Breaking the "No Agenda" Myth

I'm getting completely sick of this zombie myth that the Democrats have no clear vision of the future, that they cannot articulate a clear agenda, that they don't have any ideas. It's not only completely untrue. It's unbelievably damaging, particularly when said not by partisan Republicans or their media mouthpieces, but by liberal or nonpartisan voices.

Now, Steve Lopez of the LA Times is a good columnist. His articles on the plight of the homeless, particularly at Skid Row in downtown LA, is some of the finest work I've seen in a major American newspaper about the lower classes since the days of the muckrakers. He presents them as real people, and it's powerful, affecting stuff that has actually started to provoke change in the system.

But this piece of tripe he writes today is so stupid, so unimaginative, and most importantly so INTELECTUALLY LAZY, that it really puts a chink in his credibility armor.

The entire column describes a fundraising letter Lopez receives on behalf of the DSCC, written by Ted Kennedy. Lopez is upset because the four-page letter didn't offer an alternative vision for the Democratic Party.

Page 1, however, contained no such clues. It just fired more bazooka shots at the president and his "extreme right-wing allies," so I figured the fresh ideas from the Dems had to be on Page 2.

Wrong again. Page 2 was nothing but groveling for money for contested races in Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Minnesota. ("It's urgent for each of us to do as much as possible as soon as possible!")

Page 3 suggested the Republicans will burn in hell for sins against humanity ("They've poisoned our air and water"), and Page 4 warned, "They'll never stop unless we stop them. They're shameless!"

That's quite a cavalry call, but it seems to me the Democrats are once again rushing to the front lines with empty muskets.

Apparently fundraising letters to committed Democrats must contain a detailed agenda of what specific pieces of legislation will be enacted should the Democrats get the majority. I didn't know that DSCC fundraising letters should be directed at swing voters.

By virtue of getting a mailer like that, you've obviously either given money to Democrats in the past or made the effort to get on the mailing list or registered Democratic or did something to show your Democratic bona fides. Letters like that aren't sent out to the population as a whole. And as such, they aren't designed to change anyone's mind who's on the fence for November. They're designed to solicit funds so they can go out and change OTHER minds.

Lopez is upset that there was a bumper sticker in the mail along with the letter, and its message, "HAD ENOUGH? Vote Democrat in '06," wasn't substantive enough. Really. I mean, I'm sure they could find a printer willing to use 4-point Helvetica type and etch in as many policy prescriptions as possible on the thing, but would that really get people in traffic to break out their magnifying glasses and go "Hmm, cutting student loan costs in half, that's a good id... oh crap look out for that tree!" It's a frickin' bumper sticker, Steve. Substance ain't it's thing.

As for the "no alternative vision" frame, which we've seen Republicans so relentlessly play for decades, it's a rich and steaming pile of garbage. You need only spend 15 minutes on any number of campaign websites, or a quick jaunt to the THOMAS site, or There's Progressive States, which seeks to get progressive bills through state legislatures, or even right here at this website, and you'd unearth a slew of policy ideas and progressive legislation. It may not get in the local paper, but I wouldn't blame that on Democrats as much as I would the likes of Steve Lopez. Because the Dems have certainly put out what seems like hundreds of focused and specific plans and strategies, all of which were much-ballyhooed, with large press events and plenty of fanfare. You don't have to agree with their message, or even their presentation, but you can't deny their existence. Yet a four-page letter to PARTISAN DEMOCRATS who presumably wouldn't be getting the letter if they weren't already on board and with the program is enough to make that claim of a lacking alternative vision. Democratic leaders have pushed and pushed and pushed to get these agenda items in print, but it doesn't match with the zombie narrative that "Dems have no vision" so it falls by the wayside.

Lopez then asks a couple politicos about this terrible problem that the Democrats have in articulating their program. See if you can spot the problem with the politicos he asks...

Craig Smith, a former speechwriter for Gerald Ford and the first President Bush, said the Kennedy letter is a direct response to polls that show declining support for the war in Iraq and for the president....

...My decision was endorsed by Ken Khachigian, the GOP consultant who worked with Reagan....

No doubt you're going to get an honest assessment of what's happening in the Democratic Party from those two!

Smith decides to offer the Democrats a little advice:

There's an intellectual distinction to be made in the essence of what it means to be a Republican or a Democrat, Smith said, and Democrats ought to embrace the difference.

"For me, it always goes back to this: If you put a gun to a Republican's head and say, 'Choose between individuality or equality,' they'll pick individual freedom. A good liberal will pick equality over individual freedom."

Has this guy been paying attention to what's been happening in the country the last 5 years? Does he happen to notice the erosion of civil liberties in the Bush era, and how the Republicans - not theoretical conservatives that would fit his neat little political science test - have been so frightened by the boogeyman that they've willingly given up freedoms left and right?

I know that Smith is making more of an argument about the free market, but painting Republicans as the party of freedom in this era is absurd.

Democrats, he said, need to get back to the social agenda. They ought to put healthcare reform back at the top of their to-do list, and not cut and run the way Bill Clinton did.

They ought to be screaming about wages that keep millions in abject poverty, and they ought to put up or shut up on education, doing something more than attacking Bush's "no child left behind" program.

I love how this suggests that the Democrats haven't been doing that at all. This, just a couple weeks after the Senate Minority Leader vowed that there will be no Congressional pay raises without a rise in the minimum wage. This, just a few weeks after the first item on one of the aforementioned Democratic plans includes a proposal to negotiate lower drug prices with pharmaceuticals through repealing that barrier in the prescription drug plan, and investing in stem cell and other medical research (NOTE: this isn't single-payer, sure. The Dems could maybe do more here). This, while ignoring the TEACH Act and the PACT Act and Rahm Emanuel's call for universal college education and the proposal to cut skyrocketing student loan rates in half.

Here's the thing that these naysayers, these slugs that want to be constantly spoonfed with policy diktats over and over again, always fail to understand: democracy demands participation. Over 40 years ago John F. Kennedy said that you should ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. Now Steve Lopez asks "What are you going to do for me, and could you put it in writing every day so I can see it over and over and over?" I'm sorry, but that's unbelievably lazy. The information is out there, and it doesn't even take much of an effort to get it. The corollary to this is that you, Y-O-U, are not an empty vessel in this effort to cast an alternative vision but a full participant as a member of the Party. You want change? You want an agenda? Be the change you wish to see. Ask Brian Keeler. Ask Ned Lamont. Ask Patrick Murphy. Ask Jon Tester. Armchair quarterbacks who piss and moan about the lack of a Democratic vision don't seem to realize, if they're Democrats, that they can actually articulate a vision themselves, simply through talking with friends and neighbors, right on up to taking back Democratic committees and precincts and running for office. That's the crash of the gate that's so bewildering to the traditional media types.

Reasonable people can disagree about the effectiveness of the Democratic agenda. Only those willfully blind and unwilling to do the work can say it doesn't exist.