Daily Kos: A Moral Yardstick: What it is & why Democrats need to find it
by arubyan
Fri Jun 02, 2006 at 07:26:24 AM PDT”
Sadly, recent history shows that (by far) the most important thing is:
- how you look, followed by
- how you sound and lastly
- what you say.
You can resist that idea; you can even try to reverse it. But even Chris Dodd will tell you: Democrats don’t want someone who starts in a hole. And trying to reverse human nature will put you in the hole before you even get started.
“You know who the most successful Democrats have been through history?” [Schweitzer] asks. “Democrats who’ve led with their hearts, not their heads. Harry Truman, he led with his heart. Jack Kennedy led with his heart. Bill Clinton, well, he led with his heart, but it dropped about 2 feet lower in his anatomy later on.”We are the folks who represent the families. Talk like you care. Act like you care. When you’re talking about issues that touch families, it’s OK to make it look like you care.It’s OK to have policies that demonstrate that you’ll make their lives better — and talk about it in a way that they understand. Too many Democrats — the policy’s just fine, but they can’t talk about it in a way that anybody else understands.”
The Moral Yardstick: What it is and why Democrats need to find it
In the absence of everything else, in the absence of a deep commitment to policy wonkery, in the absence of a politics jones, people will judge you with a moral yardstick.In no particular order, they’ll want to know:
- what shaped your life?
- What bad experiences did you endure and what did you learn from them?
- What good fortune have you had and what did you do with it?
- What are you enthusiastic about?
- What do you look forward to doing every morning when you get out of bed and your feet hit the floor?
- Who were your parents? Were they good to you? What was the best part of them that you carry with you today? What about them will you teach your own children? On the other hand, if your parents were bad to you, tell us what you did to rise above that disadvantage.
In short, they’ll want to know: what was the crucible in which you were shaped?They’ll want to know these things about you and they will judge you by the answers you give and (most importantly) they will judge you in how you look and sound when you give the answers.