Arianna and Me

I've seen Arianna Huffington a bunch of times on Fox news and Real Time with Bill Maher. Most of the time I find her extremely irritating. I generally disagree with everything she has to say and I find her views on SUV's/energy conservation to be, at the very least, hypocritical. Not to mention when she ran for governor during the recall she became nearly unbearable, at least in my humble opinion.

However, you could have knocked me over with a feather this afternoon when whilst surfing the internet I came across her December 8th column and found myself in complete agreement with this part of it:

"And if middle-of-the-roadism is such a great vote-getter, why don’t we see Republicans moving there? In fact, framing the political debate in right-left terms is so old, so tired, and so wrong that we need to resist all temptation to do so. There is nothing left-wing about wanting corporations to pay their fair share rather than hide their profits in PO boxes in Bermuda, or in ensuring access to health care now rather than paying the bill at the emergency room later.

That’s why the DNC race is so important. The party needs a chairman able to drive a stake through the heart of its bankrupt GOP-lite strategy and champion the populist economic agenda that has already proven potent at the ballot box in many conservative parts of the country. Just how potent is revealed in “The Democrats’ Da Vinci Code,” a brilliant upcoming American Prospect cover story by David Sirota that shows how a growing number of Democrats in some of the reddest regions in America have racked up impressive, against-the-grain wins by framing a progressive economic platform in terms of values and right vs. wrong. These are not “left” ideas; they are good ideas."

Here Here! I've been saying this since the election. The Iraq war sucked all of the air out of the political debate in the country. The Dems were so busy trying to pick a side in that debate they seemed to have forgotten about our countries domestic agenda. I think I was the only conservative who applauded Howard Dean when he told a Tallahassee audience on the campaign trail in 2003 that southerners have to quit basing their votes on "race, guns, God and gays." While I think those are all important, at the end of the day they fall to wayside if the voter is unemployed, homeless, hungry and sick.

However, Dean's critical mistake was marketing himself as the anti-war candidate. Sure it got the far left crowd in his pocket but that sort of rhetoric dies quickly in heartland. As Arianna suggested, if you combine sound progressive economic policies that combine the best in capitalism and socialism (like the Basic Income Guarantee) with "apple pie" patriotism and a strong national defense, you've got yourself a viable candidate.

Where's Bobby Kennedy when you need him?