archived: 6 - 12 Feb, 2005 Back Next
UPDATED: February 10, 2004
THERE IS A REASON WE ARE DEMOCRATS
In the article below on this page, “WE LOVE FREE SPEECH,” TPJ alerted readers to Bush’s “blacklisting” citizens from attending his speech in Fargo, North Dakota. The existence of the list was publicly revealed and now the “overzealous” originator of the list cannot be determined.
One citizen blacklisted was Linda Coates, a Fargo city commissioner. Commissioner Coates had written a letter to The Forum in November saying, "When the richest 2 percent of Americans are showered with huge tax cuts during wartime while our children and grandchildren are stuck with the tab - that's morally wrong."
Commissioner Coats has now penned a letter to The Form about the experience of being blacklisted. Her letter says a great deal of why we are Democrats. Every Democrat should read it:
I think we can all agree that it is a momentous day when the president of the United States visits our city. And I think we can also all agree that one of our most deeply cherished American values is the right of every person's voice to be heard.
The "do-not-admit list" saga is one of those "Small Dumb Things That Mean Something Bigger" scenarios that happen from time to time. Clearly, it was the result of an "overzealous" individual who felt they were doing the right thing for their home team. What made this story resonate and spiral into a national news item is the gut-level twinge of anxiety it elicits in each of us: "Am I on a list somewhere? Would I even know? Could this happen to me someday?"
While those are questions we don't ask ourselves on a typical day, it was jarring to realize that someone, somewhere, thought that making this list was the right thing to do. Sadly, the climate of keeping voices of disagreement at bay has become a well-known characteristic of this administration.
I would suggest that the people of Fargo and of North Dakota could help President Bush with some basic prairie down-to-earth advice: Let everyone be heard. Listen carefully and respectfully to all sides. Ponder what others have to say.
A wonderful advantage to living in a sparsely populated state is that governance is up close and personal. Anyone who has served on a church committee, PTA, school board, township board, park district board, city commission or council, service club office, county commission, nonprofit board (in other words, nearly everyone) understands that disagreements, conflicts of opinion, impassioned arguments and fiercely contested issues are not only frequent but normal and healthy. This is how solutions are arrived at in a democratic process - by spirited debate, give and take, wisdom contributed from all sides, and occasionally some heated argument thrown in for spice.
And the next day, we go back to our daily lives side by side with the people we were in disagreement with. There is no room for secret lists in small towns. We conduct our public work in the open, with our neighbors and fellow citizens, and we understand that one side or the other never has all the answers.
President Bush, you may have come to North Dakota to convince our so-called "red" voters to apply pressure to our "blue" senators to see things your way on Social Security, as you plan to do in similar states as ours. But perhaps what you will take back to Washington with you is a little bit of North Dakota wisdom.
Out here we vote for who we think is the best person for the job, regardless of the letter after their name. Out here we think for ourselves, given the best information we can gather. Out here we carefully listen to all sides of an issue, because those speaking are our neighbors.
And, most importantly, out here we don't shut people out of the room for simply expressing their opinion. – In-Fourm
Democrats believe in and act by the constitutional precepts of Freedom of Speech. There is indeed a reason we are Democrats.
One might ask, Republicans believe in freedom and democracy too? For a chilling answer to that question, read Dr. Steven Jonas’s chilling analysis today, “The Georgite Version of ‘Freedom and Democracy,’” in his section of TPJ.
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CHAIRMAN DEAN
Gov. Dean appears to have the votes necessary to become Chairman of the DNC. Several reliable sources are confirming the fact through the public endorsements that Dean has already received.
Several writers are predicting what a Gov. Dean Chairmanship will mean for the Democratic Party and getting it wrong. For example, Martin Sieff, a Senior Analyst with UPI, writes:
Dean's now-expected victory in the election to chair and steer the party will mark the dramatic repudiation of the moderate centrist, third-way Democratic Leadership Council policies that the party has followed over the past decade and a half. . . .
