<DIV>I agree with Luke. Must be a first. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Hey Luke, apropos of an earlier discussion on marketing, I guess you think that being GOP Lite is a good strategy for the Dems? My friend says that you dilute your brand identity too much, nobody knows who you are, including you, btw, and going directly for maximizing market share by being all things to all people is a good way to lose your customer base. She thinks a strong base of loyal customers serves you well in part by reducing ad costs; not only don't you have to advertise to them, but they do the best of advertising (word of mouth) for you for free.  She wasn't applying this directly to politics except at my instance; I had said the GOP had done just this in its years in the wilderness, and I thought that it would hep the DEms. I said eg that if Clinton had got us single payer, Gore would have won in a landslide and the GOP would be SOL. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Your problem, Luke, and the DLC's, and lots of mainstream Dems', is that y'all really think that you have minority, unpopular positions that will never sell, that are too far left, and all we can do is hold them in our hearts while we hold our nose and act like Bush I. That is wrong. Demonstrably wrong. Every poll and study of which I am aware going back 50 years, and continuing up to now, shows strong majority support for New Deal/Great Society programs, especially if they are not aimed merely at specific disfavored groups. Universal programs would sell (and have sold) like hotcakes. The Dems should come out swinging. We are for universal health care!  We are for free higher education! We are for a 35 hr workweek! We are for union organizing rights for all employees! Soak the rich to pay for this stuff! </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>But theyw on't do this, they will continue to run right, and lose, and by the time they win again, they will be where the GOP is now, and the GOP will be organizing torchlight rallies with brownshirts. Don't say i didn't tell you so,</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>jks<BR><BR><B><I>Luke Weiger <lweiger@umich.edu></I></B> wrote:</DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid"><BR>----- Original Message -----<BR>From: "Alan Jacobson" <ALANJACOBSON@SBCGLOBAL.NET><BR>To: <LBO-TALK@LBO-TALK.ORG><BR>Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2003 2:34 PM<BR>Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Guardian Retracts Wolfowitz Oil Story<BR><BR><BR>> Imagine the amount of behind the scenes ball-busting<BR>> that must have taken place to cause this to happen!<BR>><BR>> Alan J<BR><BR>It's pretty clear that the article writer grossly ripped his words out of<BR>context, isn't it?<BR><BR>-- Luke<BR><BR>___________________________________<BR>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk</BLOCKQUOTE><p><hr SIZE=1> Do you Yahoo!?<br> Free <a href="http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail_us/tag/*http://calendar.yahoo.com">online calendar</a> with sync to Outlook(TM).