The Shrinking Democrats

Opinion Journal ^ | 08/01/03 | editorial board

[Pokey78]

Karl Rove often gets credit for being smart, but it doesn't hurt that President Bush's chief political strategist is lucky. His latest good fortune is the battle between Howard Dean and John Kerry over how much to raise taxes. The scrap is a microcosm of the current Democratic problem.

[Waco]

Anymone considering voting demo should THINK,,,it's your kids they wish to "donate"!!!! If you have to ask, "donate to what",,, you should just skip voting!!!!

[onyx]

This is quite a stunning analysis, isn't it?

[.cnI redruM]

If I rooted for the GOP like an NFL team, I'd be estatic over the recent moves of the 'Democratic' presidential candidates. However, I'd like to see the country win first. Having the GOP opposed by Maoist wannabes does nothing for our country. The Dems have a moral obligation to field better opposition. The GOP should still have to earn it's victories and court the voters.

[PhiKapMom]

It sure is stunning and with the RATs moving even farther left should be good for the good guys!

[MJY1288]

On Sept. 20th, 2001 President Bush had this to say...

"We are not deceived by their pretenses to piety. We have seen their kind before. They are the heirs of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions -- by abandoning every value except the will to power -- they follow in the path of fascism, and Nazism, and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way, to where it ends: in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies."

Was he talking about the Taliban or the Democrats?..... Hard to tell :-)

[Republic]

...Alas, these days Mr. Penn is a prophet without followers. Democratic candidates are all chasing Mr. Dean's poll numbers in the opposite direction, competing to see who can attack Mr. Bush most aggressively on the war and for his tax cuts....

Therein is the clue to this icky party. It is a poll chasing, doing whatis popular vs what is RIGHT kind of party, especially since the clinton's helped it down even further with their attention to polls (let's poll if I should tell the nation the truth or where I should go on vacation, etc).

These are people devoid of ideas, horridly girlish, extremely angry, willing to say anything ( unconvicted ) to win.

[Fledermaus]

Well said.

[PhiKapMom]

It sure is hard to tell! This group of RATs is going farther left by the day!

[Brett66]

but sooner or later the Democrats will get their turn again

They may have to skip a generation and there's no guarantee the dems can keep from imploding before that happens. If their losses mount, they might have to disband their party and start over from scratch with a true centrist platform and tell the weirdo fringers to get lost.

We might actually get to see a true dialog take place on the direction this country should take.

[byteback]

Rove is an idiot but he's lucky. He decided to campaingn in CA instead of FLA the last days of the election. Wirthout Rove we don't even have the fiasco in FLA but just maybe he gets dealt a free pass if Dean wins the nomination. There is no way to screw up THAT election.

[gsrinok]

Mr. Kerry, who has lost his New Hampshire lead to Mr. Dean, says this is going too far. "Real Democrats don't walk away from the middle class..."

Since when? In my lifetime (I'm 32), I've never noticed that the dims care about anyone but the special interests and welfare recipients. The "soak the rich" schemes that they float have become more like "soak everyone who makes above poverty level." Every year, their plans to remake the U.S. into a socialist state become more obvious.

[Kudsman]

Remember the Socialist party met in Ann-Arbor in March and they were furious that Democraps weren't advancing "their" agenda aggressively enough. Guess they are now.

Remember these:

4th Goal Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

7th Goal Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

11th Goal Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow.

15th Goal Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16th Goal Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17th Goal Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

20th Goal Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions.

21st Goal Gain control of key positions in radio, TV and motion pictures.

24th Goal Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling [page 261] them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

25th Goal Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio and TV.

26th Goal Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."

27th Goal Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28th Goal Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29th Goal Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a world-wide basis.

32th Goal Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture -- education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

40th Goal Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41st Goal Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

44th Goal Internationalize the Panama Canal.

[Fledermaus]

The only mistake Mr. Penn makes is not factoring in the amazing ability of Republicans to shoot the pooch if not themselves.

Another thing I notice when I see the Dem candidates on TV and read about them in the paper is that the hardcore Democrat voter is aging. They don't have a lock on the younger voter and as more and more workers in their late 20's through 30's get more invested the demographics will work against the social programs the Dems give CPR to and can't reform for decades. When these workers start realizing 12.4% of their salary is going to Social Security while only 5-8% is going to the 401(k) they are going to scratch their heads and ask "why?". The yearly Soc Sec statement they get will always be much bleaker than their 401(k) statements.

The Democrats have an aging voter base that is active enough to care. And even among seniors the GOP ties them in support. They can't get white males (married and single) and married women with children to support them. The Catholics are restless, the Jewish population sees them taking the side of Palestine while Tom Delay goes to Israel, and more and more blacks and Hispanics are listening to the ideas of security, free markets and a more efficient and smaller government.

When Mr. Penn admitted that the only economic demographic the Democrats own was those voters making less than $20,000 a year he admitted they are doomed if they don't quit knee-jerk GOP hating for the sake of opposition and start doing something constructive.

In an article I read about the DLC meeting and statement, some Dem stated that at least when the GOP was in the minority in Congress they had ideas and tried to move them through the system. Democrats just say "no" to anything the GOP wants to do or even discuss.

This reminded me of a little trick I used to play on my liberal (no longer) friends. I'd purposely talk up a Clinton proposal or idea and attribute it to Newt or the GOP and sit and watch them attack the idea. Or I'd take a GOP idea and say it was Clinton's and watch them praise it.

They, being liberals, bit every time.

[MJY1288]

Good post!,

I couldn't agree more, it's not good for this country to have the democratic party drifting so far from what the Founding Fathers had in mind for this Republic. My hope is that the popularity of conservative talk radio and Fox news will result in this country moving back to the right.

Unfortunately, that past 40 years of the leftist controlled media brainwashing our citisens has made it tough for a conservative to win elections and therefore in order win a Presidential election you must cater to the middle and expect to compromise on many issues in order to win a second term.

These realities will not be reversed over night and anyone who expects this President to ignore the the Moderates of the Left and the Right and cater only to the hard core base of the right is ignoring reality and will certainly result in this President becoming a one termer and a RAT back in the White House. We must keep our eye on the big picture and take this country back the same way the liberals took it from us....... ONE STEP AT A TIME

[delapaz]

We'd much prefer a center-left party in the mold of Britain's Tony Blair, one that is tough against terror and recognizes that private markets create wealth. It isn't healthy in our democracy to have a major political party run off the rails.

I agree that two parties are much better than one. But the overall ideal situation here would be to have the Democrat party completely and utterly destroyed. Then the Republican party would be free to split into a Moderate Party so all the RINO's can be happy and a conservative party for the rest of us.

The home of liberalism and socialism will have been destroyed and the entire spectrum of political debate will have been shoved to the right.

I used to think this was a pipe dream but darned if it doesnt look like the Demo's are playing along.

[nightdriver]

"It isn't healthy in our democracy to have a major political party run off the rails."

Don't forget, at least 43% of the voting public will vote for the democRAT no matter what he says or does.

[PGalt]

Good quote from President Bush. The lie is the first victory in the criminals battle for your life. The Democratic Crime Syndicate should be extinct in The United States(Individuals) of America. Criminals are anti-freedom. Liars are criminals. You are either with us (freedom) or you are against us (freedom).

[The South Texan]

I just hope this Penn guy did not put this poll out there to snooker our side. Remember folk, he was Clinton's pollster.

[Cultural Jihad]

This is all great news for Republicans, though we'd argue not for the country. ... It isn't healthy in our democracy to have a major political party run off the rails.

Hopefully President Bush will be able to save the Democratic Party for them for the good of the country, before the end of his second term. ;-)