For the party grass roots, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry's clear defeat in the national vote and across vast regions of the country Nov. 2 damned the idea of cautious "me too" political strategies. Kerry flip-flopped and temporized about his stand on the Iraq war like a liberal Hamlet. And the rose-colored, Pollyanna, feel-good messages crafted by his master-strategist Robert Shrum, who had also guided Vice President Al Gore to his political doom in the 2000 election, fizzled against the focused, raw-meat Republican personal attacks against him.
By turning to Dean now the Democrats are showing that they are determined to answer the Republicans back in kind:
Instead of waffling on Iraq, they are turning to the former Vermont governor who made his name in the spring of 2003 by being the first prominent Democrat to roll up his sleeves and blast the decision to go to war.
Instead of politely ignoring ferocious attacks framed in the politics of personal destruction, they will try to do the same thing to the president and other prominent Republicans.
Instead of pouring scores of millions of dollars into huge registration campaigns, they will emulate the successful Republicans and seek to use their vast financial and information-technology resources to target existing registered voters and sympathetic groups and mobilizing them.
Instead of letting the Republicans continue to brand the Democrats as the party of big government, the entrenched federalism that has defined America for more than 70 years, Dean advocates the kind of new de-federalization advocated by the likes of former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart: giving power back to the states and the grass roots.
Instead of focusing on national fundraising and credibility with national television and media columnists and producers, Dean and his new team will look to rebuild the old Democratic Party strength with its traditional Hispanic constituency. Bush and his own master-strategist Karl Rove's longtime wooing of that major community paid off big Nov. 2, when they won an estimated 40 percent or more of the Hispanic vote.
Also, Dean, a fiscal conservative during his more than four terms as governor of Vermont, will continue the remarkable reversal of the Democrats' traditional fiscal image begun by Clinton's success in balancing the federal budget while presiding over a booming economy. He will be a far more credible figure than Kerry -- successfully labeled as a big-spending liberal from his 20-year voting record in the Senate -- in presenting the Dems as the party of fiscal prudence and conservatism, the role that was held by the Republicans for more than 130 years from Abraham Lincoln to the current president's father, George Herbert Walker Bush.
Most of all, Dean will make the Democrats interesting again, and he will free them of the reflexive "me-too-ism" that has kept them on the defensive against the GOP for more than 30 years, with the exception of Clinton's remarkable, trend-defying career. For more than a generation, Republicans could count on firing devastating political missiles at the Dems with impunity. Only Clinton ever really succeeded in firing back. But in the coming era of Dean-ball, that may be about to change.
Governor Dean will represent change for the Democratic Party, but along different lines suggested by Sieff.
First, The Chairman of the Democratic Party does not set policy for the Party, a fact that Sieff simply ignores. The Democratic National Convention sets the Platform for the Party and the Democratic Party Executive Committee serves as the “Board of Directors.” Dean will have to answer to the Executive Committee.
Second, Dean, if he is to be effective as Party Chairman, will have to forge an effective consensus among all of the interests represented in on the Executive Committee, including the DLC. Neither the DLC nor the progressive elements within the Party can, on their own win a national election or build a majority Party across the United States. In sum, Dean has to find the formula for making the various “parts” of the Democratic Party into an organization greater than its parts.
Third, Sieff appears to believe that Chairman Dean will deemphasize voter registration. TPJ has searched the net extensively and has found nothing to confirm this assertion. Sieff cites no source. The proposition is absurd on its face. Democrats registered 2 million new voters, the majority younger voters. In many areas of the Nation, Republicans registered more new voters than Democrats. Bush’s margin of victory would have been much more extensive without these new voters. Dean’s emphasis on “grass roots” politics will hopefully lead to even better voter registration efforts.
Fourth, Sieff assertion that “[i]nstead of focusing on national fundraising and credibility with national television and media columnists and producers, Dean and his new team will look to rebuild the old Democratic Party strength with its traditional Hispanic constituency.” Does anyone believe that Dean will not seriously address our “traditional” black, labor and female constituencies?
