Toward A Dem Majority In L.A. ( lower Alabama )
Mon Dec 04, 2006 at 07:12:52 PM PDT
This diary is an edited and (hopefully) improved version of an email that was sent to Democrats in South Alabama. If any of you who read this know anyone who might profit by reading it, please send it on. We need all the help we can get. I intend for this to be the first in a series of letters and diaries that have the intention of building party loyalty and membership in my region, the one-of-a-kind Alabama coastal area, which includes Baldwin County, Mobile County, and the City of Mobile. Pronounced: Moh-beel'. Though I have not checked to be sure, Baldwin County is said to be the largest county east of the Mississippi River, and is larger than the state of Rhode Island, and includes thirteen municipalities.
Our party, due largely to DNC Chairman Howard Dean's Fifty State Strategy, has just won an historic election. Not a single national Democratic incumbent was defeated. We won the Congress, a majority of Governorships, and a majority of state legislatures. We won in spite of gerrymandering of districts. We won in spite of widespread attempts at disenfranchisement, voter intimidation, and e-voting irregularities, possibly fraud. We won in spite of a Republican attack machine hitting on all cylinders. We won in spite of the regrettable and counterproductive infighting of our own party. And though we didn't make the gains in South Alabama that we had hoped for, nationally what we saw was an overwhelming repudiation of regressive values and governance. The voters said loudly and clearly that they believe that Democrats will do better.
One does not retreat after victory. The time for division and disunity is long past. Some in our local party are now advocating that we move to the political right to be more "competitive" in the South. This is a losing strategy. Carville and the "centrist" DLC types had their asses handed to them after they called for the ouster of Chairman Dean. The state party chairs, and especially, the Netroots, rallied to Dean's support and have now begun to marginalize the tired and backward Republican appeasers in our party.
The country is moving to the left politically, and will continue to do so for some time to come. The long and disastrous reign of the right-wing is coming to an end. Thankfully, the pendulum has stopped moving right and is now beginning its long overdue swing to the left. To not recognize this fact is to be left behind.
We will not win any elections, even in the South, by being "Republican Lite". Our strategy--an adherence to Democratic principles and values--does not need to change. Our tactics--the way we will win elections--does. To use dubya's favorite new verb, we need to foment an awakening in the South to Democratic values: fairness; accountability; grass-roots activism; bottom-up power flow; environmental protection; and economic discipline. These are winning issues. These are Democratic ideals.
This is not the time for splitting and infighting. This is the time for party unity. Of course it's difficult to be unified in a party as diverse as ours, but this does not excuse us from trying with all our might. We have an opportunity, perhaps our first in 30 or 40 years, to turn Baldwin County and South Alabama to the Democratic Party. I believe we can do this by November, 2008.
There are some in the MSM, especially the right-wingnuts, who claim that the 2006 election was a conservative victory, because some "conservative" Democrats were elected. This is nothing but Republican spin. In other words, it's bullshit. Claire McCaskill? John Tester? Jim Webb? All these Democrats are pro-choice. All of them are pro-union. All of them are pro-environment. All are pro- stem cell research. All are anti- tax breaks for the rich. All are in favor of bringing our troops home from the illegal and disastrous war in Iraq, and all are vehemently anti-Bush. Conservative? Hardly. If by "conservative" it is meant that they advocate common-sense policy that helps average Americans and oppose corporate control of policy, tax giveaways to the richest 1%, and unbridled, rampant Republican corruption, then yes, they are conservative. But that is not what the wingnuts meant. As always, the regressives try to find some small, semantic gray area to exploit to their political advantage. They deal in words, not reality. They seek to always frame the issue, regardless of how nonsensical or hypocritical their frame. Well, America has had enough of this demonstrable bullshit. Democrats won by being Democrats, not regressives. We won because people are fed up with manufactured "Culture Wars" and economic disparity. We won because of the deeply flawed philosophy and policies of the neo-cons, and because Americans liked Democrats' ideas better.
I am calling for party unity and a renewed effort for party member recruitment, earned media, fundraising, advertisement, and organizational improvement. We can do this. The tide is on the turn. We cannot, we must not, miss our tide.
There are a dwindling few in our party who still believe that the South (an amorphous concept if ever there was one) is destined to be Republican territory ad infinitum. They believe that regressive values resonate more strongly here than elsewhere. This flawed theory was also conventional wisdom in the Mid-West. And in the Mountain West. And in rural Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic states, like Virginia and North Carolina. These regions have now turned to the Democratic Party. Our values, Democratic values--Progressive values--are the values of the PEOPLE--North, South, East, and West. The South, having been subjected to more than 30 years of intensive right-wing lies and propaganda, is taking its time, as it is wont to do, in changing its political affiliation. Our job as Southern Democrats is to enlighten, encourage,and foment (there's dubya's word again) a re-alignment to the real values of Southerners--Democratic values.
Besides the Republican dogma that government is the problem with America, (which they have worked hard to prove) rather than a means of solving problems, the biggest difference between regressives and Progressives, i.e., Republicans and Democrats, is that Republicans have an "everyone for himself" worldview, while Democrats have a "we are all in this together" worldview. Our view is better. It is based on reality, not dogma. It is progressive, not regressive. As a candidate for County Commission this year, though I lost to an incumbent who had 10 times as much money as me and an established party apparatus, I won over 12,000 votes. Given that less than 50% of the electorate voted, this translates into at least 25,000 voters who would gladly cast their ballot for a Democrat. That is one hell of a base for a county with the population of Baldwin.
Therefore, we must continue the fight. We must get on offense and stay there. To borrow Chairman Dean's phrase, we represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. The Fifty State Strategy is a work in Progress. In this spirit, let us build the grassroots; motivate and inspire the undecided; build the Party member be member; earn media; raise funds from small donors. Why? We. Are. All. In. This. Together.
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