Just returned from a book-signing for `Crashing the Gate', I find myself thinking about the inevitable question asked of Kos and Jerome. You know the question. That question that, it seems, must always be asked at any meeting of four or more Democrats: "What's the message?"
Kos handled it well (he's probably heard it a lot) - simply saying that we, as Democrats, don't run a monolithic message machine, nor should we. And he's right.
Although I believe that the 2006 elections should be, in fact must be, about character (with particular emphasis on lies, intrusions and corruption), the message question seems to nag at all of us, lowly Kossack to Beltway prince-consultant, as we gear up for what will no doubt be the dirtiest Conservative campaign thus far.
Unlike many others, I don't think it feasible for the Democratic party, just by dint of who we are, to come up with a tested mini-mantra along the lines of the Republican Credo (false as it may be these days). In fact, I believe that `effective government, equal rights, fair taxes' is probably as well as we will do.
Instead, it seems to me, the message question seems like an attempt to get to what people always want, no matter how well or poorly the country is running: What will we change? What grand plans do we have in store?
What's the big idea?
The fundamental failure to answer this question is exemplified in the Democrat's National Security Strategy. Knowing themselves to be easily tarred with the `weak on security' brush, our elected party leaders locked themselves in a room, put their heads together, thought carefully...and emerged with what is possibly the most bloodless, limp, don't-rock-the-boat, carefully-worded policy paper ever written.
This is obviously anecdotal, but I have spoken with many `Undecideds' in the last two years, and almost to a man, one of the things that made them vote for Clinton the first time around was, ironically, the Health Care System that the Conservatives so vehemently despised and so efficiently dismantled.
A quick look back at Democratic party history shows that, from Roosevelt to Johnson (however inept their plans may have turned out in action), people were not excited into the voting-booth by the small changes these leaders proposed, but by the promise of a sweeping new vision. It seems, despite the way three successive White House Press Secretaries have spoken to us, that the American people are not stupid. They may harbor a standing resentment against whatever status is quo, but they still want a substantive change to support.
They vote, in other words, for the Big Idea.
It cannot be the standard meme of `undoing what Bush hath wrought'. I think most of us agree on what we should undo.
We should: Repeal the ridiculous second and third (and fourth and fifth and...) tax cuts. Yes, of course - we're hemorrhaging, drowning in a sea of red ink.
We should: Let lapse the vilest and most unneccesary sections of the Homeland Security Act? Please do.
We should: Finally take up the Republican's favorite pass-the-buck hot potato, and accept the challenge of dealing like adults with the Alternative Minimum Tax? By all means.
But that is what we will undo. What we will do? What's the big idea?
I have read Ms. Pelosi's First Week manifesto, and I freely admit it is not only a good start, but almost uniformly things needing to be done...but where is the change people are seeking in an ever-faster and more bewildering world? There are many good little ideas in the First Week document...but no big one. Are we to be the party of cleaners, coming along behind the Republicans to place bandages, mop the floor, and generally tidy up America after they've treated it like a Frat-house?
Contrary to what a lot of folks say, I think that the Democratic revitalizing sound-bites are coming along nicely (aided insuperably by the brave men and women returning from Iraq and running as Democrats). What's more, typical Conservative gibberish-slogans like `Starve the beast' and the `Ownership society' are just starting to get the ridicule they so richly deserve. But what's next?
Let us face it. The Republicans have no victories to run to the middle on in 2006. The past five years have been a non-stop cavalcade of lies, incompetence, emergent dominionism, laziness and cronyism. They are going to go negative: it's all they have left. We are going to be called elitist, traitorous, one-worlders anyway; no matter how moderate or how small the ideas.
We stand in the minority, and should we eke out a majority on small ideas and careful parsing of words, what next? There is a lot of good thinking about November...but what happens in December? If we get a majority on the strength of Republican backlash, what, in truth, do we offer the people except a series of undoings that, while important and vital, really give the average uniformed voter nothing to root for?
Don't we want people besides Republicans to say `Just wait until the Democrats get control and do X'? Isn't that excitement, that passion, the essence of building a lasting majority, a majority that will allow us to, with confidence and courage, move center-stage a progressive agenda that will allow America to stay strong, safe and free at the same time?
Why not give the people a choice, a clear (and viable) alternative, even if it has problems of its own? It would seem a continuation of the party-and-a-half politicking of the day, not to mention a great ill-service to the American people, to not propose a strong alternative on each and every policy. Isn't that our primary job? To give the people of these United States a choice?
In my next post, I will have a few rough thoughts on strongly divergent positions we could be (not necessarily should be) taking on Health Care, Terrorism, Corporate Malfeasance, Immigration and Money in Politics. I do not pretend that any of my ideas are best-practice, or even workable...what I really want is (like a real Democrat) the discussion.
So this post is merely asking the question I started with: What's the Big Idea?