…and start doing it. Chris Bowers writes:
Few things irritate me more about prominent DLC types than their tendency to preface virtually everything they propose for Democrats with how that something will help Democrats get elected. They do it all the time. I know that an election is close, and electability will be a concern for some… in addition to making Democrats look weak on national security, DLC types like Bayh end up reinforcing a second insidious conservative narrative: that Democrats are a bunch of soulless, liberal elites who think they are better than most of the backward rubes who live in America.
The problem with this electability language is far simpler than Bowers proposes: most people care far less about how a politician or political party can be elected than they do about what that politician or party will do to help them. For most (based on no scientific evidence whatsoever, but that has never stopped Very Serious Pundits, so why should it stop the Mad Biologist), how a party or politician acquires power is irrelevant to their daily lives–what is done with that power is. As long as the Democratic ‘leadership’ refuses to talk about what should be (and has been) done, they will continue to make themselves irrelevant. People aren’t stupid–when an election matters, turnout often increases dramatically. The ‘electability’ language, by making the political process appear irrelevant, hurts turnout (and consequently, Democrats).
Also, this is how people like Ron Paul get taken seriously…