HB COLD

So to the best of my ability I will try to explain what is happening in American politics the way I see it. And the way I see it is simple, the Republican Party has mastered a form of misdirection politics that the Democrats either cannot or refuse to accomplish.

This misdirection consists of creating a package of wedge issues that appeal to "moral based voters", which includes the 4 G's: God, Guns, Gays & Grizzlies (Meaning that the Dem's care more about protecting Grizzlies i.g. the environment, than protecting jobs). These core "value" issues are sold to Middle America the South and the evangelicals - whose passion for these issues, fueled on by religion, compels them to actively participate in politics. In this particular election, nothing fired up this base of wedge voters more than the third G - Gays, specifically Gay marriage. This was a genius play by Rove and company to accomplish just what they wanted to accomplish after the 2000 election, getting an additional 4 million evangelicals out to the polls. Not to be too simple about it, but look at the popular vote, Bush wins by 3.5 million. Take away those 4 million more evangelicals and he loses by 500K, just like in 2000. Mission accomplished.

The massive irony of appealing to this base, which is generally composed of lower-class, rural and poor people, is that these same people are voting against their best interests economically. Another skillful move by the GOP to get people to forget about the wallets when going to the polls. The people who are consumed with the wedge issues, in essence are voting for tax-breaks for the wealthy; are voting to send their own sons and daughters off to a war in Iraq and are voting to continue their inability to find themselves with an opportunity to have an opportunity. When I stop to think about the skill involved, the dedication to craft a message this effectively and for decades it is simply stunning.

Where do the Democrats go from here? First, they need to adopt the term Progressive and rid themselves of the word Liberal - it is too tainted, going back to the outing of Nixon by the liberal media and continuing to this day as a four letter word. Some say that they need to tap into the Midwest, Southern, Bible Belt values crowd and they are right, but how? The Dem's need to create a 4 G's package of their own, but they also need to heed the moral concerns of the wedge issue voters. They obviously cannot switch to Pro-Life, Anti-Gay, Pro-Gun, Anti-Environment, but they need to do more than criticize the Republican way of doing business and offer something more than this. They need to somehow stress: Security, Education, Healthcare and Hope, and what's that spell? HESH, ESHH, SHHE, SEHH? 4 G's works a lot better.

Other than that, people are dumb.