...it's The Republicans, Stupid...!!

  


 I'm sure we all remember the Ragin' Cajuns' exhortation to the troops during Bill Clinton's first campaign for the Presidency..."it's the economy, stupid" as the rallying cry that brought together a unified call to action that resulted in the first of two successful terms in the White House.

I firmly believe that the rallying cry for the Obama campaign should focus on the Republican record across the country. As we have seen since the 2010 elections throughout the nation, The GOP has used every trick in the book to roll back many of the advances made in the country since the turn of the century.

Collective bargaining, access to the polls, reproductive rights have all come under attack by the party that is trying very hard to "take America back" back to the 'know-nothing jingoistic" era of the late 19th and early 20th century America. Our teachers are being demonized at every turn, failures in policy are being laid at the feet of the people who have the least amount of input and robber barons are buying legislators and members of the judiciary at an alarming rate.

Billionaires are attempting to buy elections and corporations are forming 'grassroots' organizations in order to influence outcomes. Cries of socialism and communism fill the air reminding us that it doesn't take much to tar one's reputation even while admitting that those insults hardly carry the weight of its' McCarthyite past.

We have the chattering class on television pushing false equivalences and the delusional wing of progressives shooting their noses in order to spite their faces. There is no amount of twisted logic that this wing of will no let go of, as if the past twelve years occurred in some sort of vacuum. The President is not omnipotent and while his faults are many, his successes should not be belittled. The Affordable Care Act is not the most elegant piece of legislation ever passed but it is a sea change compared to the efforts put forth by the Republicans; after much hand wringing it was passed by a Democratic controlled Congress. The so-called Republican sweep in the 2010 election proved once again that when it comes to whipping up rabid reality challenged arguments, the Republican Party is unparalleled in presenting a united front, or as the big lie theory goes..."never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it"

The Democratic Party lacks this uniform approach to elections and this singularity of purpose in messaging; we continue the discredited 'identity politics' that has proven disastrous in the past. That approach has allowed the Republican Party to exploit this to their advantage and obfuscate their true objective, which is to shrink, and\or privatize government.

The Democratic Party today has to be repurposed; instead of running Democrats who are a pale reflection of their Republican counterparts they must concentrate on "better" candidates who can articulate and demonstrate that our ideas are better solutions for the problems we face today; and that our approach is the better one for the future. It should be able to demonstrate that we stand as a stark contrast to the party bought out by the NRA, the Chamber of Commerce and the Koch brothers.

And to the so-called progressive media like HuffPost and TPM; if you behave like the Washington Post or the NY Times, I'd rather read them because at least I know who they are defending.

And there you have it...