{"id":761,"date":"2005-04-05T15:46:42","date_gmt":"2005-04-05T15:46:42","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2006-09-28T12:09:05","modified_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:09:05","slug":"a_democrat_to_w","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=761","title":{"rendered":"A Democrat To Watch – Gov. Phil Bredesen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen has gotten a lot of press (and some blog coverage) for his interview in the London Times<\/a> in which he complains about the rush to coronate Hillary Clinton as the presumptive Democratic candidate. Note that at this point in the cycle, I think three things about Senator Clinton: <\/p>\n

# She’d probably make a pretty good President in all areas but one;
\n# She’s arguably one of the most polarizing and divisive figures in national politics today and her nomination would be a train wreck for the Democratic Party;
\n# I’d pay money to see a Hillary – Condi election, or at least the debates. <\/p>\n

The one issue where she’d fall down as President comes directly from the divisiveness of her persona (used to mean the public projection of who she is); the President’s job is to bridge the gaps (yes, Bush has done a horrible job as well) and forge a national consensus.<\/p>\n

But Bredesen said a few other things worthy of note (tip to Instapundit<\/a> for noting them first):<\/p>\n

Bredesen, a former mayor of Nashville, believes his party has \u201csomehow gotten itself divorced\u201d from the blue-collar constituency it has always relied on for presidential success: \u201cI’ve always felt the Democratic party was a kind of alliance between the academics and intellectuals and working-class men and women. I think what happened is that in my lifetime, the academics won.\u201d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As a result, the governor said, the party had lost its broad appeal. He mocked other Democratic candidates who think connecting with middle America means quoting a few verses from the Bible or being photographed with guns. <\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s the key – the class and cultural bond that once tied the academics to the working class. This was rooted in the fact that the financial engine for the Party was the labor unions. Once they were supplanted by Hollywood and the media business – as labor unions declined in membership, as Hollywood unleashed the power of celebrity in politics – they were cut adrift from those roots, and what had been an alliance became a rhetorical device.<\/p>\n

The Democrats\u2019 problem, Bredesen believes, has little to do with bullets or the Bible. \u201cThe point I’m trying to make is that you’ve got to stand up for some clear things,\u201d he said. He is tired of listening to members of his party attempting to appeal to both pro-gun and anti-gun voters: \u201cWhen you do that, you’re left with nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nIn a recent speech to southern Democrats in Atlanta, Bredesen summed up the Republican party platform as follows: \u201cA traditional view of family, no abortion, no gay marriage, a central role for faith, gun over the mantel, low taxes, an assertive and combative view of American interests abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nHe then challenged his colleagues to sum up the Democratic party in less than 30 words. Nobody could oblige. Asked what his 30 words would be, he replied: \u201cI don’t have any yet. I’d be delighted to tell you if I did.\u201d He may be waiting until after his re-election to unveil his national vision. <\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Right on. I’ll be watching Gov. Breseden with a lot of interest.<\/p>\n

I’ve said in the past that if the Democratic Party stands for one thing, it should stand for balancing the tables to create fairness between the powerful and powerless. And that in pursuing the Skybox politics of Lakoffian self-fulfillment (laws that don’t do much, but make the legislators and their supporters feel better about themselves), they are acting fundamentally immorally, because they are failing to protect those who progressives ought to exist in order to serve. The Democratic Party has a moral obligation to both stand for something, and to do so in an effective way. All the consultants and elected officials who make a damn good living from the Party seem to forget that pretty frequently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Democratic Gov. Bredesen, a former mayor of Nashville, believes his party has \u201csomehow gotten itself divorced\u201d from the blue-collar constituency it has always relied on for presidential success…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}