Happy talk is here again. In the grim aftermath of another Democratic defeat, party regulars comfort one another that all will be well if we just stand up and be Democrats.
There's only one problem: Most Americans have no clue what Democrats stand for. In fact, we've even begun to hear a disturbing number of fellow Democrats wonder the same thing.
It's the right question, and the only one that matters. The rest of the political dialogue -- who's up and who's down, what's in and what's out, who's raising what from where to pay whom -- is like the Beltway it comes from, an endless loop that takes forever to get nowhere. In the end, the future of the Democratic Party depends on one thing: what we stand for.
The DLC was founded on the central premise that ideas, values, and principles matter. So these are the questions that BLUEPRINT and the DLC will once again set out to answer in this issue and issues to come: What do Democrats stand for? What values do Democrats hold dear? What big ideas can Democrats offer the country?
In our view, Democrats' core values are those on the cover: security, opportunity, and responsibility. If those sound familiar, we're not sorry -- that means we're making progress. No one wondered what Democrats stood for when Bill Clinton was in charge.
Our never-ending challenge as Democrats is to give those enduring values new meaning in people's lives. In this issue, our fellow Democrats will find two urgent pleas to do just that.
First, our memo "What We Stand For" spells out what we intend to fight for: muscular liberalism that puts security first; an opportunity society that rewards work, not wealth, and gives everyone willing to work for it the chance to get ahead; and a responsibility revolution that demands more of those at the top in Washington and the corporate world, and asks more of ordinary citizens as well. We also detail a series of reforms to drive these values home, including breaking the redistricting racket, closing the revolving door, demanding family-friendly tax reform, and ending corporate welfare.
Second, some of our party's most distinguished leaders and national security experts sign an open letter to Democrats laying out a progressive, internationalist blueprint for winning the war on terror. The authors make clear that Islamic totalitarianism threatens everything we stand for as Democrats and as Americans, and that we have an obligation to our party and our country to set forth our own clear-headed and tough-minded plan to promote and defend democracy in the world.
During the course of this year, BLUEPRINT will devote special issues to the values of security, opportunity, and responsibility, and to the reforms we need to put our government and our society back in line with our values. We urge you to send us your ideas.
In our experience, happy days only come from hard thought.
