Harold Ford and Howard Dean's talks on values.

[madfloridian]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/24/magazine/24WWLN.html

"Before Schiavo ever became the story of the moment, Democrats were wrestling over the meaning of moral values, with about as much clarity as you might expect from a bunch of cable-TV pundits debating superstring theory. There are two basic arguments being put forward by national Democrats on how to change their image, and at a breakfast for Democratic officials in Washington last month, I heard two of the party's more serious thinkers lay them out. The first speaker, Harold Ford, the young representative from Tennessee, argued that Democrats needed to speak the same spiritual language as Republicans if they didn't want to continue to be seen as godless elitists. ''We can separate church and state,'' Ford said in a preacherly cadence, ''but, by golly, we ought to be able to say that our spirit, our faith and our morals influence somewhat how we treat people and how we shape laws and how we implement policy.''

After Ford sat down, Howard Dean, the party's new chairman, counseled that if Democrats really wanted to win back churchgoers, they had to make the case that traditionally liberal programs like health care and community-development block grants were moral values, too. ''I am tired of having decent Americans who don't happen to wear their religious beliefs on their sleeves called immoral,'' Dean said.

Amen to the last sentence.

[More Than A Feeling]

1. I agree with them both, because they are saying the same thing

the unstated assumption is that the values, faith, and morals Ford is talking of lead to the programs of which Dean speaks.

[madfloridian]

2. That may be right.

I may have taken Ford's as being more to religion itself. I am very sensitive to that since leaving our church because of their calling it a holy war. I was called unChristian once, and it was quite painful.

[madrchsod]

3. here is a nice article

from one ofthe best sites on the net-http://www.blackcommentator.com/79/79_fr_ford.html
The Black Commentator - Harold Ford Jr: Don’t Know Much About History - Issue 79