Rayne asserts that Democrats do have a vision but that the problem lies in articulating it. I think its more serious a problem than mere articulation of a vision. Most ordinary people do not have any idea of a Democrat vision. They do know of Lieberman though and do not see how Democrats like that are any different from the GOP. They also know of Biden’s solution of balkanising Iraq into unviable fiefdoms. They can’t figure out, and I include myself in that crowd, how that differs from the the vision outlined in the neocon policy agenda promulgated in the PNAC 2000 document which referred to civil strife and political instability in the oil rich middleeast as an optimum outcome to further US domination of the 21st century.

One way to convince voters of a Democratic agenda is to table positive policy proposals even if they get shot down in the present Congress. Gore, Feingold and Conyers stand out as exceptions who have done that but there was no sign of broad Democrat support for them from either party colleagues or the DSCC or the DCCC to convince many that this is what the Democrats as a party are about. Most can’t wade through the articualted ambuiguities of Clinton, Obama et al to find a vision.

So what is that vision? What should constitute that vision? How does one and who should articulate the vision? How does the vision appeal to a plurality of voters across the socio-economic spectrum?

In my previoius post I focused on why Democrats are failing to appeal to the least advantaged of the working population. They did not in 2000 and 2004 and do not today think the Democrats represent their realistic dreams or that their expectations are any more realisable under Democrats.

The party has a fractured image as an entity. Is the party going to fight another election as a loose conglomeration of individual egos or as a party that stands for issues and is capable of formulating policies that distinguish them from the sleaze that more or less sums up Federal politics for many people?

There is a groundswell of public discontent but how do you mobilise that if the Democrats cannot articulate a Democrat vision that most can relate to? Ambiguities of mixed messages confuse, they do not convince.

Netroots need to play a role because the mainstream media is the prosthetic arm of corporate wealth firmly wedded to preserving its political power base and privileges. It has no scruples as to how that is done. Ordinary people, however, do want hope to survive in an indecently cutthroat environment.

Someday, someone needs to explain to me how people looking for a fair wage for a fair day’s work or for the right to control their own private lives or for the right to be treated as everyone else became “special interests”. Silly me, I thought those were unniversal aspirations.

And while that’s a pretty little slogan you have there, it doesn’t address a single thing I said. Tactics and strategy are just tools — tools that work for the DLC and the Schuemers of the world just as well as for anyone else. So please explain to me, with the Democratic party in the hands of people like the DLC and Schuemer and Clinton, how ignoring ideas and ideology is going to get us a more progressive country. Explain to me how telling the same people that the Democrats betrayed in the ways I mentioned that if they just sit down and shut up and not try to replicate the success of the NRA that everythign will be all better.

Markos and Jerome are dead on about the failings of the consultant class and the timid strategy of the Dems. But they are setting progressives up for failure of they insist that the ideas come after the victory. Especially if they insist that the factories that generate progressive ideas are to be destroyed or treated asi they, and not the DLCs of the world, are the enemy.

Or rather, I should say, unlike the opposition, People are our only special interest.

I generally liked the book, but I think they make two huge mistakes in their arguments. From the review I did when it came out

Except that, recently, the Democratic Party has not delivered for the special interest groups. Labor got a NAFTA with no labor protections. Environmentalists got a half hearted effort behind global warming efforts and a retreat from the principles of sustainable development and renewable energy. Women’s groups got a welfare reform package that forces more and more hours of work on single mothers but does little to help pay for decent daycare for their children. Abortion rights groups got a pro-life Senate Minority Leader a rhetorical strategy – “safe, legal, and rare†– that tried to fight the battle on anti-choicers’ terms. This list is not meant to suggest that the Democrats have been bad for their constituent groups, only that they have not been as good as the GOP has been to theirs. The quid pro quo for the individual groups that make up the Democratic coalition has been absent. Lately, it would be hard to blame the members of those groups for feeling as if the Democratic party has nothing to offer them but an admonishment to sit down and shut up. Why would any of those groups trust that the dancer would generally do the right thing for them without an enormous amount of pressure?

The normal answer should be ideology. One of the reasons that the GOP has an easier time maintaining internal cohesion is because it has a public ideology that generally maps well across different interest groups. The Christian Coalition can be sure that the GOP will do right by it, even if the corporate faction is getting its issues worked upon. The Democrats used to have a similar set up, but it has broken down over the last couple of generations, in part because of the civil rights revolution, but also in part because of the triangulation strategies of the DLC. There is no assurance to an environmentalist or women’s right advocate or a labor organizer that the Democrats, once in power, will eventually try to advance their portion of the agenda. Without that overriding ideology there can be no trust and the only thing that the special interest groups can be sure of is that they need to look out for their interests themselves. In that situation, it only makes sense for the special interest groups to try and create the ideological environment outside of the party structure. The NRA did something very similar, completely changing the ideological landscape in large portions of the country and, in the process, making the GOP its handmaiden in the process. While groups like NARAL may have made tactical mistakes in their attempt to become like the NRA, they theory itself appears sound. In the absence of ideological assurances, the democratic special interest groups have little reason to be team players.

Trashing the “special interest” groups is a good way to denigrate ideas. Because those “special” interests represent ideas — good labor laws, pro-choice — that real people are attracted to. By ignoring ideas, Kos and Jeromme are setting up a situation that leand sitself to the Schumers and Emmanuels and the DLCs of the world. A brand is not enough, especially one that people cannot trust. If Kos wans to reform the relationship between speical interests and the Dmeocratic party, then he needs to change the democratic party. And that does not mean winning — Kos’ ideas on tactics and strategy are as amenable to the Joe Libermans of the world as they are to the Russ Feingolds — it has to start with ideas.

Oh, believe me, I got out of the way.