We've been told to get past "the tired partisan debate". Look where that got us. Words of...

[madfloridian]

Bill Clinton in his book, My Life.

We had issued a statement of principles intended to move beyond the tired partisan debate in Washington by creating a dynamic but centrist progressive movement of new ideas rooted in traditional American values. (My Life, pp. 364-365)

...By embracing ideas and values that were both liberal and conservative, it made voters who had not supported Democratic presidential candidates in years listen to our message. (p. 366)

That lack of partisanship did not work for us in 2010, and it did not work this year.

We are really in a mess. We are in effect not an opposition party. We are constantly defending and compromising, and it needs to stop.

I found a response to those words by Bill Clinton at a blog called The Strange Death of Liberal America.

Anyone who can explain what is meant by “a dynamic but centrist progressive movement” deserves an endowed chair at Harvard, because reading these words today they make no sense other than as gibberish or an impenetrable tangle of contradictions. They also are revealing of the roots of the DLC and the New Democrats, for note how they try to cement together a series of opposing ideas into some kind of whole, like someone attempting to glue together fire and water.

I often repeat this quote by a favorite politician. It is from his book in 2004.

During my presidential campaign I jokingly referred to the Democratic Leadership Council as the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. Some criticized this as a "gaffe". (The definition of a gaffe for Washington insiders is when you tell the truth, and they think you shouldn't have.) Yet it is true that the DLC contributed, however inadvertently, to the ascendancy of the Republican Party by trumpeting the abandonment of the traditional values of the Democratic Party. We forgot that our values were what the people we represented needed, so our base became uninterested and despondent."

That was Howard Dean.

And "uninterested and despondent" are apt descriptions of my mood right now.

[arcane1]

1. "Dynamic" means "conservative but able to turn left on a dime for social issues that poll well"

[madfloridian]

3. .....

True statement.

[madfloridian]

2. And just a taste of what we have seen in Florida for a long time. No room for activists.

Centrist Democratic group in Florida...doesn't want party activists

Saturday's conference made the case that Democrats have moved. The foundation of the Democrats' success in House races were candidates who had strong backgrounds and who didn't come across as partisan, said Steve Schale, who organized the Florida Democratic Party's House efforts.

As he helped recruit candidates, he tried to find people who weren't party activists.

The Mainstream Democrats is an offshoot of the party organized by Democratic legislators. It is striving to help Democrats broaden their appeal, especially in rural northern Florida, because the basic electoral math is starting to look tougher and tougher for Democrats. They're faring so poorly in northern Florida and many outlying suburban areas, that it's no longer possible for them to win statewide elections merely by remaining competitive in Tampa Bay and Central Florida and overwhelmingly winning southeast Florida.

"North Florida is going to win the next election," predicted former Attorney General Bob Butterworth, noting that his home county of Broward is steadily diminishing as a Democratic powerhouse.

...."We're here to get Bubba's vote," said state Sen. Steve Geller of Hallandale Beach, a founder of the Mainstream Democrats and one of those with a northeastern accent.

That is from several years ago, and we still don't have Bubba's vote. And we never will because they don't vote for Democrats or liberals.

[madfloridian]

4. I long for partisan.

Probably not going to get it. Doesn't have to be ugly, just a very firm veto pen when needed for the sake of the people.