Jerome at MyDD has a post on CBS Framing and Democratic Brand ad for Dean
He says, among other things:
If you feel slightly amazed that you now find yourself standing on the far left wing of your own party, alongside 80-90% of the rest of the Democratic Party, in opposition to the unilateral occupation in Iraq, and to government intrusion of a woman's body (otherwise framed as "antiwar and pro-abortion"), join the club.
The issue for years has been that the liberals on the coasts have taken over the party. I have no numbers, but I would daresay that moderates far outnumber liberals in the Party, they just don't have the clout in the leadership or media.
Moderate Democrats are progressive, just not liberal. The mistake liberals make is in labeling. It is true that more people than not are pro-choice, but they are pro-choice for VERY different reasons. The content of the pro-choice value is not uniform. Liberals are pro-choice for the most part because of militant women's rights strain. Most people are pro-choice because of compassion. They hate abortion, are ashamed of it, but understand that we gotta have it.
I'm sure that if we considered many other positions that Democrats seem to jointly hold, we'd see that labels liberals and moderates use may be similar, but intent and content of terms or phrases differ significantly.
If you look at the Black community, the reason why republicans are not getting more Blacks is because of the historical context of overt racism and civil rights. However, all things being equal, Blacks resonate quite well with a lot of conservative values and could find their place in the Republican party.
The only reason why the Democratic Party has the Black community in its pocket is not because Blacks are liberal, it is because the Party put its neck on the line for Black civil rights and the Black community has not forgotten that. If the Republicans made serious attempts to beef up their civil rights creds, there is no doubt that they could easily slice of chunks of the Black community. My point is that the Black community, which is the most reliable base in the Democratic Party is not a liberal community.
If you dice up coalitions in the Democratic Party, Blacks, Latinos, Unions, Women, the hook is not liberalism, it is more political convenience. Think about it, with Unions, the ONLY reason for the coaltion is that our party fights for worker's rights and that's it. I don't know if there are stats or ways to measure it, but I'm sure a majority or close of union members are probably moderate or conservative. Their presence in the Party is not because of liberal values.
On war issues, I would hardly describe the Democratic Party as "anti-war." We may be more circumspect about war, more respectful of allies, and pro-peace, but more of the party than not, is just fine with war when necessary. In fact, if you all recall, during the primaries, when Dean was riding high in the polls, a poll was done about what candidate Democrats wanted. The polls showed that the majority of Democrats wanted a candidate who supported the iraq war, but would've executed differently. I think overall, it is safe to say that Democrats are not an anti-war party. Liberals are out-numbered on the war stance of the party.
I think it would be a mistake to try to frame the Democratic party as a party of liberals, because moderates then feel forced to leave or become inactive. I see literally dozens and dozens of these inactives, who are pro-life Catholics. Many have complained to me that they were chased out by liberals, which is true. The Democratic party was not quite so kind to pro-lifers in the 70s and 80s and even the 90s. I assure them that it is a different environment now and we are not the borg--there is no collective mind, individual distinctiveness is not assimilated into the collective and there are no standing orders to comply with the borg queen. The Party may have a platform that embraces the pro-choice position, but I think Kerry made it clear that "pro-lifers" are welcome too.
My take on what's been going on in lib blogsphere is that the left has felt marginalized in the past four years and is trying to re-assert itself. Also, the left frequently gets blamed for everything bad that happens to the party, so I think the left is lashing back. Fair enough. But the problem is that the left is disproportionately represented among party and media (including blog) powers that be. The left has to be careful speak its own voice but be strategic and not dominating. Liberals will NEVER win anything significant without moderates.
I think the proper Party frame should be more along the lines that Democrats believe in people, we believe in the goodness of people, we believe that with help, from gov't and communities, people can rise and live the promise of the American dream. It seems that the bedrock of the Democratic party is in "being my brother's keeper." That, in itself is the heart of progressiveness--"corporate" or "communal" responsibility. We fight for the environment because we are not simply out for our individual gain: we fight for civil rights because if you are not free we are not all free.
I just feel there has to be a little more parsing out of the terms, i.e, liberal is not synonymous with progressive, and moderates and conservatives can also be progressive. The Democratic Party should not be framed as the liberal party, but as a coalition of progressives because more Democrats than not are moderate.
We're all fighting for the soul of the party and I worry that the moderates are presently taking it on the chin. The key word for Democrats has to be "coalition," and not "uniformity." IMVHO