Today, the Democratic Party sits in a difficult
spot. They are minorities in both federal houses. They don’t hold
the presidency. They have fewer state legislatures than in the past
50 years. Why is this? I think the biggest reason is the liberal
media.
The media has softened the
Democratic Party they love so much. In the past few decades, the
increasingly liberal media has scrutinized everything the
Republicans have done, while giving the Democrats carte blanche.
They have simply glossed over anything a Democrat says, while
making Republicans back their plans with facts. Thank you, media.
You have hurt your own party and created one of the strongest
conservative bases in history.
Democratic strategists
are shaking their heads in complete bewilderment as Fox News
Channel gets the highest ratings every night and conservative
talk-radio attracts tens of millions of listeners. People saw
through the liberal bias in the media and got sick of it. These
other outlets were a breath of fresh air for everyday Americans.
People were sick of hearing the gloom and doom of NBC Nightly News
and sick of hearing about how horrible our country is on
CNN.
Liberals want to start a
liberal radio network. The fact is that no one would listen to it.
They have tried for years to get a talk show host to catch on, and
it just doesn’t happen. They complain about how the right wing of
the Republican Party is taking over media. They cite the Washington
Times and the Opinion page of the Wall Street Journal as
conservative publications. They mention Rush Limbaugh and Sean
Hannity and, of course, Fox News on TV. But, they seem to forget
the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post and
the others too numerous to count. They forget about the network
news, as well as CNN and MSNBC.
It isn’t that their
liberal ideas aren’t being heard; it’s that they aren’t being
heard. They were so used to their message being “mainstream” that
they are now lost, screaming from the back row. They need to
reinvent themselves. They need to define themselves as more than
just anti-Republicans.
How can the Democrats win
this uphill battle? The first thing is to stop their continuing
slide to the left. It goes against the very important aspect of
most elections — winning the “swing voters.” These voters are
the ones they need. They need the union worker who votes Republican
because he is an NRA member. They need the young couple that votes
Republican because they simply cannot afford to pay more
taxes.
It is not Howard Dean who
can attract these voters. It is not John Kerry. The Democratic
Party needs to find a candidate who is not afraid to be “Bush
Light” and who can sell their plan better.
As a conservative, I
don’t even know why I am sending this message. I want the liberals
to nominate Howard Dean. I want them to keep going after those
Green Party votes, fighting for the teachers’
votes.
Americans are sick of
hearing that our country is always the bad guy. They are sick of
hearing Democrats blast the President for things they voted for in
Congress. But the media has let this go for too long. It pains Tom
Brokaw to admit that his objectiveness has turned into bias. While
Republicans have built a strong platform and good public policy,
Democrats have been allowed to rely on issues of the past and
policy that is far from progressive.
Liberals do not need to
speak louder or find more places to speak from; they need to get in
touch with the average people they claim to
represent.
Matt
Seaholm([email protected]) is a junior
majoring in political science.
