Friday, February 24, 2006

Bush's Republicans: simply irresponsible

One of the things about the Republican party that has made them so effective against the Democrats in recent years, in spite of all the mistakes that they've made, is their ability to project a unified message. Even though their message is far removed from the truth, they have managed to convince a large number of people of their positions simply by massive repetition.

I believe that the lack of a consistent message from the Democrats is the primary reason that we have failed to get the attention of the average American voter. I belive that we need a central idea, a root cause analysis, if you will, to tie together and explain why the Republican agenda is wrong for America.

Words are powerful, and I think there's a simple, common, and expressive word that we can use to unify our critical voice:

IRRESPONSIBLE.

George Bush, and the members of the Republican Party in general, are fundamentally irresponsible.

They are environmentally irresponsible, attempting to sell off our national forests, and the quality of our air and water, to corporate interests. They take an irresponsibly short term view of environmental problems (like global warming) that can have dramatic and tremendously detrimental effects in the long term.

They are socially irresponsible, neglecting our schools, our poor, our elderly, and our veterans.

They are fiscally irresponsible, and have brought us the highest debt and largest budget deficits in history.

They are diplomatically irresponsible, starting an war that has served no purpose but to create new breeding grounds for terrorists. Afghanistan was justifiable, but Iraq was sold to the American people on premises that were nothing more than cynically calculated lies.

The truth is that the republicans are being irresponsible with America in a multitude of ways, and I think that if the Democratic party can unify behind this message, we can more effectively explain to the American people why the Republican agenda is bad for America.

Tuesday, February 7, 2006

Hunting the Single-Issue Voter

I received an interesting phone call a couple of days ago. It was a political survey with only two rather unusual questions.
  1. Are you opposed to abortion in every case, except to save the life of the mother?
  2. Are you opposed to gun control of any kind, including handgun registration?
I didn't have the presence of mind to ask who was conducting the survey, though I doubt that I would have gotten an honest or meaningful answer in any case. I was struck by the strangeness of these questions - I mean, what is the point of such a survey?

Then it struck me.

It's the Hunt for the Single-Issue Voter. The Republicans are trying to assess what percentage of the population they can sucker to vote for them based upon a single emotional issue. This is the group of people that they can count on to go to the polls and vote Republican with no thought whatsoever. Forget about democracy or representing the views of the people - this is a purely cynical and systematic manipulation of a segment of the population for political power. These issues, gun control and abortion, are not things that would even come up in everyday conversation among the electorate were it not for the continual reminders from the conservative media that these are the things that their voters should care about, to the exclusion of everything else. By manipulating the emotions of a group of people ill-equipped to defend themselves with reason, the Republicans work to expand their personal power.