual work of preparing for these disasters.
We need to sieze this opportunity, while Bush's failures are still palpable. We need to stand up and present the reasonable alternative to the current disastrous policies. This isn't even about politics or spin but statesmanship and good government (which politics ought to be about, but hey).
We can prove that we are not flailing as a party, that we have never been. We are the party of common sense government, and sometimes it's hard to make that glitzy or exciting. But this is an opportunity to present to Americans a positive, agressive, in-charge Democratic party worthy of their trust, in stark contrast with the obvious cronyism and corruption of the Republicans which has now proven so deadly. And, I might add, in stark contrast also with the wishy-washy, spineless, dithering party of intellectual belly-gazing and passive inaction, which the Republicans have been so successful painting us as in recent years.