What Democrats Should Be Saying

The Democrats seem content sitting on the sidelines and continuing to let the Republicans implode. This is a poor strategy. This week's 'revolt' by key Republicans against the President's torture policy threatens to undermine the important point that a GOP Congress acts solely as a rubberstamp to the President's radical agenda. The Democrats need to stop playing defense and take the offense, regardless of what their worthless pollsters tell them. They also need to stop waiting for the lapdog media to start covering their campaigns (sorry, Nancy, saying pretty please won't help) and start aggressively pushing their agenda into the spotlight, but not in the flashcard Chuck Schumer way.

In this campaign, they need to do several things: make clear the numerous failures of the President and his party and demand accountability for them, clearly outline the ways in which a Democratic congress will be different, and finally outline their approach to the top political issue in the campaign- national security.

What Democrats should be saying over and over again is this:

We all understand the terrorist threat and want to eradicate it as best we can, but what Bush's critics want is to do it right. We believe that the President and his Congress have exaggerated the 'war on terror' into a cartoon battle and have thus lost focus on what is really the issue. We believe that counterrorism means real security and policework, not scaring the American people into supporting you. We believe the President has prosecuted these counterterrorism efforts wrongly and we want to hold him accountable for his failures.

We believe that the President was wrong at the start of the war in 2001 to prosecute it on the cheap and ask no domestic sacrifices of the American people (ie. maybe a moderate tax increase to pay for the war rather than shortsighted deficit spending, a serious effort to end our dependence on the oil that funds terrorism, etc). We don't believe he was right to fumble the Tora Bora assault in late 2001, allowing bin Laden to escape. We don't believe the President was right to take his eyes off the worthwhile fight in Afghanistan to start planning an unnecessary, preemptive war against the marginalized Iraq. We don't believe it was then right to proceed with that war without a plan. We don't believe it is right to continue to stay a failed course in Iraq, as our resources are better needed elsewhere.

We believe that using the continuing fight against terrorism to justify illegal torture and murder, kidnappings, illegal prison camps, illegal/warrantless spying on American citizens, restricting free speech and press, and a general increase in presidential power shows a unserious approach, as well as a lack of respect for the democracy and the 'freedoms' our soldiers are supposedly fighting and dying for.

We don't believe that it was right for the President to tell the rest of the world that they exist solely to serve our needs. And we don't believe that it was right for the President to use the 90%+ support we all gave him after 9/11 to divide the American people for the continued political benefit of himself and his party.

We believe that the President's radical actions have made us less safe... and less free here at home.

We want to win this struggle, but we believe that the President and his party are a detriment to that effort.

We also believe that exaggerating the threats that we face, and making our counterterrorism efforts the sole priority of our nation, is not a responsible way to govern. Hurricane Katrina reminded us that our domestic priorities have been immensely neglected as the President pursued his crusade. We believe that is possible to keep our eye on the terrorist ball, while also understanding that we have a committment to the American people to provide for them reliable and affordable healthcare, real jobs, a reliable public infrastructure, a balanced budget, a healthy environment, an education system that works, open and honest government, and a guarantee that the American way of life will not be sacrificed under the guise of protecting it.

We believe that the time for accountability and change has come. On November 7th- your choice is clear. If you want more of the same, vote Republican. If you've had enough, vote Democratic.

[Related reading: Election Endgame: Enough Already (TPMcafe)]