This morning as I drove into work I turned on my local Air America station here in L.A. and was pleased to hear the familiar grandfatherly tones of Harry Reid speaking on
The Stephanie Miller Show.
He spoke about the Democrats' 2006 New Direction agenda in anticipation of tomorrow's Democratic Party Reunion events.
Follow me over the flip...
And he was fine, his usual amiable but tough self reiterating the six-point plan for taking back the House: the "6 for '06." We know them well by now and it's great stuff. But I found, to my surprise, that, despite my sort of jaded perspective (it was no YearlyKos speech, okayy?), I found myself actually really moved by his words.
He began conventionally enough.
We want to deal with issues that people care about every day. The marriage amendment? People don't care about that every day. People don't sit around and fret about the estate tax, which affects less than 2/10 of 1% of all people in our country. People don't sit around every day and worry about flag burning. Now what we want people to recognize is that we're going to do something about gas prices. We believe there can be energy independence in this country within the next 15 years.
OK, Republicans are out of touch with ordinary Americans and Democrats are the party of the "every day" guy with "every day" problems. Again, good stuff, focus grouped, market tested goodness with the added benefit of being true. So I sat back and waited for the inevitable...laundry list.
I should say that by way of introduction to what was essentially the part of the interview where Reid got to practice his stump speech, Steph presented the New Direction agenda as belying the right wing talking point that "Democrats have no ideas." With that as the subtext, I expected Reid to rattle off the laundry list of agenda items proving that in fact we do have ideas. For while I know Democrats have ideas, I also know they're notorious for listing them instead of putting them into a narrative frame. He was setting up the frame nicely, but you know the list was coming...wait for it...wait for it...and, yep, just as I suspected, he didn't let me down.
But this is where things got weird. It was no ordinary list...
We believe that we can do something about the situation in Iraq.
We believe that we can do something about the cost of college, so that a person's ability to go to college should not be dependent on how much money their parents have.
We believe for example the federal fleet of automobiles and trucks, it's the biggest in the country, we should set the example of alternative energy. We can do that with biofuels...
We believe that we should set some guidelines and start ratcheting down how much oil we use...
We believe in CAFE Standards.
We believe that automobiles should be more energy efficient.
We believe that the sun, the wind, geothermal, it can produce energy now, right today, all we need to do is provide tax incentives to the private sector and they will do it...
We really do believe we can deal with the middle class, which is being squeezed, the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer.
Nice, Harry. The ultimate frame they're employing for the agenda isn't merely that Democrats are the party of the working man, but something much more meta -- that Democrats have more than ideas, we do more than just think...we believe.
Now, this may seem simple and it may seem silly for it to have been so notable to me, but seems to me it affected me because when the right says "Democrats have no ideas," that's code. It's code for "Democrats have no core belief system;" it's code for "flip-flopper;" it's code for "Democrats don't believe in anything, they just hate Bush;" etc. etc. It's the same shit I've been hearing for 6 years from my right wing family members and friends who have refused to acknowledge that my passion against Bush and for Democrats actually is based on deeply held beliefs; because if they acknowledged that, they might then have to acknowledge that there's some substance to what I say, which would imply having to actually deal with reality, which, of course, would go against...their own beliefs.
And so here was Harry Reid belying not only the "Democrats have no ideas" meme, but also and more importantly, the talking point that underlies it. As I've experienced first hand time and time again, demonstrating that Democrats have ideas does nothing to undo the "no ideas" frame because the root of that frame is the much more sinister and sneaky "no core beliefs" frame and the Democrats are absolutely right that shattering that is the key to winning in November.
I'll let Stephanie take us out:
Senator Reid, I know that if we listen to Ann Coulter, we are all godless here on the left but I would like you to say a simple prayer with me in closing, could you do that? It's a very simple prayer and that is "Senate Majority leader Harry Reid." Say it with me, "Senate Majority leader, Harry Reid."...I want my country back and I want you leading it!
now blogging at The Courage Campaign