Brandon GayCastellanos: DailyKos is an Industrial Age Dinosaur
September 16th 2008 21:20
Alex Castellanos, a Republican Strategist who most recently worked for Mitt Romney, provided a commentary to CNN today in which he called the DailyKos an "industrial age dinosaur:"
The focus of the commentary, which is completely absurd in almost all respects, is the Obama campaign has abandoned it's grassroots message by suggesting policies the government might want to make law. Apparently, to be truly grassroots, you need to check with every single American before forming an opinion on a political issue. Likewise, anything the government does FOR the people, such as provide health care, is not bottom up politics because the government is providing the service FOR the people.
I'm not exactly sure, in Castellanos' opinion, what exactly would count as bottom-up politics. Perhaps if the government was run by a weekly conference call in which citizens called in and pledged what THEY were going to do in the upcoming week. Maybe John in Minnesota could pledge to try to find someone to give him health care even though he has a pre-existing condition and is behind on his mortgage payment. Maybe a sweet, old soul in Texas would call in and offer to help repair some crumbing infrastructure by her house.
Castellanos' blames this so-called abandonment of bottom-up principles on Obama turning to the Democratic party establishment, which still favors government doing something.
In other words, Castellanos is accusing Barack Obama of being a Democrat. It's the same argument we've heard for 20 years. People like Castellanos have done such a good job of defining Democrats over the last 20 years all they have to say is "You remember that argument we made about Michael Dukakis in 1988? Well, Barack Obama is no different. It's the same-old liberalism."
What Castellanos and his kind fail to see, or at least refuse to acknowledge, is today's Democratic Party has changed with the times and have done so much faster and more naturally than the Republican Party. Calling the DailyKos the "Democratic Party establishment" may be a bit of a stretch, but calling the DailyKos, or people-powered movements in general, industrial-age dinosaurs would be hilarious if it were not for the fact a large segment of the voting public still buys into the argument that if you are a Democrat you want the Government to have communist-like control over the people.
It's true the modern Democratic party, including people-powered candidates and bottom-up politicos, do advocate many of the same principles of yesterday's progressives: We are still working toward universal health care, still favor developing alternative energy and still support a diplomacy-always, aggression-when-necessary foreign policy.
As a party, we want some of the same-old stuff, but it's because the American people still need some of the same-old stuff we should have been able to give them 20-years ago and they are feeling the pain worse than ever. We should be free of foreign oil, health care should be a universal right of every citizen, we should be stopping banks from peddling sub-prime and other bad mortgages and we shouldn't be starting wars which could have been prevented with better intelligence and diplomacy.
Castellanos will have to forgive us for still harping about health care, but we hear some Americans still don't even have access to it, even if they can afford it.
But in addition to cleaning-up much of this work which has been piling up on our agenda since the Sixties, we have entered a new era of electing our leaders. We are the party of openness and transparency, we are the party limiting the influence of big-money in politics with small-dollar donations, we are the party who is giving a voice in choosing our leaders to anyone who wants it through Internet-based communities, such as the DailyKos. We are the party being remade not by a candidate or a chairman, but by the members of the party itself.
Bottom-up politics is about electing officials who will carry-out our mission and serving as a watchdog to ensure they stay true to Democratic principles. In doing so, we are finding people who have agreed with out mission all-along, but have felt disconnected from the political process.
But, in the end, it does all come back to issues and mostly we are the party of the future because we are the party who still believes in giving some consideration to the future. We want to stop racking-up trillions of dollars worth of debt, provide for our energy future and stop the slow erosion of civil liberties, which has been occurring for seven years.
We are the party of the future and the only thing we need to do to combat people like Castellanos who call us "industrial-age dinosaurs" is just be ourselves.
Bottom-up politics is one thing, however. Bottom-up government, another. When Barack Obama became the nominee of the national Democratic establishment, the candidate of hope ran into political reality: His party's canons of governing are the opposite of change.
