One key to making this work is to ensure that Presidential hopefuls understand that this is about the party and congressional candidates and not about them. I can see something like this getting turned into a tv commerical for Kerry and Clinton and Biden and Edwards. That won't do us any good as a party at all.

Cronkite's idea isn't just a nice idea it is a powerful idea that needs to sweep through liberal blogs. Liberal blogs should be calling upon their readers to contact The Democratic Party to move on Cronkite's brillent suggestion. Use the blogosphere's power.

Most important house race in the nation.  Tom DeLay vs. Nick Lampson.  The local dem club said they were trying to get Pelosi to come here over the next year except she said she is not allowed to campaign against other party leaders.

Except DeLay is no longer a part of the leadership.

Besides, putting it in Houston would be good.  It's a good 50/50 split city (Dem mayor) in a reddish state.  This is Bush's backyard, go there and say "we have a plan!"

Let's not repeat the mistakes of the past, shall we?

-C.

It could be a good idea though if some meaningful business is conducted. I was in Boston and no meaningful business was done there.

But if its going to be a War of Words between Special Interest Groups, Anti War vs. Pro War, Pro-choice vs Pro-Life, Liberals vs Moderates, Progressives vs DLC, Southern Dems vs Northeast, etcetc

Then Forget about this. The potential backfire is much more.

But if we as a party can have a UNIFIED MESSAGE ( such as Rham Emmanuels talking points last week),
then this could be HUGE!!!!

I'll have commentary up sometime tomorrow night.

I'm meeting with state party leaders next weekend (hopefully with a recorder to ask their ideas of the direction of the party and a midterm convention.

I think Dean, Boxer, Pelosi, Reid, and other party leadership should get together and define a few consensus positions for the Party to get behind, like preserving Social Security, universal health coverage, security issues, fiscal responsibility, etc.  Less is more.  K.I.S.S.  The American public will only absorb so much anyway.  

We don't need an entire platform to ram down the throats of potential candidates from Alabama to Rhode Island.  And we don't need a convention spectacle of liberal dems pissing on the DLC, and vice versa.  (We already have the blogosphere for that!)  We need to limit the agenda to maximize its broad appeal, and generate campaign contributions.  The American public will be BEGGING for us to save them from the Repugs next year--don't inadvertantly give them a reason not to!  Fill up the coffers, and encourage Dems in different regions to personalize their own agenda.  Let a thousand Hacketts bloom!!!!

Cronkite's a wonderful old geezer that has forgotten his own history.  Everything's going our way now--let's not get insecure, then overreach and fuck things up.  Remember, it's not the polls in 2005 we want to win--it's the polls in 2006!    

Long-term it is important to build party positions and party identity, as I've posted before.  This cannot be done, and will not be done, with a half-baked media show.  Especially one featuring the odd assortment of hacks who are appointed to these conventions.

The national party has to mean the Congressional delegation.  They are the ones who vote.  They should be defining a legislative agenda.  Any "party" position that is not relevant to Congressional votes is not relevant.

So far, Congressional Dems have not tried to organize any positions.  They have no staff assigned to this.  At most, they look for some quick publicity gimmicks every once in a while.  Pathetic.  But the bottom line is that they don't care about a party; it is not relevant to them.  They see themselves as free agents, and their job as reelection -- not governance.

As a further aside, any party building tied to election campaigns is a bad idea.  The public does not trust things said during campaigns.  Better to earn credibility and identity away from the campaigns -- in connection with specific, common sense legislative proposals, and some sort of organized discussions of legislation (blogs, tv, essay contests, whatever).

In short, we need to change the culture on Capitol Hill.  We need to convince Democrats in office to organize themselves, talk among each other, talk to the general public, and develop thoughtful positions in an open way.

Right now, the Dems don't want to be a party.  That is the furst hurdle.

I thought about the reservations a bit, though. And realized. Wait. We held the house and the Senate in '76 and '78 and we won the presidency in '76.

Obviously the Republicans were having some problems in '76. But that sounds familiar, doesn't it? Furthermore we weren't in the minority at any point in the 70s. Doesn't that change the dynamic a little bit?

My biggest worry would be that it would be too staged. The convention last year (and the last few, of either party) was horrible.

In some ways I think we should avoid unity. I still like to think that people appreciate democracy and the arguments that inspire it. I would love to see a real political convention. The disgustingly Hollywood version of a convention we see with the tacky video productions and the down to the minute choreography turns me off. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

I would love to see the drama of a group of people getting together and figuring out what we agree on and then working out a way of explaining it. This is what we try to do in the blogosphere. It's engaging and affirming of the whole ideal of democracy.

Let's have a real party convention. Get rid of the event planners and the producers and televise the whole damn thing. Give the press access to the floor and get rid of the stupid canned videos and infomercial crap.

Let's actually hammer out a platform and take it to the streets. When was the last time that actually happened? Foregone conclusions are boring.

phat

Topics should include:
Open-Source, Open Design voting machines,
Instant Runoff Voting,
Uniform standards for federal elections,
Direct Election of President,
Federal Financing of Elections,
Many others

They should take a long, hard look at what the greens and libertarians are advocating in election reform and adopt those things they can agree on.

It would demonstrate the kind of courage that people hope the Democratic Party can come up with.