by Dean Hartwell
Sometime between now and Election Day 2004, the Democratic Party
will have to define itself and tell the voters why they, and not the
Republicans, ought to be elected. Here are some suggestions as to how
they can achieve this goal and win back the White House and Congress.
First, the party must remember its recent history. When
blacks in the South and elsewhere demanded their rights to vote, buy property
and send their children to integrated schools, the Democratic Party rose to the
challenge by passing laws and even sending the National Guard to enforce those
laws. Many Republicans, on the other hand, believed it was OK to refuse
to sell property to a black person.
When women demanded rights equal to men’s, the party led a
near-successful effort to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. The
Republicans, meanwhile, stopped putting the ERA in their platform in 1980, the
year it nominated Ronald Reagan for president. And more recently,
President Clinton enacted over GOP opposition the “don’t ask, don’t tell” rule,
allowing gays to serve in the military.
The current focus on rights has shifted to another area:
privacy. Thanks to President Bush’s Patriot Act, the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and other law enforcement agencies have extensive access to our
medical, financial, mental health and student records (Source: American
Civil Liberties Union, “Protect our Bill of Rights”). This law from the
party that constantly screams about the need for less government! Here,
the Democratic Party can seize the initiative and demand a repeal of the
Patriot Act and all similar laws in the name of privacy rights.
In other current events, the Bush Administration recently used
military force in
This inconsistency should beg the obvious question for the
Democrats: why do we support dictators to begin with? Democratic
President Jimmy Carter had it right when he said his Administration’s support
for a nation would depend upon its human rights record. His mistake was
not applying this credo to the Shah of Iran, later toppled by Muslim
extremists angry with the
Lastly, Bush’s reckless tax cuts and the ensuing budget deficits
hand the Democratic Party a golden opportunity to remind the voters about
fiscal responsibility. Under President Clinton, budget deficits from the
previous Republican presidents turned into large surpluses. Now Bush has
squandered these surpluses away thanks to huge tax cuts, the kind of which
Privacy…human rights…fiscal responsibility. These are
themes worth fighting for. It is time for the Democratic Party to start
fighting.