Not that I want them to. But I am amazed at the left’s stupidity. Why they need to anchor their image to the vapid Hollywood and libertine types is beyond me. Their basic thrust should be some kind of mildly populist, redistributionist, soft-socialist but culturally conservative platform. The democrats could slough off the unnecessary negatives, and win big, by adopting something along the following:
1. Fiscal conservativism: namely, balanced budget. This could be done by —
2. increasing revenue (raising taxes a bit), and simplifying the tax code (exempt everyone making less than $50K a year), and
3. Cutting some costs–namely, cut the military in half, bring the troops home, and stop intervening.
4. Repeal Roe v. Wade, and favor decentralism. You can still oppose laws banning abortion on a state level. It’s unlikely every state would ban it, so worst case, a pregnant Louisiana girl could go to California for an abortion. They should strongly support adoption. These two moves would help them a lot with their natural, conservative, blue-collar base.
5. Universal health care for all: keep a private system, but give medical vouchers sufficient to pay for the deductive and high-deductible catastrophic insurance premium.
6. Social Security declared what it is: welfare. Change the system where everyone is guaranteed a certain minimum welfare check past age 70 (i.e., means-test it); then require 10% of every paycheck be saved by the employee in an employee-owned 401k type account.
Not that these would be good things, but they could help them get more votes.
3:50 pm on December 30, 2004
