A BELL RINGS:

Where are the answers from the wounded Dems? (Clarence Page, November 24, 2004, Chicago Tribune)

First of all, the party must stand for something. It needs, like Samuel Johnson's famous plum pudding, a theme. Roosevelt had "the New Deal." Bush offers "the Ownership Society," which reminds me of Richard M. Nixon's offer of "a piece of the action" to black Americans in response to Lyndon B. Johnson's "Great Society."

Themes matter. They focus minds, big and small, on creating an agenda that offers hope to voters of a better world.

All of this came to mind as I was watching one of my guilty pleasures, "The Wire," an exceptionally realistic HBO series about Baltimore cops and drug gangsters. Like life, it's a complicated show that produces unexpected nuggets of wisdom.

During a dinner conversation, a detective was asked by his political-consultant girlfriend whether he voted for Kerry or for Bush. Neither, he responded wearily. No matter who wins the White House, he said, nothing changes on the streets where he works. Drugs keep flowing, kids keep dying.

There was more fact than fiction in that exchange. If Democrats, the party of poor people, working people and Baltimore people, are not offering a vision of a better future to drug-ravaged neighborhoods, I wondered, who will?

Significantly, Bush has. His administration assists grass-roots, faith-based leaders like Rev. Eugene Rivers, co-founder of Boston's Ten Point Coalition. An effort by more than 50 local churches to join forces with Boston police, courts and City Hall to combat youth violence, the coalition reduced Boston's juvenile homicide rate to zero in the mid-1990s. It made a difference.

Former Vice President Al Gore favored faith-based programs in his 2000 presidential campaign, but President Bush embraced them, despite liberal critics who complained about possible breaches of church-state separation. I am a 1st Amendment absolutist, but when a program that works can be funded without discriminating against anyone's religious beliefs, that's good enough for me. It's also good enough for poor folks for whom Bush's faith-based initiatives have given Republicans a more compassionate image.

Unfortunately, the Democratic Party's response to innovative ideas like school vouchers, charter schools and income-based affirmative action, instead of race-based, has too often resembled classic conservatives, fiercely holding on to past political gains without offering any new alternatives.

He's even right about The Wire.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 24, 2004 4:27 PM