Dem's Just Don't Get It

The Democrats just don’t get it. For years now the Democratic Party has been losing ground on the values debate in this country. This was most evident this past election when George W Bush won by a comfortable margin despite an uncertain, if not unpopular, war in Iraq. The issue that pushed him over the top was values.

The Democratic Party does not understand values. They confuse values with political, policy positions. Values are so much more. The dictionary defines values as “a principle, standard, or quality considered worthwhile or desirable.” I would go further and say that values are the principles that define a person’s character. They transcend the moment and are rooted in a person’s moral and religious beliefs. They are the ideals that every person tries to live up to. Values provide the foundation for our individual moral compass.

This poses a unique problem for the Democratic Party. The Democrats are not really a party united in a core set of values or ideals. Rather, it is a coalition of fragmented special interest groups cobbled together under the Democratic banner. How else do you explain a party whose party apparatus is dominated by Labor Unions, Minority Interest groups, Academic Elitists, Women’s Rights groups, Anti-War groups and Environmentalists? These groups have very little in common with the exception that each group has a powerful, single-interest lobby that promotes their own self-serving positions.

Sure both parties are influenced by special interest groups. The problem for the Democratic Party is that they are so beholden to their groups that they have become intolerant of any dissenting views. They refuse to distance themselves from the extreme positions taken by many of these groups. These positions are often well outside of the values held dear by middle class America.

The Republican Party and their special interest groups are more pragmatic. They recognize that they will not get everything they want and are willing to give a little to keep their party in power. In other words, they compromise to ensure they are there to fight another day. This is the very nature of politics. In contrast, with each election cycle, the Democratic groups step up their rhetoric. The result is, they had rather lose than seek the middle ground.

The lightning rod issue to illustrate this point is abortion. There are numerous other issues such as gay marriage, sex education and even social security reform to name a few which illustrate the same point. The point is that the American middle, those voters who are not aligned with either party, is uncomfortable with the Democratic Party. For the voters in this group, their current allegiance to the Republican Party is not a definitive, decision; rather it is a subtle conclusion that the Democratic Party’s values are not aligned with their own.

In the abortion debate, these non-aligned voters are faced with the Democrats’ extreme pro-abortion position of abortion on demand under any circumstance and the Republican position of limiting abortion to extreme cases. These voters understand that thousands of babies are killed every day. On one hand they are afraid to lose the right to an abortion, but on the other hand, they know in their hearts, their values, that this is wrong. The voters are torn by their self-serving desire to retain abortion as an unpleasant option or to uphold their higher ideal that abortion is wrong.

Conventional wisdom tells us that the American people vote their pocket books. In other words, they will vote to promote their own self interests. This cynical view underestimates the American electorate. This country was founded on a set of ideals and the voters consistently return and vote to support these ideals. They rise above the here and now and vote for the candidate who genuinely shares their values, their desire for a better world.

Howard Dean, the new Chairman of the Democratic Party, stated ``People will vote for Democratic candidates in Texas and Utah and West Virginia if we knock on their door, introduce ourselves and tell them what we believe.” This statement must make the Republicans ecstatic. If the special interests continue to define what the Democratic Party believes, Dean’s strategy of telling the voters what the Democrats believe will continue to drive middle America to the waiting arms of the Republican Party.

Originally published 2-05 LDN