Yesterday my diary proposed two questions Democratic activists should be asking themselves when they start envisioning a future Democratic Majority in 2006 (or whenever it actually happens.)
1.What have the Democrats learned, not from the Republicans in 1994, but from their own Party in 1994?
2.How do Democrats, if elected in 2006 to power in the House and Senate, then avoid a 12 year collapse and try to honestly end the corruption and make it a more honest and responsive governing body?
Today we heard from Nancy Pelosi answering some of the question that I posed yesterday, but....
In an article with the Washington Post
today, Pelosi says some of the first things she would:
Day One: Put new rules in place to "break the link between lobbyists and legislation."
Fair enough. But putting in new rules will not in the end the problem of corruption that comes with money.
My basic (though unstated) premise was this: A wose outcome for our country can get from the Democrats winning this election is that Democrats merely keep in place the problems that lead to there downfall in 1994 and has lead to the current problems we see everyday from the Republicans in congress. And the cycle continues.
Pelosi's plan is only a small fix towards poisoned political atmosphere of our country, and it will only become more and more vile as Republicans stay out of power.
The other things that Nancy Pelosi proposed, like the minimum wage hike and enacting the 9/11 Commission reccommendations are good, though only temporary, politics. Once these issues are resolved, a plan, an agenda must be in place one that stays on the offensive and allows the Democrats to give our presidential candidate in '08 a vision to campaign with (something obviously lacking in '04). This is how good (or rather functioning) political parties work.
The conservative movement was useful in 1995-97 to answer some of the problems that Americans were concerned with, like Welfare reform and the budget. The rest of their proposals were thankfully stiffled because of Clinton and because of their unpopularity. Once those problems were answered, the Republican Majority was useless and turned to its corruption to mainatain its majority and now we see its rotted fruits.
IN times like these, ones of crisis and great uncertainty, leaders rise to answer the challenges posed before us. But once these challenges have been dealt with, If there is nothing else for our leaders to govern with, then we have complacency which ultimately leads to the corruption we have seen.