Calling Mr. Albert Gore. Calling Mr. Wesley Clark. For all practical purposes, you now have less than two months to get into the Presidential race and probably less than one month to make the decision and start the serious planning. You two need to talk, soon.
You need to talk because someone has to step up to the plate and start addressing the big issues that are near and dear to both of your hearts in a way that establishes those issues as the Democratic Party's issues, and it's probably going to have to be one of you. Someone has to step up and start leading the Democratic Party now, because it's rudderless and demoralized and its current crop of Presidential candidates are not exerting strong leadership. Instead they're trying to appease the Beltway consensus about what's possible in the next 16 months and only promising what they'll do (mostly in policy wonk terms) after being elected. In 2009, or even later (one has talked about putting off a particularly crucial issue to a "second term").
You need to talk because someone has to rally the Democratic Party now, including the Democratic Congress, to unite on the following issues, your issues:
- War and National Security
- The Bush Administration has failed us from 9/11 to the current Iraq quagmire--they cannot be allowed to make any further decisions about large scale military actions for the remainder of Bush's term.
- Any military action against Iran by Bush must be strictly forbidden now, and any future action must be explicitly authorized by Congress with a limited, defensive scope only. No exceptions.
- Get all US troops home from Iraq within six months, with no bases left behind staffed by our military or by private contractors paid with our tax dollars. No more money for continued war, only for orderly withdrawal.
- No nuclear first strike by the US against a non-nuclear armed power must ever be allowed. Period.
- The Constitution
- The Bush Administration has demonstrated they can't be trusted with power--they will lie and compromise national security for partisan advantage. Every concession previously made to them on FISA, Posse Comitatus, Habeas Corpus, and privacy rights must be reversed. The message should be: you can protect us against terrorism without destroying the Constitution, and if you fail to do so we will hold you accountable. No more excuses.
- Torture is morally wrong. Period. No more Republican "situational ethics" or "moral relativism" on this one.
- Revive the message of the founding fathers against the dictatorial Presidency being demanded by Cheney and Bush--we have a long patriotic heritage of opposition to tyrants that underlies the separation of powers and the protections of the rights of unpopular minorities--draw upon that heritage!
- The Looting of Our Economy
- End outsourcing of decent paying jobs for Americans to countries that pay their workers dirt and treat them like dirt. End importing of poisoned food and toys. We need to move rapidly to Fair Trade with safeguards for workers' rights (including the right to unionize), product safety testing and environmental protection.
- Revive the economy by promoting new domestic industries and technologies to meet the demands for clean energy and freedom from dependence on imported fossil fuels. And part of that is ending the unfair subsidies to inefficient and polluting industries.
- Implement "Medicare For All" because it's both our moral obligation to our citizens and it makes our businesses able to be more competitive by taking a huge burden off their shoulders.
- Tax big corporations and the super-rich at the level they were taxed under President Eisenhower, and eliminate their ability to hide money in offshore banks and tax havens. A simple graph should show the story that the lower their taxes have gone, the worse things have gotten for ordinary people in this country.
None of the Democratic candidates now running is narrowing the focus to these critical issues and effectively leading others in the Democratic Party to a unified position on these issues. In particular, no one seems to be able to use the bully pulpit of Presidential candidacy to lead the members of the Democratic Congress out of their malaise and timidity. Someone has to get it through their thick skulls: if Bush vetoes a good bill, don't pass a bad bill to appease him. Remember the physician's pledge: first, do no harm--to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, to the working people of America and their families, to innocent civilians in foreign lands.
If you cannot between you find one of the current candidates who will take to heart the need to bring the party together around these issues, and who will refuse to let the media refocus on distractions and wedge issues, then, please, one of you, get into the Presidential race and provide the leadership we need, with the full backing of whichever of you does not run.
If you can convince one of the current candidates to stand up and be our standard bearer and would both prefer to support that person, then do so and give that person your full public backing. And forcefully raise these issues to the forefront so other Democrats will be unable to duck them and unable to continue acting as if the Democratic Party can do nothing about the direction of our nation between now and January 2009. The party is on a losing course now, although it seems not to realize it. Only by pulling together around a platform of vital real issues and preventing any further crimes and treasons by Bush and his cohorts can the Democrats stand as a credible opposition that Americans will want to entrust with our country's future.