A Reason to Vote

Written by: rich^kolker on Jul 5, 2006 8:41 AM EDT

In the deep dark distant past, Saturday Night Live did a sketch about a game show called "Common Knowledge". The joke was, the way to win was not by giving the correct answer, but the one that was common knowledge. For example, the capital of New York is New York City. One of the contestants, getting all the answers correct, slowly burned as the other contestants scored by giving the commonly accepted, but wrong, answers.

Folks, it is common knowledge that conservatism is on the rise. It is common knowledge that only by pandering to the selfishness and fear of the voters, using simple slogans like "No Tax" can one hope to win. It is common knowledge that Democrats cannot win in the South and the West unless we become more like Republicans, hiding our Democratic values behind slogans that make us sound like Republican Lite.

Common Knowledge, today just like years ago on that Saturday night, Live from New York, is wrong.

You can't beat something with nothing and, as Harry Truman said nearly 50 years ago, if you run a Republican against a Republican the Republicans will win. We can win if we give the citizens, young and old, those voting for 50 years and those voting the first time in 2007 to vote for us, and that reason is that we stand with them.

It is the greatest danger in the history of this nation that the largest group of the electorate is not the Republicans or the Democrats but the non-voters. The scandal of the 2000 election is not so much that George Bush got the Supreme Court to declare him President without counting all the votes in Florida but that neither he nor Al Gore could motivate enough people to vote to make that question moot.

Voter turnout of less than 50 percent, even in Presidential elections isn't due to voter laziness. It's because for election after election, at all levels of government and both parties, we have been worried more about not offending voters than motivating them. We have been more concerned with driving up the negatives of our opponent than our own positives. "Inside the Beltway" this is called suppressing turnout and turning out your base, letting that loyal and controllable group hold the reins of the election.

That may be smart politics, but I doubt it, and it most certainly isn't good government. America is not just a place but a process, and if we corrupt and short circuit that process then the result isn't the nation set on a path of freedom 200 odd years ago.

For the victory of democratic ideas and the future of this nation we must reject the politics of depressing turnout. We must reject the politics of not standing for anything because of the risk of offense. We must reject the politics of playing the game and pandering to those who can afford to write the big checks and playing to people's fears instead of hopes. And we must not shrink from big ideas, because we are the party of big ideas.
Public Schools, Social Security, Equal Rights at the lunch counter and the hotel counter and the polling place, these are big ideas and they are part of America because Democrats lead and convinced the people they were worth having.

Most important we must speak to all the people. Too often we divide the electorate into "constituencies". Labor is ours, the churches are theirs. We get the African Americans, they get the angry white males. If we are to win this must stop. We must speak not to groups but to people, not to labels but to individuals. Not just to the likely voters but to the unlikely voters. We need to speak to the young, unlikely voters who feel no stake in a political system that in its crusade to appeal to likely older voters shows no concern for the issues important to those in College, or starting work, or starting a family. We need to speak to the single, unlikely voters who see politicians talk endlessly about tax cuts and services for families with children and wonder, why don't they care about me, I'm a family too! We need to speak to the unlikely voters who see a system dominated by the people and organizations who can bundle big money contributions and after the election get their views heard in Washington and the state capitals in a way you and I and the unlikely voters never can.

Democrats should proudly stand up and say, we are the party that feels that attracting voters, not campaign contributions, should be the first task of a political candidate, and serving the voters, not the campaign contributors, should be their first obligation in office.

Democrats and the nation have prospered when we have spoken to our fellow citizens, opened the gates, and grown our Democracy. We represent the idea of America, the idea that freedom is not dangerous but strengthening, that cooperation is not a sign of weakness but an acknowledgment of the power of bringing together disparate ideas, that patriotism isn't mindlessly following the flag, but standing with the generations who have defended the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, to make that flag the symbol of liberty throughout the world.

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