Noise

The header of today's NT Times "Bloggingheads" video caught my eye: Avent-Garde Politics. Two political journalists, one from Fox News, one from The Washington Times were going to debate the proposition that the Democratic Party is now ignoring the concerns of ordinary Americans in favor of the avent-garde politics of the title. (Guess which reporter from which news organization was arguing which position.) I listened for about thirty seconds before I determined that both debaters are FOS.

Look, it isn't hard for anyone to figure out where I come down on this question. Health care reform is the quintessence of a policy initiative that addresses the concerns of ordinary Americans. To the degree that ordinary Americans are skeptical of the Democratic health reform law, it is because the Republican Party has been successful in its despicable attempt to deceive ordinary Americans about what health reform actually does and does not accomplish. What I'm reacting to is that the first thing out of the Washington Times' Democrat's mouth was a comment about attending liberal think-tank cocktail parties! I cut the video off right there.

You know and I know which of our major political parties tends to represent the interests of ordinary Americans and which tends to represent the interests of elites. What might be less clear is how easy it is for Democratic leaders to shank the ball and wind up in the rough of liberal think tank cocktail parties and thousand-dollar-a-plate fundraisers. This is all a distracting noise that makes it hard for either party to represent the true interests of ordinary Americans.

What is needed:

• Direct involvement from the party rank-and-file


• Close monitoring of the flows of money and influence


• Electoral punishment of Democratic party officials who fail to represent the interests of ordinary Americans


• Lobbying reform


• Campaign finance reform