This is a make or break year for the United States. Will we as a country turn away from the mistakes of the recent past and set a new course? The easy way to tell is to watch who we pick for the Democratic presidential candidate. Will we nominate a liberal for the top of the ticket?
My assertion is simple: This is the litmus test that will determine whether the country truly will make a turn in a new direction or not. That’s why I’m looking for a candidate with the moxie to stand up to the microphone and say to the world:
I am a liberal.
I said as much in response to Chuck Schumer’s diary 2008 Senate Recruiting:
I Only Have One Criterion
The candidate must state unequivocally to the public that he or she is a liberal (or a "progressive", which will do just as well).
What we need from Democratic leaders is to get over their fear of conservatives. That's why I've made my personal litmus test the "I am a liberal" pledge. Get me liberal candidates and I will vote for them.
That, of course, includes candidates of the presidential kind, not just congressional candidates. Unless they are willing to go on record as being a liberal they don't deserve the nomination.
Why is this critical? Why is this the bright line that separates the worthy from the worthless? Because we need leaders in our party to stop being, in fact, afraid of being labeled liberals. Until they do that, every Democratic candidate, the thousands that run every election cycle, are running on a playing field sharply slanted against them.
So, get me liberals. I'll vote for liberals. Don't bother trying middle-of-the-roaders or centrists on me, I won't bite. They don't get my money. They don't get my time. They won't even, in most cases, get my vote.
Did I make this clear? Let me reiterate, just in case.
Run liberal candidates.
You should have heard the whining and wailing! You’d have thought I’d hit a nerve!
Maybe I did.
The first objection is that this will lose Democrats a long list of states. While this isn’t true, it’s certainly what the Republicans would have you believe. They’ve been working the media for years to convince the public that there are red states and blue states, and you just can’t win the presidency if you don’t cater to the red ones.
But the reverse logic is just as compelling. If it’s true that Democrats can’t win without catering to conservatives in red states, then it is equally true that Republicans can’t win without catering to liberals in blue states. That’s why you see Republican candidates moderating their stands on things like the minimum wage and gay rights in order to win the White House. You do see that, right? You do? You do?
No, not judging by any election in the past forty years. Nixon, Reagan, Bush, not a one of them moderated anything and they didn’t hide the fact that they were (sometimes flaming) conservatives when they stood for office.
The second objection is that "liberal" doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. To quote a responder:
The Rethugs have made it a dirty word since 1969.
Would the simple announcement that a Democratic candidate is a liberal hurt that candidate? Would everyone simply believe the "Rethugs" that being a liberal is somehow dirty? Would the opposition suddenly come out of the woodwork to shake their fingers at the voters and tell them, "Now, now, now. You can’t vote for one of those people."
Of course they would. They’re going to do it anyway. But it’s not as if conservatives, and their servants the right-wing media and the Republican Party, are going to refrain from implying, with all the haughtiness they can muster, that this is a bad thing. They already have the brochures printed, I would wager. In the past, candidates hid under the bed whenever someone like Reagan called them "liberal."
Look, our candidates are missing the greatest opportunity they’ve ever had. Why? Because the candidate that tells the world they are a liberal has the podium to tell the world what it means. Here’s an example:
If by "Liberal" they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of "Liberal." But if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."
These are the words of John F. Kennedy in 1960, accepting the nomination of the New York Liberal Party. (See Turn Left.)
Anyone who claims that liberals cannot be elected President, that you can’t get enough red states to win, is simply wrong based on the facts.
They don’t have to crib from Kennedy, I’ll give them a speech they can use right here:
I am a liberal. I believe deeply that liberal policy must be made strong in America again. For many years we have been hearing the drumbeat of conservative ideology, deepening our righteousness and our sense of honor. Perhaps this redressed an imbalance that we felt in our political sphere. Maybe we forgot for a time some shared values that lent greatness to our culture.
The last two decades have seen the ascendancy of conservative, neo-conservative, and even ultra-conservative ideas. The conservative political philosophy contains many truths and we as a country have come to appreciate them.
Individualism. Hard work. Private enterprise. Free markets. Community. Family. Belief in a higher power. Patriotism.
We appreciate our conservative heritage. It has given us great things. But there is a reason why there are two ends to the political spectrum. Both have something to give. We cannot go on hearing only one side to this great story. There is more to a whole society than just one lifestyle or political philosophy. Ours is a rich culture, composed from many sources, built on the labors of many men and women. We are the children of diversity, heirs to a great wealth of traditions. We cannot ignore any one part of this heritage.
We have to bring balance back to our political philosophy. Like the conservative perspective, liberalism also holds great truths.
Freedom of thought and speech. Equality under the law. Presumption of innocence. Freedom of association. Tolerance of diversity. Equality of opportunity. Freedom from unfair economic influence. Respect for the individual. The right to travel and assemble. Freedom from military rule. The right to representation in government. Privacy. Fairness. Mercy.
In short, liberalism contains all the benefits of liberty. Liberalism is what puts the meaning in a life that would otherwise only consist of duty, drudgery and death. Far from being an evil subversion of the American dream, liberalism is the American Way. Liberals know the meaning of joie de vivre and savoir fare, and we are not afraid to use those words.
