No, I'm not one.
Our ability to successfully implement policy that is consistent with a Liberal world view depends on our success in engaging Conservatives in our own party and finding allies with those in the Republican column.
One of the great themes of Democratic commentary on the web is the excoriation of Conservative and moderate Democrats. Zell Miller is a "traitor to Democratic ideals." Lieberman is "Bush Lite." Even Tom Daschle, hardly a Conservative, "must go now," because the moderate political climate in his state means that he occasionally has to give up ideological purity in order to maintain the favor of his constituents.
In our country, a political party of ideological clones cannot and will not be successful. We are too big, too diverse, too separated by our regional cultures, our religions, our class, our ethnicities and, increasingly, the languages we speak at home.
I'm not suggesting that the Democratic Party take a hard turn to the right, or that individual Democrats abandon their core principles. What I am suggesting is that a left-leaning Centrist party, one that listens to and does not humiliate its Conservative wing, stands a much greater chance of success, both policy-wise and as a party, than any other Democratic incarnation.
Toward that end, the majority of Democrats who are not Conservatives must do an about-face in the way they deal with people in our party who are to the right of them. We need to go back to Zell Miller, go back to other Southern Democrats especially, and re-affirm our shared interests. We need to tell them that they are needed in the party. And we have to tell them that we'll listen to what they say.
The cannibalism that followed Howard Dean's announcement that he wanted white Southerners to vote for him (the Confederate flag and gun-rack crowd) was deeply embarrassing to me. While the screeching and howling undoubtedly gratified self-righteous egos on the Left, what everyone else saw was, "Here go the Democrats again, showing how clearly they cannot understand any other part of the country, except New England, Chicago and California."
Howard Dean knew what he was talking about. And that is, if we want the Democratic Party to be successful in the Big Picture, we need to find our Conservative wing again. Don't cringe. This doesn't mean sacrificing cherished Liberal principles. It just means learning to listen to what people are saying and learning to compromise. We can do this without embracing negative legacies of the past. We just have to pay attention to people and they will show us how.
In some ways, this means giving up some of our beloved jousting with windmills. You know, those ideological pursuits that will never come to pass, but somehow give us a sense of pride in ourselves and a sense of righteousness. Ideological wins (or even losses) of this sort may indeed gratify our egos. But pragmatic wins improve the quality of life for Americans.
Message of the Day: It's okay to be a Conservative Democrat.