Dean should be exciting for the Party IF, and only if, he can forge consensus within a Party that often acts as a cabal of constituencies.
“SAY WHAT?”
The Democratic Leadership Council issued a statement on the elections in Iraq that is, at best, disturbing. The DLC made these points:
Despite the threat and reality of violence aimed at voters and candidates, turnout was impressively high -- indeed, higher than in most recent U.S. elections;
Despite a boycott sponsored by most Sunni Arab leaders, Sunni turnout was much better than expected wherever it was physically possible;
While Shia are sure to dominate the new government, Sunni representation will likely reflect that community's proportion of the population, and President Allawi 's secular-minded multi-party alliance appears to have done quite well;
The Iraqi elections were widely publicized in independent Arab media as successful, and as more significant than the insurgents' efforts to subvert them. – DLC
Junkie Editor Michael Carmichael responded:
The statement on the Iraqi elections which appeared on your website is a ludicrous commercial for the atrocious policies of George Bush. It is totally misleading and fundamentally inaccurate.
The coalition led by Iyad Allawi was roundly rejected - even though it flagrantly usurped official resources of the interim government to use in its campaign. This story is far behind the news that the United Iraqi Alliance headed by Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani has swept the boards in the early reporting. Any deviation from this result will trigger suspicions of the electoral process itself among the Iraqi people who voted.
The situation in Iraq is utterly dire - precisely because of the occupation. The US occupation is actually hampering the security situation. Senator Ted Kennedy was absolutely right. The US should adhere to a tight schedule for withdrawal - and the removal of the 14 military bases currently under construction. John Kerry called for the removal of all US military bases from Iraq during the campaign, and he has just been to Iraq, where he saw first hand that the US presence is neither popular nor indispensable.
Finally, the point made in the story that the turnout was high must have been a bad joke. A 57% turnout in what was nothing less than a plebiscite is a sad failure. You should recall that the turnout in Vietnam in 1967 was 83% - an event that was heralded by the supporters of the war - like Scoop Jackson - as a victory over the Vietcong. That this delusional mentality is still plaguing the Democratic Party is a tragedy of global proportions - especially for the people who are the victims of military intervention, bombing, collateral damage and torture by forces led by deluded politicians manufactured by organizations such as yours.
Greg Mitchell, writing for Editor & Publisher, shares Carmichael’s skepticism about the voter turn out:
For days, the press repeated, as gospel, assertions offered by an election official that 8 million Iraqis went to the polls on Sunday, an impressive 57% turnout rate. I questioned those figures as early as last Sunday, and offered the detailed analysis below on Wednesday. Finally, on Thursday night, John F. Burns and Dexter Filkins of The New York Times reported that Iraqi election officials have quietly "backtracked, saying that the 8 million estimate had been reached hastily on the basis of telephone reports from polling stations across the country and that the figure could change."
Then, in Friday's paper, Burns and Filkins noted that one election commision official was "evasive about the turnout, implying it might end up significantly lower than the initial estimate." They quoted this official, Safwat Radhid, exclaiming: "Only God Almighty knows the final turnout now." They revealed that the announcement of a turnout number, expected to be released this weekend, has been put off for a week, due to the "complex" tabulation system.
I'll be delighted if that figure, when it is officially announced, exceeds the dubious numbers already enshrined by much of the media. But don't be surprised if it falls a bit short. – Editor & Publisher
TPJ believes that Juan Cole is the single best American analyst of the situation in Iraq. He has written a comprehensive analysis of the election and supports Carmichael’s view that the coalition led by Iyad Allawi was roundly rejected in favor of a coalition under the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani's auspices. Cole’s major points:
With 3.3 million votes counted from about 10 mostly southern provinces, the United Iraqi Alliance of mainly Shiite religious parties is so far garnering an astounding 66% of the seats in parliament (That percentage will fall as the northern, Sunni Arab and Kurdish vote comes in, but it may not fall below 50 percent). The Iraqiyah List of interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has only gotten 18 percent so far, and that percentage may well fall to 10 in the final tally.
