csua.org/u/f3a -> news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4747254.stm
Printable version Democrats fail to find a message By Justin Webb BBC News, Washington President Bush's popularity ratings have plummeted, but why, asks Justin Webb, is it that the opposition, the Democrats, are not surfing the opinion polls, capitalising on the Republicans' misfortunes and preparing to take over Congress when the election comes in the autumn? Car bumper sticker Car bumper politics are making a statement across America In any list of America's greatest contributions to world culture - the kazoo, the electric guitar, drive-in fast food etc - space should be found, in my view, for an invention deeply ingrained in the life of this nation. An invention on show to almost all Americans, every day. And, in case you think you have seen them elsewhere in the world, let me just tell you that you have not. At least not on the scale, and not of the sophistication of the American model. Bumper stickers are a treasure trove of American free speech, expressing opinions of every stripe, on every subject. A perfectly normal looking Chrysler in front of me the other day had "cops smell funny" emblazoned on the boot. The stickers which have caught my attention and which I think are part of a noteworthy political phenomenon here are those that say, in bold letters, 're-defeat George Bush' You can find entire religious credos summed up on the back of a Honda. My favourite is: "Don't pray in my school and I won't think in your church." "Work harder - millions on welfare need your money," I saw the other day on a pick-up truck in the Nevada desert. But where I live, in the suburbs of Washington DC - and I am getting to the point now - the political messages tend to be the ranting of the disappointed American left. "Somewhere in Texas there's a village missing an idiot," is a pithy example. "It'll be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the air force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber" is a more plaintive, and frankly more difficult to read example. But the stickers which have caught my attention and which I think are part of a noteworthy political phenomenon here are those that say, in bold letters, "Re-defeat George Bush". Al Gore Al Gore won more votes but lost the 2000 presidential race These, of course, refer to the election of 2000 in which more Americans voted for Al Gore, but which was awarded to Mr Bush by the Supreme Court after that voting snafu in Florida. The stickers were part of the campaign of 2004, but were answered, it seems to me, by the result of that election. The nation plainly elected Mr Bush - he won more than 50% of the vote - something Bill Clinton never managed. When it goes badly they are against it, but in the few months last year when elections were first held in Iraq they were rather for it. Society's ills The schizophrenia is epitomised by the choice of an anti-war Iraq veteran to run for a winnable senate seat in Ohio who has now been forced to pull out of the race because the party bigwigs got cold feet. The Democrats need a message and a new way of communicating that message to a mass audience. They have neither Democrats do not have a message on the key issues of our time. Or, more precisely, they have several mutually exclusive messages. Of course the American left has always had its fissiparous tendencies. The old joke goes: I am not a member of any organised political party, I'm a Democrat. From World War II until the Reagan revolution the establishment in the US was socially progressive. There was a belief that there was such a thing as society, and its ills could and should be tackled. Changing world Now, there are plenty of Americans who still hold those views, but the arteries which once fed them into the nation's vital organs, have been clogged or cut. The American left have faded away The universities do not have the power they did, professorial authority is less respected. Most importantly, the worlds of entertainment and news (which used to pipe a vaguely left-wing message into the nation's homes) have been blown to bits by technological changes which render them powerless. But if I did the chances that my neighbour has watched the same thing (particularly when you add the broadband internet options now available) have shrunk to virtually nil in the past few years. The Democrats need a message and a new way of communicating that message to a mass audience. And do not be fooled by those who say this malaise is structural, at this stage of the electoral cycle there isn't a presidential candidate etc. Only their bumper stickers remain, like cockroaches after a nuclear holocaust.
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