Summary of my rant about the Democratic Party

Now that I have calmed down a little, here is a summary of A rant about what is wrong with the Democratic Party:

• The leadership of the Party has been alienating and continues to alienate members of the Party.
• Such alienation is the result of the "leadership" making decisions and then forcing them on Party members, essentially saying "We make the decisions, your views and desires are meaningless, shut up and get in line."
• This is primarily seen in the selection of candidates.
• The "leadership" chooses poor candidates.
• The "leadership" overall is afraid to take strong stands and is afraid of candidates who take strong stands.
• The "leadership" believes that the Party does not need to do anything to get votes other than not be offensive and let the Republicans keep messing up.
• The "leadership" has as its main concern retaining its power within the Party.
• The prime example of the foregoing occurred in the 2004 election with John Kerry.
• The issue which provides the prime example of the foregoing is Iraq. The Party "leadership" turns its back on any candidate who voices strong, direct opposition to the war and everything connected to it, beginning with Howard Dean and Wes Clark and continuing with Paul Hackett.
• The treatment of Hackett is particularly bad because the "leadership" went to him and asked him to run for Senate, and then the "leadership" basically stabbed him in the back.
• The Democratic Party has to give voters a reason to vote FOR its candidates. Basing campaigns only on the Republicans screwing up is NOT going to work. Also, simply doing nothing and waiting for people in the center (both to the left and right) to come to the Party IS NOT going to work.
• The "leadership" should have known these things in 2004, but did not, and the election was thus handed to Bush.
• It appears that the "leadership" still has not learned these lessons.

The foregoing might be long for a summary, but there is so much that is wrong with the Democratic Party that even a summary is necessarily lengthy.

The rant does not include the following thoughts, but they are nonetheless relevant. I had hoped that some things would change once Howard Dean became DNC Chair (see New leadership for the DNC). What I have since learned is that it is going to take more than a change in the DNC Chair to change the Party--and I should have known that before now.