Democrats and the politics of fraud

Captain's Quarters:

The Democrats have a deep divide on electoral strategy, the Los Angeles Times reports, which has its basis in policy, at least indirectly. Instead of a party debate between moderates and leftists on the nature of the Democratic legislative agenda, however, the party cannot decide whether to be honest with the American public....

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In other words, the Democrats know that their agenda will lose them support in the upcoming elections. They want to offer more big-government, big-spending programs at a time when we can't afford the programs we already have. Democrats don't need a debate to determine this; it appears to be a consensus. Instead, they divide on the tactical wisdom of telling voters who they are and what they will do if elected. Honesty may be the best policy, but dishonesty seems to be the Democratic strategy for the midterms.

That may cause them more headaches than simply acknowledging their affinity for increased government spending -- an affinity shared by some Republicans as well, as we have noted often. If the Democrats offer nothing more than broad strokes about the benefit of positive government action, they will give the Republicans an opening to translate that gibberish into more specific policy implications. The longer the Democrats wait to explain their legislative agenda, the more time Republicans have to parse it out for American voters nationwide.

This reluctance to discuss their policy aims makes it clear that they already know that voters will not support it. This is the odd state of the Democratic party these days, pushed into increasingly radical postures by its powerful but fringe elements, especially MoveOn. They have torpedoed centrist candidates, and even talk of doing the same to the more liberal Hillary Clinton in 2008 for supporting the war in Iraq. Their fundraising goes to far-left politicians like Russ Feingold and Barbara Boxer instead of reaching out to the center. Small wonder that Senate Democrats have pushed especially hard for agenda silence in the mid-terms.

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Deceit through ommission has been a long standing Democrat policy. To them that is called being in touch, i.e. not saying anything they know will be opposed by the majority of voters while working to get it done anyway. If a Republican were doing the same thing the Democrats would use their new definition of "lying" to describe it.