A noun, a verb and 8/29

Kos has his first Newsweek piece up and argues Democrats should make the Bush record the issue. Somewhat prominent in the piece is the Gulf Coast recovery as one example of how poorly the government has worked under Bush and the Republicans. As Kos writes...."And when you elect people who believe that government won't work, you shouldn't be surprised when government stops working."

Kos writes that absent amnesia by the electorate the....."Democrats will win in 2008. As long as Democratic candidates remind voters that the Republican platform and Bush's record are one and the same, victory will be assured."

I would  agree with what Kos has written yet where are the Democrats thus far in reminding the American people of the past and present Gulf Coast response? Searching the transcript of the last Democratic debate shows not one mention of the issue. The debate in which I do remember  Democrats reminding Americans of the issue at any length was the debate at Howard University. That debate was considered to be "designed to focus on minority issues." Katrina and the Gulf Coast recovery is larger than a minority issue. Framing it as such would be inaccurate and a mistake politically as well. It ought to be framed as bad government, the result of years of Republican philosophy put into practice.

If Democrats are going to remind Americans of this they need to begin talking about it and often. The initial federal response to Katrina and the abysmal recovery of the Gulf Coast ought to be an albatross hung around the neck of the Republicans. Democrats need to remind the American people that the "Katrina" debacle is continuing. A presentation of such just may cause them to gasp as did  attendees of the National League of Cities conference in New Orleans this past Saturday when told this of the recovery by Ray Nagin.....

Nagin drew gasps from the audience when he compared the $114 billion in federal money that has been allocated to the Gulf Coast for recovery with the $192 million that has made it into city coffers to finance public infrastructure projects. (my emphasis)

8/29 is a run on sentence for the Gulf Coast and a sentence to run on for Democrats. But Democrats need to do the reminding.

Comments

[pansypoo]

hopefully we have that post democratic nomination. maybe emind people how good it was during clinton too.

[oyster]

Of course, we should also say that that $114 billion is a misleading, sham figure. However, in this case it serves to make the contrast between White House rhetoric and reality all the more stark. As the T-P notes, Nagin's figure isn't perfect either, but when you're comparing 100 billion to a few hundred million, it's basically a rounding error.

[Rmj, Vox Threaduli]

I have to say, reading the Kos extract at HuffPost next to the Rove extract, I found Kos childishly naive and ignorant of politics.

I despise Rove, but he seemd to know what he was talking about. He spoke specifics, whereas Kos just said "People hate Bush, therefore they will vote for Democrats." Well, how about a third alternative? They stay home.

We have the lowest voter turnout of almost any democracy on the planet. Why is that? Maybe because of things like New Orleans, and the sense that no matter how bad things are, politicians can find a way to ignore it? And that's supposed to make me vote for Democrats who ignore it as blatantly as Republicans do?

Not too many people turn out to vote against someone. They prefer to bother so they can vote for someone. Me, I want to vote for the party that cares about whole cities, and the people in them, and the people chased out of them. Where is that party? How can I vote for it? (Yes, I'll end up voting for Democrats. But with the greatest disappointment I've felt since Texas went GOP.)

[MapleStreet]

rmj Vox - but remember that the genius of the neocons has been to energize the base so they will turn our to vote against the democrats. They just have to scare them enough.