Reply #22: Moving the Right Left [View All]

[WillyBrandt]

Sure. Lots of the folks on the right are just suspicious of big city folk or the "liberal media" or they identify the flag with the GOP. If you ask them about particulars--like universal health care--they often like the Democratic positions better.

Why are they voting GOP? So often it's not self-interest. It's that the GOP has stolen the common symbols of American pride: flag, duty, country, honor, etc. Even we liberals sometimes recoil a bit at those words (that GOP is effective), though they are our common heritage.

Clark takes those symbols back. And if the GOP continues their anti-patriotic actions he can make them symbols of our party, and will associate them with progressive politics, just as TR and FDR associated their progressive politics with love of country.

Appeal to the center culturally, and thus move all of us to the left politically.

The alternative to winning both the primary and general is to appeal to the PARTY culturally (denouncing Bush, etc.), and then appeal to the center politically.

Anyway, read The Emerging Democratic Majority. It has nothing to do with Clark per se, but tell me if you don't come away thinking--that motherfucker can make this prophecy a reality. It's almost eerie.