2008

Okay, vacation's over. After a day of rest following the mid-term election, the 2008 campaign begins today.

Tom Vilsack will announce his presidential bid today. Who is Tom Vilsack? That's why he's announcing today. He is the governor of Iowa (motto: Land of the Snow-Covered Caucus), who will be leaving office in January.

Of course, if you've been paying attention to the news the past few weeks, you are surely aware of the maneuvering, posturing and speculation about 2008 that was going on even as the mid-term campaigns reached their feverish climax. Barak Obama's book tour did nothing to dampen speculation about his intentions two years from now. With no serious opposition for her re-election, Hillary Clinton (D-NY) was out helping dozens of Democrats, and collecting IOUs. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) actually announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination before the voting this week. (The only attention paid to that announcement was well-deserved laughter.)

But let's get serious. What should the Democrats' platform in 2008 be? I suggest that the answer to that question is a simple one, and that the party's presidential nominee should be the person who best enunciates it.

The Democratic Platform in 2008 should be: Make America Great Again.

Not since 1960--a watershed election that was diverted from its new course by the Vietnam War--have Democrats been able to go to the country with a promise to restore the tarnished place of the United States in the world. But now they can, and they should.

America's position in the world has not been this weak since the 1930's. We are despised around the world, at least in those places where we are not ridiculed. Jobs are moving overseas. The trade deficit demonstrates that we are living off our fat and not producing more muscle. The deficit is a millstone around our necks. And all of this has happened under George W. Bush and his Republican henchmen.

What policies should Democrats espouse to make their platform real? We will be returning to this subject a number of times in the coming months, and I hope that readers will make their contributions. To begin, a few ideas (with no claim of originality):

*Get out of Iraq as soon as we can, under circumstances that will permit those Iraqis who want to build a nation some semblance of a chance to do so. (In all likelihood, it is already too late and/or the forces of nationhood are just too weak to succeed.)

*Fight our violent enemies with ideas, and with policies that will help those whom those forces target. (Buy the opium crop in Afghanistan; offer price supports for alternative crops. Take steps to insure Muslims in western countries a real place in those nations, with freedom of expression and economic opportunity.) Force should be exercised mainly as a police function, and should be secondary.

*Be the advocate for real democracy in the world. Stop being like the line in the Jim Croce song, "Let him live in freedom, if he lives like me."

*Inaugurate national health insurance, to assure the well-being of Americans AND to relieve American corporations of the immense burden they face in providing insurance for their workers.

*Start a national debate on how we can rebuild America's place in the economic world, and the proper way in which government can assist--without such a program becoming a transfer of money from individual taxpayers to lucky businesses.

*Make energy independence a first priority. In sync with that, develop "alternative" energy sources.

*As part of the foregoing, set the world's most ambitious goals for reducing our contributions to global warming--realizing that in doing so we will develop new methods and technologies to help the nation rebuild our economic position.

Now it's your turn to contribute. Send us your ideas, either as a comment to this post or an email at old_new_englander@yahoo.com.