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The pattern of this Democratic Party presidential campaign has become increasingly clear. The Democratic candidates are all infected with Kerryitis. With great fanfare each candidate releases a “plan” for what they see as a critical issue.
Timing is the key to success in the battle of the plans. Being first out of the blocks can give a candidate a compelling head start, especially if the plan is well-formulated and covers enough territory to make anything that follows seem a copycat. One the other hand, those ideas now become available to the staff of other candidates who pour over them looking for a slip-up or a way to differentiate their own plans. They also compare plan to voting record, sometimes uncovering embarrassing evidence.
So far the result of this battle of the plans has been a series of plans that has been neither bold, original nor all that different. Most of all, the plans have been unmemorable. Quiz question of the day, “Can you tell me Hillary Clinton’s health care plan?” If by some miracle you actually remember it, can you tell me what differentiates it from the plans of the other candidates? Finally, do you think the plan has any chance of being approved by Congress or solving the problem?
I call this plan disease Kerryitis because John Kerry infected the 2004 Democratic presidential campaign with a near fatal dose. Kerry shares with Newt Gingrich the trait of wanting to prove himself the brightest pupil in the class, the one who sits in the front row and whose hand goes up first in response to every question.
Kerry’s 2004 tome, The Plan for America, still holds the doorstop award as the most ponderous plan of all. To show how influential it was Amazon has used copies staring at $1.01. The 2004 presidential debates seemed to consist of George W. Bush constantly reminding the audience how being president was “hard work,” while Kerry kept providing the audience with the web address for his plan like an infomercial pitch man.
The results of 2004 should have cured the Democrats of Kerryitis forever, but instead they all appear infected with a bad case of it. Let us hope it proves only temporary for left uncured it can leave a candidate incapacitated or on life support.
Even the most junior level executive or second year MBA student can tell you that Kerryitis has little similarity with real planning. Long before any specific plan must come agreement on principles and goals. Management consultants have made hefty incomes and written scores of best sellers around this theme for at least a century.
Define your core values, says the current version, then build your goals and plan around them. A plan is merely a road map to reaching your goals and carrying out your principles. Without core values a plan becomes the proverbial chicken with its head cut off, because without values you ARE headless. You have nothing to give you any sense of direction.
Currently the Democrats seem to have an entire flock of headless chickens running for president. Does anyone know the core values of any candidate? If so, please help me and post a comment enlightening me and other readers because I must have missed something. Most of all, does anyone have any sense of priorities for the candidates? For example, where do all those health care plans fit in the larger scheme of things?
In contrast to the Republicans who appear to be arguing about nothing but values, the Democrats are arguing about plans along with who has the earliest withdrawal date from Iraq. If this represents a precursor to the actual campaign then the Democrats are in big trouble. Values always trump plans.
Values matter because a lot of us are wondering whatever happened to Liberal America’s and the Democratic Party’s belief in the level playing field? The candidates seem to want to avoid this topic as if it were a live, 100,000 volt power line.
That’s because it IS. The increasing tilt of the playing field under the Republican Counterrevolution represents THE most heavily-charged issue before this nation, easily trumping Iraq. People want to see if anyone has the guts to take on that issue and reconnect Americans with the core value that has electrified and moved this nation since its inception.
Let me know if there are any takers and we will give them suitable recognition.
Print Posted by: liberalamerican
