> At the risk of seeming simplistic, I tend to agree w/Woj. I see this
> everyday -- a pocket of liberalism in Ann Arbor surrounded by deer
> huntin',
> truck drivin', rifle totin', white nativists who plaster their yards &
> rigs
> with the biggest "patriotic" displays they can afford, and who cling
> to the
> likes of Bush 'cause he speaks right to them, their fears and their
> fantasies of who they imagine themselves to be. ('Course, there's the
> GOP-hating ultra-right with their US Out Of The UN bumperstickers,
> etc, but
> that's another crowd entirely.) I still think that Bush will win,
> perhaps
> narrowly, simply because he and Cheney play directly to the basest
> fears of
> average Americans, lie shamelessly, and strike heroic poses with 847
> Old
> Glories whipping in the breeze behind them. Kerry can't compete on this
> front.
If this is so, the Dems have nothing to lose (since they're losing anyway) by doing something completely different, and striking out in a class-struggle-fighting direction. It might take a while, but they might eventually attract the interest of the deer huntin', truck drivin', etc., folks.
The right-wing Republicans, in the mid 60s, saw themselves in a party dominated by the "Eastern establishment," and worked persistently to take it over, as a result of which they are enjoying marked electoral success. Why not do the same thing in the Democratic Party?
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ A gentleman haranguing on the perfection of our law, and that it was equally open to the poor and the rich, was answered by another, 'So is the London Tavern.' -- "Tom Paine's Jests..." (1794); also attr. to John Horne Tooke (1736-1812) by Hazlitt