Here's a challenge for the Daily Kos readership: Now that the Dems have power, they also have
responsibility. And that means responsibility for not making
mistakes that could come back to bite us in 2008. The Repubs will try to find anything they can to run against us on, and it behooves us to see if we can't apply some foresight and think about how to minimze the risk.
I say this with some trepidation that we may become too afraid to act: inaction is a mistake in itself. So I'm not trying to provoke paranoia about the Big Bad Rethug Attack Machine. Just to make sure everyone has an idea what might be coming down the pike, and to act and advocate with consequences foreseen.
I have a few ideas of categories of mistakes we could make to get us started...
1.
Raising taxes on the wrong people.
The Republican franchise is now built on being the low-cost provider...the miserable greasy spoon of governance. They don't have anything else to run on, it seems. As long as the roads remain paved, the swing voter might see little to lose in the bargain, at least in the short term. Of course six years of this has bankrupted the country, and we need money. If they can trot out a few families that "look like America" and howl over before-and-after tax returns that look bad, it will play for them.
2. Taking the wrong initiative on Iraq.
Yes, everyone wants us out of Iraq. And we certainly can't conscience letting our young people die over there just to ensure we succeed electorally in 2008: we have to make sure we move in the right direction, and immediately. As many have pointed out, there are no really good options in Iraq that are visible. But it's incumbent on the Dems to ensure that they not only give the best advice and take the best actions, but that they do so in a way that is achievable by the hapless executive branch and can't be twisted against us.
To do this, we should convene the very best military and political advisers in the country together to develop a coherent strategy, and make sure the public understands it first, so they can hold the executive accountable.
3. Personal scandals.
I doubt the Dems have the sort of severely conflicted, hypocritical types like Foley and Haggard that come about when you hate yourself enough to try to prevent similar behavior in others. If we do, we have to clean house, and now, when memories have time to fade. Let's run a tight ship, and at the same time, let's defend our people for being who they are when there is no shame: that's core to our values, and American values at their best.
4. Giving up our values.
Following on that point, if this party is to have a recognizable brand, it must stand for it. Social justice, human rights, giving the poor a hand up, respecting labor, investing in the future as represented by all of this nation's children, and bringing our health care system up to guaranteeing developed world minimums. I don't want to make a political stump speech here, but if all we make of these are political stump speeches, then we have made a mistake.
5. Running only "safe" candidates.
And then there are the carriers of this brand and message: can the representatives represent the best of us? Can the executives execute? Competence is what independents want most from their gov't: they work in companies where they can see what competence and incompetence does up close.
The repubs have proven themselves utterly incompetent, shattering the biggest myth since the flat earth. "Safe" behavior at the helm of a corporation leads to certain doom. You have to bet the farm every day, or you lose it anyway. Bring the cajones or don't run.
6. Not recruiting future stars.
The e$tablishment repubs go out and actively get their attractive friends in the country club and boardroom to run, and the dominionists have entire universities set up to churn out nothing but drones to fill every public office in the land in coming decades. We let a school board seat go uncontested and one of these larvas starts to munch away at our freedom.
Politics might be a frustrating thing to devote oneself to, when there is 24 hour cable and beer readily available. But the old cliche is many people become cops after witnessing their loved ones hurt when they were children. What does one do after seeing this country hurt like it has been under years of republican autocracy?