First, you are not going to be the face of the Democratic takeover. Maybe that hurts, but its true. You are in Washington. You are from California. Not just California, but San Fransisco. I know where the swing districts are, and you don't play well in quite a few of them. This election should not be about Washington.
This should be an insurgency. As such, the answers are not going to come through Washington. They are going to come from the states. They are going to come from the candidates. You and Rahm Emmanuel have done a wonderful job with recruitment. Make them leaders. Make them carry the message. Give them a national stage.
I want you to let our top tier candidates present our message for the future. I want Southern candidates such as Kellam in Virginia Beach, Schuler in North Carolina, and Lucas in Kentucky to talk about poverty issues and how the Republicans have ignored and exploited the very people who put them in office. I want women candidates like Lois Murphy talking about choice. I want Francis Busby talking about corruption. Fly them to Washington, and give them the microphone. I want you to make it clear that you will talk to people outside of Washington to ensure that the Democratic Party are running not for the candidates, but for the people in the districts. It is not those who serve, it those who would be served. I want you to put constituents without health care in the gallery, and point to them when you say that they deserve better. I want a pledge to hold meetings with the governors of all fifty states to discuss their concerns and priorities for the next session of Congress.
After we win the house, you will be the Leader of the Democratic Party, and the Leader of the Opposition. You will be the closest thing we have to John Kerry in 2004. We lack a definitive leader now because we lack power. You will be Newt Gingrich to Bill Clinton. People are fed up with the current power structure. You need to capitalize on that by showing how, if elected, you will not be the current power structure. You will be something else. I believe you will be a great Leader. You've kept your caucus in line when they had every reason to despair. You and Steny are a good pair. But we need freshness. We lack the tag of the Republicans in 1994 because it is not our backbenchers leading the charge. Make our candidates the backbenchers.
I want you to attend a protest on April 10th and declare to the immigrant community that we will not let you twist in the wind. And then you can present resolutions galore. Demand a raise in the minimum wage, in concert with minimum wage workers demanding citizen meetings with every representative in Congress. I want you to read letters from your constituents. And I want you to say, again and again, enough is enough. I want you to say that you have heard the people, and you are listening, and you are not going to let them down come hell or high water. I want to see you go to New Orleans and announce that you will not let legislators go home on Friday unless they fund the levees. And then, if they go home, hold a press conference on the steps of the Capitol and read floor speeches prepared for debate.
And if someone says you are aiding and abetting the enemy, kindly remind them that aiding and abetting the enemy is a disqualifier for service in Congress, and that every single insinuation of such a kind is slander of you and any other Democratic member's fitness to serve and should be stricken from the record. Make them apologize. Call them out of line. I don't want to hear you're "disappointed." You are not disappointed. You are scandalized! How dare they! I want you to proverbially slap them in the face and demand they repeat that to your face if they dare. When they say you have no policy, ask them if that is the best that they can do? If they say you threaten their values, say that they threaten the fabric of our society. If they call you corrupt, remind them that if you were as corrupt as they, you wouldn't be out of power right now. Expose them for the bullies and hypocrits that they are. If it makes good television, it will run. Never back down. Make their indefensible position indefensible.
Of course, much of it will not get coverage. I know that. I understand. I know how frustrating it is that the story you want to tell does not fit the spin. That your microphones get turned off in committee meetings. That you are shut out of the process. That is where we come in. We will help you generate the stories. We will be your echo machine. We will clog the halls of Congress with flowers, report factual inaccuracies, rinse, and repeat. We will tell our friends and neighbors. The media like confrontations. The media like surprises. The media like tension. Have a staffer monitor the movements going on here, and when they find one that fits, mesh it together with what you are doing. Make it come from the bottom up. Don't worry so much about purity of message. What have you got to lose? It can't get much worse than it is. When something outlandish happens, people EXPECT you to get upset. If you do not get upset, you seem not only weak but belie your indignation. I want you to bring up Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy twice a day on the floor. I want you to say to a Republican on a morning talk show, "I'm sorry, I forgot, it's an election year, so now you want to do things."
Then let it get back to the states. Find your leaders (more than one), and make them national figures. I want you to hold a midterm convention, and have all your candidates meet and strategize and hold a straw poll on 2008, just to get the media there. Hell, we're holding a convention, so why don't you join ours? I want a legislator on the floor of the house with a bag full of prescription drugs that he, literally, dumps onto the floor of the House, and then asks, what about Medicare D? I want major policy initiatives coming out of the states and embraced by the top. Make it about not-Washington. Show them who cares about not-Washington. Embrace the Christian Left. Talk about Dafur.
When Chris Matthews asks you about the horse race, say, there are people's lives at stake, and I couldn't give a rat's ass about a horse race in the meantime. Then say the media is just as silly as Republicans are. Trust me, that plays well no matter which side of the aisle you are on.
I know this sounds like a lot, and I don't want it to seem like I have unrealistic expectations. But these are all suggestions of ways to claim the storyline, make it yours, and just hammer away at it. Stay away from Bob Ney and Katherine Harris....until after the filing deadline. We don't want them dropping out. Make this a truly coordinated campaign. Get the state legislatures involved. Make it top down. Put minimum wage increases on ballot measures across the country, and force GOP candidates to make a stance on it. Use ballot initiatives, god knows Republicans are.
And I take you up on your offer to report back every week. I think it's a fantastic idea that hasn't been embraced as it should have been. I think that if you do that, your approval ratings here will skyrocket, maybe not at first, but once you actually do it, provided you include our suggestions. I'm not saying you have to stick around and comment. I know how difficult it is to keep an elected in a room for longer than fifteen minutes. But read the retort diaries. Have a staffer gather a sampling of the best questions asked. We have a whole community thing going that, honestly, you don't have time to participate in as we'd like you to. But you can still have a give and take with us. In fact, here's a suggestion, I will tag this diary, Nancy Pelosi, and you can read all the diaries about you. It's like your press clips, only online and all dkos. So, hopefully, you will read through my rather rapid fire suggestions if it gets enough attention, which, frankly, is always a gamble. I really think some of them are doable and can garner media attention in this climate. Thanks for your time, and for letting us speak directly to power. Because this is about all of us.
Cross posted to VirginiaBelle.Net