Monday, October 27, 2003

Winning Coalitions Revisited We must cultivate a Democratic Party that welcomes and accepts: Liberals and centrists Pacifists and pragmatists Secular liberals and liberation theologians Environmentalists and labor and small businessmen and small farmers World citizens and authentic patriots Unemployed and working poor and middle class Activists and moderates Party loyalists and reconstructed Greens and alienated moderate Republicans We need a broad coalition to win national elections. The DLC seems to believe that the way to get one is to alienate the base and embrace the swing voter. The party base seems to think that the way to get one is to energize its disparate activists, freezing out moderates. Neither of these factions is thinking broad enough. Once upon a time, I believed that the Democratic Party was beyond hope on these points, so I looked to the nascent Green Party. It turned out that they were hopelessly self-destructive. They jealously guarded their radical self-image and had no intention of building any relevant political movement (at least in my state). We must learn from the failures of the Democrats and the Greens, and from the successes of the Republicans. While the various constituencies of the coalition described above will not share every objective all the time, all are threatened by the conservative movement in general and the neoconservative Bush regime in particular (whether they yet realize it or not). We must nurture a coalition where the differences between these groups are respected and debated; where we all have a basic zone of trust and shared purpose despite occasional disagreements. In the broad strokes, our objectives coincide. On the points where we genuinely differ we must respect those differences, then we must come back together and close ranks without accusation or recrimination or resentment. I have come to believe that the only place that we can realistically hope to build this coalition is within the Democratic party. It can be done. It must be done. Let's do it. 10:46:39 AM    Put your John Hancock right here!