Letter: Democrats must be progressive to foster enthusiasm

Thursday, Nov. 18, 2004 | 9:04 a.m.

Before we start moving the Democratic Party farther right because Kerry lost to Bush, let's consider some facts.

George Bush is an incumbent wartime president who had Karl Rove on his side. Rove is a great fear propagandist who always manages to get people to vote against their own interests. Bush also had support from the religious right.

All Kerry had was all of the issues, the best of which was the Iraq war. Kerry said he was for the war and criticized Bush only because he had mishandled it.

Bush won by a small margin, but the gap would have been much wider if it were not for the work of progressive, grass-roots organizations that were not tied to the Democratic Party.

Much of Kerry's grass-roots support was more anti-Bush than pro-Kerry, but as columnist Arianna Huffington put it, "You don't think about remodeling when your house is on fire." It is the imperial plan of the neo-conservatives to eliminate all competition, including the Democratic Party.

The Democrats have contributed to their own demise by moving away from their historic constituency. Kerry did well where diversity flourishes -- the big cities. While he lost Nevada, for example, he won Clark County. That history could change with a move to the right. The Democratic Party needs to create a consistent, progressive vision. The energy expended by the grass-roots people in 2004 will not be there in 2008, and that could be the end of the great American experiment in democracy.

JERRY BITTS