Barack Obama may believe "change doesn't come from the top down, it comes from the bottom up," but the leadership of his party doesn't. The national Democratic establishment, from the Daily Kos and MoveOn.org to Pelosi and Reid in Congress, still believe in top-down big-government from Washington, especially if they get to run the factory. Politically, they are industrial-age dinosaurs.
They believe the era of big government is back, not over. They would keep money and power in their hands, not devolve it to the average American. That was not something the Denver Democrats were eager to confess.
They believe the era of big government is back, not over. They would keep money and power in their hands, not devolve it to the average American. That was not something the Denver Democrats were eager to confess.
The focus of the commentary, which is completely absurd in almost all respects, is the Obama campaign has abandoned it's grassroots message by suggesting policies the government might want to make law. Apparently, to be truly grassroots, you need to check with every single American before forming an opinion on a political issue. Likewise, anything the government does FOR the people, such as provide health care, is not bottom up politics because the government is providing the service FOR the people.
I'm not exactly sure, in Castellanos' opinion, what exactly would count as bottom-up politics. Perhaps if the government was run by a weekly conference call in which citizens called in and pledged what THEY were going to do in the upcoming week. Maybe John in Minnesota could pledge to try to find someone to give him health care even though he has a pre-existing condition and is behind on his mortgage payment. Maybe a sweet, old soul in Texas would call in and offer to help repair some crumbing infrastructure by her house.
Castellanos' blames this so-called abandonment of bottom-up principles on Obama turning to the Democratic party establishment, which still favors government doing something.
In other words, Castellanos is accusing Barack Obama of being a Democrat. It's the same argument we've heard for 20 years. People like Castellanos have done such a good job of defining Democrats over the last 20 years all they have to say is "You remember that argument we made about Michael Dukakis in 1988? Well, Barack Obama is no different. It's the same-old liberalism."
What Castellanos and his kind fail to see, or at least refuse to acknowledge, is today's Democratic Party has changed with the times and have done so much faster and more naturally than the Republican Party. Calling the DailyKos the "Democratic Party establishment" may be a bit of a stretch, but calling the DailyKos, or people-powered movements in general, industrial-age dinosaurs would be hilarious if it were not for the fact a large segment of the voting public still buys into the argument that if you are a Democrat you want the Government to have communist-like control over the people.
It's true the modern Democratic party, including people-powered candidates and bottom-up politicos, do advocate many of the same principles of yesterday's progressives: We are still working toward universal health care, still favor developing alternative energy and still support a diplomacy-always, aggression-when-necessary foreign policy.
As a party, we want some of the same-old stuff, but it's because the American people still need some of the same-old stuff we should have been able to give them 20-years ago and they are feeling the pain worse than ever. We should be free of foreign oil, health care should be a universal right of every citizen, we should be stopping banks from peddling sub-prime and other bad mortgages and we shouldn't be starting wars which could have been prevented with better intelligence and diplomacy.
Castellanos will have to forgive us for still harping about health care, but we hear some Americans still don't even have access to it, even if they can afford it.
But in addition to cleaning-up much of this work which has been piling up on our agenda since the Sixties, we have entered a new era of electing our leaders. We are the party of openness and transparency, we are the party limiting the influence of big-money in politics with small-dollar donations, we are the party who is giving a voice in choosing our leaders to anyone who wants it through Internet-based communities, such as the DailyKos. We are the party being remade not by a candidate or a chairman, but by the members of the party itself.
Bottom-up politics is about electing officials who will carry-out our mission and serving as a watchdog to ensure they stay true to Democratic principles. In doing so, we are finding people who have agreed with out mission all-along, but have felt disconnected from the political process.
But, in the end, it does all come back to issues and mostly we are the party of the future because we are the party who still believes in giving some consideration to the future. We want to stop racking-up trillions of dollars worth of debt, provide for our energy future and stop the slow erosion of civil liberties, which has been occurring for seven years.
We are the party of the future and the only thing we need to do to combat people like Castellanos who call us "industrial-age dinosaurs" is just be ourselves.
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