redblueamerica.com

Thank you for taking the time. I'm enjoying this (I'm such a sucker for these conversations).

I'm going to be at something called a RootsCamp all day tomorrow (an unconference for bloggers and advocates and, I have to admit, a lot of progressive activists, I'm usually the least left in the room) so I apologize for not giving your two comments full consideration (as full as I might give otherwise).

OK:

1. No offense taken but thanks for clarifying.

2. I agree with you here: setting out what you will not do isn't much of a plan. However, on the third hand, given the lack of trust I think a lot of Americans have about what people in power will or won't do, I don't think it's overemphasizing to say, We promise we will not do "x." As a lawyer, I can tell you, sometimes it really is smart to spell it out - and then you're going to be held to that, you know? Or be beaten with it if you break it (think Newt Gingrich and that old Contract with America thingy!? sarcasm there).

3. Forums like RedBlue and the millions of blogs out here and even to some extent the shifts in journalism, I would say, evidence the push by news consumers to demand better - which I read as meaning less use of aphorisms. I think we hit the tipping point - who does't like a good short turn of phrase? But I do think people are wanting more and demanding more - don't you see that at some level whereever you are?

4. We agree more or less on the attacking thing if you are sticking with personal attacks: no, attacks on substance: yes. The personal attacks are only relevant to the extent that they impact the ability to govern. And that's a moving target, I agree but I think the candidates are our role models, yes? at some level? They should be setting the tone for discourse, especially if they are running for CIC, don't you think? Sometimes it seems so backwards, what we let leaders get away with.

5. Finally, thanks for clarifying what you are looking for in a platform. I thought that since my enumeration of platform-type topics led you to say that they really weren't much, and yet I feel that they are indeed starting points for figuring out where to go next (and of course require fleshing out with action steps), that maybe you were someone who preferred just:

Education: School Choice
War on Terror: More funding
Social Security: Personal accounts
Taxes: Decrease

That kind of very simple and in my view kind of static, not related to what's going on kind of thing.

Obviously I was wrong - easy to be in this one-dimensional forum.

Thanks for the reparte - I hope we both learned somethings!
Jill Miller Zimon
Writes Like She Talks

I wasn't aiming my comments at you, Jill, though it seemed that way (especially due to my terrible pronoun choice in my last line, where I intended to address "you"politicians, and not "you" Jill), so I'm sorry about that. I was just commenting upon what your comments made me think about, the deterioration of rhetoric, on all sides, certainly, but most glaring, for now, among the Democrats, and I'll return to that idea. I know you weren't trying to articulate the specifics of each candidate, but you were trying to say they "agree" on those important points. But they agree only inasmuch as they also agree with every single candidate from every party. Not just the frontrunners of the Democrats, and not just Democrats.

However, I think that noting the Dems' opposition platform sounds like a "canned criticism" has the veneer of truth, because it does get said a lot. But your observation doesn't diminish the truth of that canned statement: Repeating what you will not do, as a party, is not a plan. I know part of the problem is, as you wrote, the media through which we (I anyway) too often receive what I know of those plans.

But I think you'll agree that candidates long ago realized that most people don't care about the content, just the aphorism. "Change" or "No war" or "Throw the bums out" or other bumper-sticker-isms long ago replaced debate.

I for one want the teeth and claws out in the candidates. I am very tired of the whining about "personal attacks" especially when the attack is upon someone's record, funding habits, or shady criminal history. Just bring some evidence.

Okay, I've wandered well away from your topic. I'll try to keep future comments more focused.

I chuckled at this: "[. . .] goals shared by the Democratic front-runners (getting out of Iraq, re-establishing a positive global reputation for the US, keeping social security safe, reforming health care, improving education, addressing illegal immigration)"

Goals 1 and 2 can be read as "not being GW Bush", which, really, as a platform, is pretty sorry. These are goals that cannot have existed pre-GWB, and as goals, demonstrate a general weakness of the Democratic platform except as one of opposition. The remainder amount to "doing stuff about stuff" because they lack any sense of specificity or direction. They are goals shared not just by the Dem front-runners, but by, um, everyone.

Even goal #2 (global rep) fits this "indefinite vision", really, except that some assume a much more recent golden age when the world loved us and invited us over more often for pie, than others assume.

Do they endorse a more socialized model for health care or not? Then please say so. Do they endorse repealing No Child Left Behind, modifying, or giving it a more Dem friendly name and continuing to siphon the last vestiges of local control from schools and their towns? Just say so.

A little specificity is what's missing from ALL political blather (I'm not commenting on this blog post but rather the nature of politics, but particularly the weak, generic everyman-ism of stumping.) I might just vote for any candidate with the gumption (I was going to say cajones but didn't want to omit Edwards) to wear to the next televised debate that great t-shirt for sale here and there that reads "Go local sports team and/or college". Yep. Just acknowledge your vapid platitudes, please, that's all I ask.

And I think it's one of the more compelling arguments in her favor. She's already seen, firsthand, the first-year screwups that a rookie administration can make -- indeed, helped make them (Kimba Wood, cough) -- and would be less likely to repeat them.

That said, I mentioned on my blog the other problem: That it creates a narrowing of view.

Counter-analogy: It's as if the teacher had looped with one or two particular students. That wouldn't necessarily make the teacher a better teacher for the rest of the class, and might even damage his/her ability to understand and work well with the rest of the class.

Or something.

Anyway, glad to have you aboard, Jill!

Very insightful...I'm looking forward to reading more!