The Wall Street Journal Opinion covers a new paper released by the Progressive Policy Institute, a "centrist Democratic think tank," by journalist James Taranto. The author of the paper, Barbara Dafoe, noted that according to last year's exit polls, married parents supported President Bush over John Kerry "by nearly 20 percentage points--59 percent to 40 percent." She recognizes one reason for the gap:
Democrats will not do better with married parents until they recognize one simple truth: Parents have a beef with popular culture. As they see it, the culture is getting ever more violent, materialistic, and misogynistic, and they are losing their ability to protect their kids from morally corrosive images and messages. To be credible, Democrats must acknowledge the legitimacy of parents' beef and make it unmistakably clear that they are on parents' side.
Should this come as a surprise us that parents shun Democrats affiliated with Hollywood? After all, it was Whoopi Goldberg who, as the New York Post reported, was "waving a bottle of wine, [and] fired off a stream of vulgar sexual wordplays on Bush's name in a riff about female genitalia" and said the country should "keep Bush where it belongs and not in the White House." John Kerry never rebuked Whoopi for the comments. As the WSJ article says, "Democrats would be well advised not to flaunt their association with Hollywood vulgarians, as John Kerry disastrously did." The article also points out one reason the Dems don't eschew such actions is because a lot of money flows in to the Democratic Party from certain Hollywood financers.
Taranto goes further to explain the effect of economics in the gap ("Married people with children are in or approaching peak earning years and they need all the money they can get...the Republican message of lower taxes is all the more compelling to a voter with mouths to feed") and also points out cultural and social issues ("religion, abortion, gay rights, etc.--married people are likely to be more conservative than the average voter because cultural conservatives are more likely to marry and have children in the first place.")
Taranto submits that demographics favor the "religious right" and that the advice given by Whitehead, "while possibly worthwhile, is unlikely to be sufficient." The Dems need a new strategy if they ever expect to win elections. Here's a solution: stick to your principles. All too often, it seems that once Dems get a political opponent in their target, they drop principle in order to attack them. These attacks lead to no fresh ideas from Dems but rather the same old rhetoric that we've been listening to for years.
You don't believe the Dems drop principles to in order to assault their opponents? Here are my examples. First off, recall what Bill Clinton said in the National Security Strategy of 1997:
Our policy is directed not against the people of Iraq but against the aggressive behavior of the government. Until that behavior changes, our goal is containing the threat Saddam Hussein poses to Iraq's neighbors, its people, the free flow of Gulf oil and broader U.S. interests in the Middle East.
President Bush went to war in Iraq for the same threats that Bill Clinton noted four years ago. Yet as soon as he committed to action, Dems blasted him for it. Another example? That same NSS of 1997:
As for Iran, our policy is aimed at changing the behavior of the Iranian government in several key areas, including its efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction and missiles, its support for terrorism and groups that oppose the peace process, its attempts to undermine friendly governments in the region, and its development of offensive military capabilities which threaten our Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) partners and the flow of oil. Pending changes in Iran's behavior, our goal is to contain and reduce its ability to threaten our interests. We also seek to coordinate with key allies to maximize pressures on Iran to change its course.
Sound familiar? Folks, the point is conditions are no different today during the Bush Administration than they were under the Clinton Administration save for one: the Bush Administration provides action with its words. Coupled with this hypocrisy in policy and the conditions noted by Taranto, I think the Dems have quite an uphill battle ahead of them.
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