A contest

[lollardfish]

Your mission is to come up with a 2-4 word statement that should (not does) define the Democratic Party's message to the American people. You then need to have 3-5 bullet points that say what your message would do. Nothing can be longer than about one sentence. Only one of them can be negative (like, throw the current guys out!)

Examples:

The New Deal
- Job training
- Job creation through public works
- Social security/welfare net
- Reinvigorate the morale of the American worker/economy

The Great Society
- End racism
- End poverty
- Beat the Ruskies

Contract With America
- Throw out career politicians, replace with term-limited private citizens
- End big government
- Cut taxes
- Give people jobs, not welfare

-----------------------------------

So if you're a democrat (which I am, and I suspect most of my friends here are), what's our message going to be for 2006. I'm not convinced the actual politicians know, at least not in any nice three word phrase which the average voter will comprehend.

EDIT: I posted some amusing responses from (This red sox site)

Comments

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

"Liberty and Justice for ALL"
- American Citizens Vote
- Freedom from surveillance
- taxes pay for civilization

K.

[lollardfish.livejournal.com]

I sort of (I left party affiliation open) cross-posted this on a red sox board, and they are much more lively than you slackers. Of course, some are pretty sarcastic.

RKM:

The Fair Chance
- Reduce taxes on middle and lower class
- Raise taxes on top 1-2%
- Improve education and job training for new economy skills
- Remove the class divisiveness by making a larger middle class
- Kill whitey

DB:

-Investing in America's Future
-Tax deductible college tuition for middle class families
-Tax breaks for going into teaching in urban enviornments
-Rededication to public education
-More public monies to support things like libraries and museums.
-Subsidize baby knife fights

TL:

The Great Leap Backward

•Fewer Public Schools
•More Religion in the schools that remain
•Desctruction of all Government programs that benefit middle income earners
•Dismantling of high-tech science based economy in favor of antiquated military economy
•Military intervention into domestic health-crisis.
•Scorched Earth Environmental policy
•Further Privatization of Land Rights, Water Rights, and eventually Air Rights
•Replace diverse media monopolies with government controlled crony media companies that disseminate fluff news and State Propoganda
•Increase War on Marijuana at the user level, cut back on CDC funding.

ER:

-Manifest Destiny
-Explore new worlds
-Encounter new people
-Destroy them

ED:


The New Meritocracy:

- Hiring the most qualified candidate for important positions, not just that guy back at "Yale" who helped you move the dead stripper's body that one time who you owe a favor to
- Recommending someone with an actual extensive background in law for important positions which require said skills. For example, the Supreme Court.
-If we're going to give friends political positions, they're going to be things such as "Embassador to French Guiana"
(all three of those are based on my belief that a President's stupidity, intelligence, people skills, etc, have very little do do with his success. Rather his ability to surround himself with the right people and to put people in the right places is the most important thing a President can do. Bush fails at this more than anything else)
-Give benefits to companies who decide to keep factory and production operations within the continental United States (solves a lot of the problems associated with a service economy as opposed to a production economy)

And my favorites ...

DB again -


Monkey Overlords
-Estabish Monkeyocracy.
-Appoint Monkeys to important positions in the government
-Elect Monkey president
-Opress apes

ROSU

Owl Overlords
-Rip off all the Monkeys ideas
-Discredit said Monkeys
-Blame Monkeys of being anti-patriotic
-Old Man Threesomes

I'm not all that great at this...

[sidhebear.livejournal.com]

Statement - American Democracy

-- Byline - It's time for the people's influence to matter

-- Prez Rickard - volunteer politicians only (you can live on state welfare, just

like some of the people who elected you)

-- Have fun in India - No more corporate tax benefits.

-- Welcome to America - Tarriffs against outsourcing and shipping in, to channel

economic resources into local production points. No NAFTA, no CAFTA.

-- Plant a garden - education on what can be grown and sold in certain climates to

decrease farm subsidies.

That's all I get, but I have more.

As a party, we're failing on a social, intellectual, and spiritual level to those

who know how to speak up louder than our spirits generally allow us.

It's time to gain some charisma that will cross political lines.

I just wonder if we can do it in unison.

[sidhebear.livejournal.com]

I could go into a lot more about this, but the problem I have with it is that we're all calling each other names and nitpicking on some ultimately stupid points at the moment.

The republicans learned one lesson, and they learned it really well.

Marketing.

It's pretty prevalent and obvious every time I turn around, but one thing sticks out.

These guys are craftier than I am.
They don't care about anyone or anything.

Every single fiber of their being is devoted to being first and best.
It's going to continue to be that way until we start looking like a pregnant hedgehog who's been threatened.