Liberalism encompasses a great love. This is the love that goes beyond immediacy and selfish interest to see the beauty of others and lift them up. It is the love of others and the love of life. All of our greatest teachers, including our greatest religious teachers, have brought us this message: that love goes beyond the law. In our laws we need to give love where our base instincts would withhold it.
I have no shame about being liberal. It is a mark of distinction. It means I have taken a stand on what I believe is right. It means I value love above all things and that I call on you to be a giver in this society.
And I will not suffer for it. I know what it means to be a liberal. It means to look a little harder for the other guy's point of view. It means having mercy when the chill wind of revenge passes through. It means having a heart for those in need. It means caring for others because they are human and because they deserve it and because it is right, not just to benefit myself in some way.
Anyone who knows what it means to be a liberal has no fear of walking out on the political stage in front of the whole country, in front of the whole world. Because every farm and every town and every city and every metropolis in this state in this country in this world is filled with liberals just like me, the people who really care, the people who really want to live, the people who really want this world to be a better place and are willing to work for it.
And finally, a liberal is not some shrinking coward who would sell his country for a gold coin. A liberal is a patriot. A liberal is someone who goes when called and serves when called. A liberal is someone who serves on a jury because they are proud of their country. A liberal is someone who goes to the ballot box because it gives them a way to express their freedom. A liberal is someone who reads the papers and watches the news and speaks out on the issues. A liberal is proud to be a citizen. And a liberal is someone who knows their country's history.
They know that we were born a liberal nation and we remain a liberal nation. And we have come to this time and this place a liberal light to the world.
(How to Run as a Liberal, Sat 13 Nov 2004.)
Candidates! You can use this speech for free. I’m donating it any candidate who has the courage to use it.
But this is a lot of words to get across a simple point. That point is that we need not be afraid to be liberals even in the most redneck of the red states in the union. Being liberal comes down to a very simple concept: Which do you care more about—people or money? If you care more about people than money, then you are a liberal. If you care more about money and the things that represent it—dollars, gold, land, stocks and bonds—then you are a conservative.
Hence, the poll question, "Do you care more about people or about money?"
It is, in fact, not a risk for a candidate to come out as a liberal. I believe this because in this election cycle whoever gets the Democratic nomination will be President. The Republicans have no hope of keeping the White House in 2008. George W. Bush blew it for them and we all know why. It doesn’t matter who the Democrats run. We could run any minority candidate we want, and unlike the past that person would actually have a reasonably fair chance. (About time, isn’t it?) We could even run Dennis Kucinich and he would be the next POTUS. Heck, we could run you or we could run me. We could run Barney (the dog, not the dinosaur) and Barney would be the next President. (He may have a better chance than most humans because, like the very best of candidates, we can project anything on him we want, and he isn’t going to disillusion us by opening his yap at the wrong time.)
There is, in fact, no downside at all to anyone in the Democratic Party running as a liberal. If any other minority candidate can get into this office, so can a liberal. If we put them at the top of the ticket. And what it would mean is that people would get over this nonsense that liberals are unelectable. This right-wing meme would go the way of the dodo.
What happens if we don’t? What happens if we just put up our standard centrist or big-tent politician? Won’t we win anyway?
Yes, indeed, we are going to win in 2008. That part is as inevitable as anything in the future ever is. But will it matter? Will putting a Democrat in the White House matter if it happens not because the Democrats came to their senses and realized that, yes, deep down inside, they care more about people than money, and they elected a liberal, but because the Republicans screwed up so very badly that even a Democrat could get elected? The simple fact is that it won’t. It won’t matter because as soon as Democrats have corrected the most egregious problems Bush and cronies have created, the public will toss them out and put Republicans back in.
They will do that because nothing will have fundamentally changed. People will still believe that conservatives have the right ideas and liberals are immoral louts. They will apply the dirty word to Democrats and kick them all out. They will claim that Bush was corrupt or Bush was stupid or Bush was influenced by bad people or whatever. They will make an excuse so that they can continue to believe in conservative political philosophy.
We have to make it clear. Bush followed that philosophy and that is why we had the disasters we had. He may have been dumb as a chimp, but that isn’t what caused the problems we’ve seen. He may have been corrupt, but if so it’s the natural result of holding money above people in your value system. He may have had bad advisors, but those bad advisors were hewing to the conservative belief system the whole way down. It’s time that conservatives faced the truth. Their philosophy, unalloyed with liberal values, leads inevitably to disaster. And we must make this plain because if we don’t, the people will soon forget.
The only long-term salvation for the Democratic Party is to stand and fight for the word, and everything it implies. We don’t have to trash conservatives to do it (see speech above), but we have to reclaim our rightful place as a part of the solution. If we don’t do that, then we will get exactly what we got out of the Bill Clinton years.
Nothing.
We didn’t change the dynamics, we just got someone brilliant elected. To make a Democratic victory last, we have to change what people believe about who has the moral high ground. We need to make it clear who owns that peak. We do. We liberals do. We liberal Democrats do. We will put a liberal at the top of the ticket so no one can miss the point.