New York Atty Gen. Eliot Spitzer has one of several surprisingly great pol-written op-eds in The New Republic. Brad Carson's piece was posted on Kos a while back. This piece may be better.
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041122&s=spitzer112204
Some excerpts ...
Consider the "Ownership Society," a term Republicans use to describe their vision of the American dream--an environment where any American, no matter his or her station, can compete and achieve financial success, security, and a lasting stake in their community, all by dint of hard work. So integral to Republican political imagery are these phrases that it is hard for some voters to imagine that a Democrat can even say them, much less believe in them.
But, even as Republicans invoke pleasant-sounding slogans at every turn, they pursue policies that undermine the values they claim to represent. Take the following three recent scandals: conflicts of interest among Wall Street analysts, who duped small investors with tainted research; predatory lending, which imposed illegal and unconscionable mortgages on homeowners; and illegal practices of mutual-fund traders, who skimmed billions from people saving for their kids' college tuitions and their own retirements. In each of these situations, the Bush administration and congressional Republicans not only impeded the investigations but actually proposed legislation that would preempt the ability of state regulators to combat the problems.
This is the stuff that Spitzer is really nailing and bringing into the sunlight, in a way congressional Dems so far haven't. Since the GOP is intent on rolling back regulations to Herbert Hoover levels, Democrats have an enormous political opportunity. Spitzer sees it. His prescriptions ...
With our values and policies, Democrats have been on the right track for a long time. We champion the ideals held most dear by working families, but we simply didn't articulate campaign issues in the context of those ideals. Instead, we let the Republicans employ wedge issues like gay marriage that diverted attention from their failed domestic policies.
We can't repeat these mistakes in 2008. Starting today, our party must focus on all the difficulties that working people face--from financial scams to job security to health insurance, from day care for our kids to nursing homes for our parents, from the price of gas to the increasing cost of college tuition, from the safety and security of our neighborhoods to the health of the environment. We must address these issues not as antiseptic policy points but as elements of a living mosaic that, together, form a society that rewards hard work and integrity. Our policies and plans will gain traction with the public when we frame them as a reflection of the core values we believe in.
Many people have said this, but not many people are front-runners to become the governor of New York. Are you ready to see this message tested out in the 2006 elections? I sure as hell am.
UPDATE: Some more thoughts on Spitzer's ideas. Focusing on "financial scams" could be a really powerful, base-broadening issue for Democrats. The public already cares about this. Watch local news and see all the quasi-investigative reports on scams. Republicans ran for many years - 1964 to today - against "big government" as the monster picking your pocket and keeping you down. Now that they ARE the government, and openly making fun of that pathetic Democratic opposition party, Democrats should run against crooked companies, scammers, and GOP bagmen.