A Message on the Message

With Jay Inslee leading the charge toward cleaner energy through the Apollo Energy Project (http://theleftshue.blogspot.com/2006/01/president-gore-speaks.html), one of the five major Democratic Party themes for 2006 is being addressed. Thanks to Jack Abramoff, Congressional Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, are moving on a second theme: Clean Government. Yesterday, January 18th, the Democrats from the House and Senate announced the "Democratic Declaration of Honest Leadership and Open Government." from the Great Hall in the Library of Congress.

In making this announcement, the Democrats took a good step forward. Over the past five years, the "leadership" of the Democratic Party has been guilty of merely complaining about the bad stuff the republicans have been doing without coming forward with any positive plans to change things. While it is true that it is harder for an opposition party (I refuse to believe we are the minority party) to actually produce the changes they promote, it seems that the Democrats have simply stopped trying. Enter Howard Dean as DNC Chair......

With Howard Dean criss-crossing the country talking to the various state and regional party activists, the message that he has been able to deliver to the "beltway Democrats" is that we want to move forward and that the "just say no" approach is not selling in the precincts. We would never have gotten here with Terry McCauliffe and the rest of the Madison Avenue crowd in charge. Of course we still need specifics to talk about but it is good to see the party starting to come together around a positive message.

There are still three more parts to the puzzle Howard Dean talked about in November; Education Reform, Universal Healthcare, and perhaps the one that will truly define the Democratic Party in 2006, a real and ethical foreign policy (Beginning with withdrawal from Iraq). With the recent news of the (well predicted) debacle that is the republican "Medicare Deformed" Program, the conversation should start heating up again around the healthcare mess. Stay tuned..........

Peace,

Chad (The Left) Shue