At a side meeting during the 2004 Democrat National Convention, one of the speakers, former candidate Howard Dean, expressed concern that his party was not effectively appealing to large sections of the country. He said that Democrats must be "willing to take our case to Mississippi and Utah and Alabama and Texas. ... Sooner or later, voters in places like that are going to get tired of voting on guns, God and gays, and start voting on education and health care."
That is, if they are going to get them to vote Democrat, the party must convince people that things like Constitutional rights, faith, and morality are unimportant. This sounds like a tacit admission that the Democrat Party is on the opposite side of these issues from the position taken by most Americans.
Now, we could debate whether the Democrats' policies on health care and the like would really result in lower costs. But for the sake of discussion let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume they would. So what the Democrats are saying here is: They are just puzzled and frustrated that so many Americans are unwilling to give up their Constitutional rights, their faith, and their morals, in exchange for money. They are completely baffled by people whose priorities are so screwed up that they will put principle ahead of personal gain.
© 2004 by Jay Johansen
No comments yet.