Memo
To: The Democratic National Committee
From: Us.
Okay DNC. You’ve had two months to lick your wounds, pretend you were cheated and finally come to understand you simply lost – big time. Now you have to pick a new DNC leader. The person you chose will determine if we invest our faith in the party going forward, or start looking around for another choice.
So, here’s a tip. Howard Dean wants to lead the party out of the wilderness. Let him try.
Why? Because he is the only national Democrat who has demonstrated he has the balls to do what must be done to save your party from the little gray men and women who now control it. That’s why.
Yes, I am talking to you.. Hillary, John, John, Bob, Mike, Paul, Terry, et al. I could put you folks into a time machine and transport back to 1950 and drop you into a chair at the Soviet Politburo and neither you nor the Russian apparatchiks around you would notice a thing had changed. You guys have become little more than a pack of valueless, principles-for-sale, political gamers. When winning becomes your only goal and value, winning itself loses all value.
And what do you do even when you get elected? Forty million Americans – most of them members of the prime Democratic demographic – play medical Russian roulette every day because they have no health insurance. That number was, just a few years ago, 25 million, but you did nothing. Then it was 30 million, and you did nothing. Then 35 million and, nothing. Now it’s 40 million… and you still have no plan to solve this problem that you are willing to FIGHT and, if necessary, DIE for.. (politically speaking.)
The past four years Republicans have gutted the national treasury – GUTTED IT – with tax givebacks to the already wealthy, and you guys did NOTHING to stop them. In fact, many of you voted FOR those tax breaks. The resulting federal budget deficits now threaten what few social programs for the poor and working families that remain.
After your November election loses one would think you would be in a fighting mood. With an unpopular and illegal war raging, deficits mounting, Social Security under direct attack, what did you do? You elevated Mr. Milquetoast (Sen Harry Reid) to lead your party in the Senate. HELLO! If old Harry were being mugged on the street he would be so eager to mollify his muggers he’d offer to fetch some friends so the robbers could mug them too.
And let’s not forget that, when Bush wanted to attack Iraq, you guys let him do it. ONLY Howard Dean had the guts to say it was wrong – you remember WRONG? As in, some things are simply wrong? Democrats used to know that and used to fight wrong – discrimination, poverty, corruption, pollution….. No longer. Now your strategy hinges on what the meaning of “wrong” is.
You guys have triangulated yourselves into ideological pretzels. Democratic pretzels cannot defend us against Republican ramrods.
And you have drained the party of passion. Passion can’t be faked. You can try, and you have -- but it never works. Voters don’t hear real passion, they feel it. Anything less is acting and we know it. John Kerry had all the passion of a beached jellyfish. John Edwards’ passion was real but was the kind of passion you feel when a realtor wants to sell you a house because he can almost taste the commission.
Okay DNC honchos, who are you going to pick to fix this mess you’ve created? Or maybe that’s the wrong question. Maybe we should ask if you want to repair it at all. After all, you have a pretty sweet deal there at DNC headquarters. Like a corrupt labor union that sells its members down the river, you still have desk, a title, and expense accounts. And, as long as nothing changes you can continue to convince your mothers, friends and yourselves that you are a real mover and shaker – a “player” on the national stage. And, of course, you will continue getting a nice-size paycheck, which is more than can be said for a lot of working families you claim to represent.
So, who you gonna pick? Well let’s see who’s on the shortlist:
Former representative Martin Frost of Texas. Marty’s a loser – literally. He lost his reelection bid in November. Marty is the quintessential little gray man who got hoisted on his own petard when his machiavellian redistricting of Texas was out-machiavellianed by Tom DeLay’s redistricting. Great choice. Just the thing the DNC needs to change its image as valueless, conniving pack of valueless connivers.
Former representative Timothy J. Roemer of Red State Indiana. I call Roemer the triangulation candidate because he opposes a woman’s right to chose. Get it? The Madison Ave. message here is that the Democratic Party is inclusive. And who wants him to be DNC chair? Roemer said he was urged to run by Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. These folks want the DNC to be a “big tent,” just like the Republicans say the RNC is. It says that Dems let people who disagree with even the party’s deepest held beliefs,belong to their party. How sweet. Maybe David Duke and Louis Farrakhan should be on the list as DNC Chair candidates then as well. Big tent? You betchya – a circus tent.
Oh, and listen to the kind of advice coming from Joe Lieberman’s peanut gallery:
"I think Dean did a tremendous job in the primaries -- energizing people, making statements of principle -- and that he has a lot to contribute to the debate," said Dan Gerstein, former press secretary to Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.). "That said, I think he would be a disastrous choice to head the party…”
Oh Poleasssseee! Gag me with a crowbar. Lieberman? If you want a poster boy for what’s wrong with the Democratic Party today, look no further than the Sen. Toady.
Back when Howard Dean looked like he might just win the presidential primaries you guys at the DNC were shaking in your boots. And, while history will credit Dean’s enthusiastic “yeeeehaaaa” as the reason he lost, we all know DNC operatives had been behind the scenes for weeks trying to figure out how to saw the legs out from under this guy. By the time he let out that yell you guys had already prepared his political grave. Dean scared the hell out of you guys because he suffers fools poorly – and knows one when he see one.
But I am forced to ask you to consider, in retrospect, what if Dean had won the primaries? Could he possibly have done worse than the uninspiring John Kerry? Dean had energized the Democratic Party base, a pool of voters who until then (and now once again) wallowed in hopeless despair. What if Dean’s energy, passion, commitment to core Democratic values and pure guts had boosted the Democratic vote by just a couple of more percentage points? What then fellas?
He would have won… that’s what. And we would not now be forced to live through another four years of this nightmare. That’s your fault -- you little gray people at the DNC. You did that to us, you bastards.
And now you are burning the midnight oil trying to connive a way to keep your phony baloney jobs by appointing a new DNC head who will not rock the boat… your boat.
Well, we are watching. Do you represent working Americans, those without healthcare coverage, the elderly, many of whom now have to chose between buying food or medicine? Or do you represent yourselves?
Your choice will tell us all we need to know -- about you.
Raconteur at Large
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