Fleshing Out the Democratic Message

Zola responds to my last post with the following argument:

But can we have a "kitchen sink" coalition? Doesn't -some- of the millions of things the Democrat confederacy argues for have to go to the back of the line?

I would respond by stating that the "common good" politics encompasses only one half of the equation - that of economic opportunity. We need the 2nd half of the equation as well - personal freedom. The Republicans have no reasonable claim any longer to the libertarian anti-big government, anti-big business vote any longer. They are the party interested in spying on you, of making you a servant of Big Brother, and of wasting your money. Issues like abortion and gay rights, but also wiretapping and torture, are all part of this story.

It's not a question of groups going "to the back of the line." It's more a question of how we interrelate the policies we are for with each other - how we fold them within a broader vision of society. It is our failure to do this, rather than special interest politics per se, that has given us so much rhetorical trouble over the last generation.