People and Money
William Burton has an interesting entry on what the Democratic party should be doing.
I don't totally agree with his characterization of the recent historical Republican party. My parents, my aunt and uncle and a huge number of other people I grew up around in the 60s were what they call 'rock-ribbed' Republicans. They were not businessmen or industrialists or... They were regular small town and rural 'folks' who thought that the Republican party represented them and their interests. Watergate made them Democrats. And they have not looked back.
But I do agree with him very much that economic citizenship (my interpretation) is hugely important and something the Democratic party would do well to pay attention to.
I don't, by the way, think, as many articles and weblogs have advised, that the Democratic party should find issues on which they can be 'winners.' I think they should figure out what they believe in and fight for it passionately. We're seeing way too much calculating and figuring the odds and checking the polls. I care about this: the Constitution of the United States of America, individual liberty, full citizenship, both economic and social, for every citizen, the US as a strong member of an international community, universal health care, the public good, and other things, many of them closely related to these.