Over the past month, a heated debate has sprung up on JU. Basically conservatives have been kindly giving advice to liberals on the direction of the democrat party. Why would they do such a thing?
I can think of 2 reasons. One is that they felt sorry for a party that was imploding on its own pettiness and wanted to see if come back as the party of JFK and LBJ. That is the altruistic reason.
The other is that conservatives and especially Republicans knew the advice would not be taken and indeed the democrats would do just the opposite. That is the cynical reason.
Regardless of the reason for the advice, explanation number 2 has proven to be the one that was followed by the democrats. Having lost everything in the last 10 years (except one presidency, but that one was by less than 50%), they refuse to acknowledge that perhaps they need to re-evalutate their message and come up with a new one that plays to more than just the kook fringe that has no where else to go anyway.
But instead, they are now set to select Howard Dean as the new chair of the DNC. I know many will celebrate this and indeed I see some of the looniest even taunting the Republicans with a "take that you stuffed shirts" attitude. But in the end, picking a person from the fringe left of the already leftward leaning party will do nothing to help the party. Indeed, with the exception of the ultra liberal North East, They have just handed every republican, from Moderate to conservative, a perfect poster boy for the next elections. The Dean Scream will be heard many times in the next 4 years, but not from Democrats.
Knowing that they just lost the the presidency to an unpopular president, knowing they also lost seats in the house and senate, knowing they have been losing seats in State assemblies and governorships by running on the far left, do they finally realize maybe they have to moderate their message?
Nope. They just figure they have to run farther left. I wonder if Lieberman is open to joining the Libertarians. We need a viable second party.