Sometimes a simple phrase sticks in politicians’ minds like duct tape and guides their actions no matter how misguided the phrase or how intrinsically destructive. Such a phrase is Tip O’Neill’s famous throwaway line that “money is the mother’s milk of politics,” which suggests that money is what always separates winners from losers, and thus what always must shape policy decisions.
That shouldn’t be true. In fact, it usually isn’t. And when it is, it nourishes sickly offspring.
What generally wins elections is ideas. They need not be new ones. They can be retreads. They need not even be good ideas. As we’re seeing in Washington these days, nothing succeeds on national politics like bad ideas whose time has come.
So what do progressives need to do to gain back power? Not power in this coming election cycle, of course, because the Democrats are locked into a Clinton dance with Wall Street and big donors generally that Obama has adopted as his own two-step. So forget 2012 as a time to bring back or unveil truly progressive ideas via the medium of the Democratic Party.
Rather, this is a time for reflection. A time when old goals must be melded with new realities. When a new packet of ideas that collectively form a vision has to be created — ideas and a vision that will be enforced with a Tea Party-like single mindedness at a later date.
I’m looking for previews to crop up in 2012, with a full blossoming in 2014. Now we need to focus on slowing the retreat, Consolidate. Put down roots for a major offensive by a reanimated progressive left in 2014 elections. At which time the spineless Moderate Democrat feeders on big bucks mother’s milk will knuckle under or be swept unceremoniously into their post-public service employments.
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