Radical Georgia Moderate

I‘ve been throwing around the idea of writing a “Moderate Manifesto,” though I have yet to start it. There are a lot of people who, like me, wouldn’t necessarily call themselves “progressive” or “conservative” (two words that are practically meaningless now anyway, having been thoroughly bastardized by politicians, the media, etc.) who feel alienated by the political process. I’m going to use this post to brainstorm some disjointed thoughts about my personal goals for electoral politics and how they’d apply to writing such a document.

My long-term goal is to elect a government which provides checks and balances between opposing interests, ensuring that:

• Large groups of minorities have a voice that’s strong enough to keep slim majorities from imposing their will on the rest of the population
• Responsible budgets are passed
• Practical compromises are made, rather than knee-jerk solutions

The drift to the far left and far right by the two respective American political parties wasn’t unexpected, and is perfectly healthy as long as both parties are equally competent in promoting their goals. The problem we’ve got now is the Democratic Party has grown incompetent at promoting its agenda, while the Republican Party promotion machine has been growing stronger for almost 40 years.

That leads me to my short-term goal for Georgia and national politics: to help strengthen the Democratic Party. This is not because my “values” and goals are totally in line with theirs, but is in the interest of having a strong and competent voice of opposition to the majority party’s plans. The most difficult thing about being a conscience moderate is it means consistently siding with the interest struggling to get its message across, whether you agree with what it’s pushing or not.

Everyone has their own opinion about how to dig the Democratic Party from the trenches. Here are some of mine:

• Regardless of what the agenda is going to be, pick one, stick with it, and promote it consistently. It was not John Kerry’s so-called “liberal” voting record that destroyed his presidential election campaign, but rather perceived inconsistencies in that record and in his statements. Those perceived inconsistencies created uncertainty about his principles. Bush also had many inconsistencies in the execution of his goals, but people believed he had a consistent set of principles he used to determine what those goals were.
• Quit assuming people who don’t agree with you are stupid. I’m as guilty of this as anyone.
• Reach out to Christian groups. Convince them that Jesus’ values were more in line with a “progressive” agenda than with a “conservative” agenda.
• Georgia Dems should reach out to rural Georgia. National Dems should reach out to middle America. I live in metro Atlanta, so I’m not the person to determine how to talk to rural Georgians. Instead, politicians, pollsters, and operatives in those rural districts should try this radical concept: asking rural Georgians what their concerns are in an honest way, and not in a way meant to skew poll results. The urban-centric, government-is-here-to-hold-your-hand approach was fine 60 or 70 years ago when rural areas were so sparsely populated, but the past 30 years of election results should tell you that approach needs to be changed.
• Get over the utopian fantasy of political correctness in language. In the real world, people offend each other on a daily basis. Politicians who try to be everything to everybody come off as vacillating pussies.