As the list cobbled together under Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani's auspices looks set to rule Iraq, al-Hayat reports that his representative in Karbala tried to issue reassurances. . . . He said that everyone must work to prevent a partition of Iraq, both those who participated in the elections and those who did not. He denied that the Shiite members of parliament would attempt to erect a theocracy ["a religious state."]. He said that Shiites had suffered more than anyone else from Saddam's authoritarianism, and they did not want to oppress their fellow Iraqis. Rather, they would work to save them from oppression.
But the Sunni Arab regions had a very light turnout, so the Kurds may well get 20 percent or more of the seats in parliament, even though they are probably only 15 percent of the population.
If the Shiite coalition gets 50 percent or more, it will only need 16 percent of the seats (or less), to form a government, which requires a 2/3s vote. The easy place to get those seats is from the Kurdish coalition list. So a Shiite/Kurdish alliance would immediately dominate parliament. The Sunni Arabs and the Allawi list would not be needed. . . .
The young radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr belittled the elections on Friday and called for the setting of a timetable for US withdrawal. Sadr's political stock, however, is at a nadir. The UIA only has about 20 Sadrists, mostly somewhat independent, on its list. Sadr sat out the elections. Unless poor street thugs reemerge as a force in Iraqi politics, Sadr has been as marginalized as Allawi for the moment. However, the poor Shiites of the slums who are attracted to him and his ideology have not gone away, and he should not be counted out as a factor in future elections and political movements.
If the economy does not get going soon, if the guerrilla war grinds on, if US forces continue to act in a heavy-handed manner and remain numerous, then the tide could easily turn in Sadr's favor. – Informed Consent
The analysis by Carmichael, Mitchell and Cole stands in stark contrast to the DLC’s analysis and fairly merits Carmichael’s admonition. If moderate Democrats fail to understand why progressives within the Party are in open revolt, the DLC’s rather superficial pronouncement of the Iraqi “success” serves as a prime example of the schism within the Party.
WISCONSIN
The issue of free and fair elections reached fevered pitch with the contested results in Ohio. Democrats, as well as concerned citizens, pointed to the plethora of weaknesses exposed in the election process in that State.
Yet, Democrats have largely ignored reports that Democrats in Wisconsin may have exceeded both ethical and legal standards in winning that State.
Defense lawyers in a high-profile tire slashing case in Milwaukee are trying to cut into the prosecution’s claims. One of the defendants is the son of Wisconsin Congress member Gwen Moore.
Moore’s son Sowande Omokunde and four other Democratic activists face felony charges of criminal damage to property. Milwaukee prosecutors say the five men slashed tires on more than 25 vans the state Republican Party had rented for use on Election Day last November. – WPR News Headlines
Reports are also surfacing from Wisconsin that large numbers of voters who registered on Election Day, in primarily Democratic strongholds in the State, cannot be verified:
They actually had 73,000 same day votes cast. 10,000 voter registration cards could not be sent because they have no addresses or incomplete or inadequate information. Using the same one third return rate that means in Milwaukee alone more than 25,000 illegal votes were cast. You can expect that the cities of Racine, Kenosha and Madison to have similar results.
By the way George Bush lost Wisconsin by 12,000 votes and Milwaukee votes 80% or more Democrat. – Michelle Malkin
Partisan politics ends at the gates of the electoral system. As some Democrats still contend that Bush stole the 2004 election in Ohio, Democrats must ask the question if Democrats stole Wisconsin. Republicans are also producing evidence that a number of the “dead” voted in Washington State. TPJ will be following up on those reports.
There is an overriding need for election reform at the local, state and national levels. It is an issue that goes to the heart of a constitutional Democracy. It is an issue, however, in which both Parties must candidly address the “sins” of their own and ensure an election system that is honest and absolutely transparent.
YOU HAVE TO SEE THESE
Occasionally, political cartoons capture the essence. These two cartoons are must see:
….. and Bush Created Democracy
Next, Gov. Dean inspires a delightful cartoon that speaks a lot of truth:
Last Update: 03/23/2006