PAP Needs A Message, Dean Says

Howard Dean, the Chairman of the Pro-Abortion Party National Committee, says his party needs a message and a strategy (H/T: Drudge):

"We need a message. It has to be clear," he said. "The framing of the debate determines who wins the debate.

"Running away from issues is how you lose elections," said Dean, a former Vermont governor.

"We need to position ourselves as the party of change," he said. "I think we have learned that when big changes happen in the House and Senate, they happen because one party nationalizes the race and becomes the change agent."

Dean detailed his 50-state strategy to hire and finance from national coffers organizers in every state, saying that the party is on track to have organizers in every state by the end of the year.

"Vote by vote, precinct by precinct, door by door, year by year and election by election, we will take this country back for the people who built it," he said.

The former governor of Planned Parenthood and PAPNC Chairman is correct in his assessment that his party needs a clear message. And if his party's message is true, so much the better. I think that his desire for a national organization of local campaign workers is reminiscent of Newt Gingrich's takeover of the House in 1994. This could work, given the right message. Gov. Dean doesn't offer a message in this speech.

I have a few suggestions on things for the Democrats to avoid in crafting their national message:

• Don't defend the right of women to choose to have their babies' brains sucked out of their skulls during childbirth (that is, partial birth abortion).


• Don't try to "understand" Al Qaeda's terrorist attacks. Tell us what you'll do to prevent them.


• Don't sympathize with poor old Saddam Hussein (it didn't work with Manuel Noriega, and it won't work with Hussein).


• Don't tell us abortion is a bad thing unless you're telling us what you want to do to reduce the number of them.


• Don't pretend that young girls who can't legally consent to getting a tattoo, having a beer, having an appendectomy or having sex are competent to have abortions without their parents' consent.


• Don't tell us you support the troops unless you're telling what you want to do to help them win.


• Don't tell us that gas prices are Bush's fault. Tell us how you'll get them back under $2.00/gal. Or better yet, under $1.50/gal.


• Don't try to tell us that this economy, now in a gathering recovery, is superlatively bad; instead, tell us how you'll make it better still.


• Don't tell us that Republicans will burn black churches; tell us how Democrats will rebuild black families.


• Don't tell us we don't pay enough taxes, tell us how you can save money in the budget.


• Don't tell us that you don't support gay "marriage", but you think it should be left to the states; tell us what you're going to do to protect and reinforce traditional families as the basic building blocks of any healthy society.


• Don't tell us that we don't care about moral issues, but only about "what government can do for us" (to paraphrase President Kennedy); tell us about how, as President Washington said, "only a virtuous people can be free."


• Don't tell us that human embryos are commodities to be disposed of, traded in, or experimented on for the benefit of the rich; tell us what you'll do to protect the dignity of every human life.


• Don't tell us that Republicans cheated in the 2000 and 2004 elections; tell us what you'll do to ensure that each voter votes once and only once everywhere.


• Don't you dare lie to us to make yourself look good, or to confuse us about what you really mean, ever!


• And finally, don't try to chase God out of our national dialog. He's been involved ever since "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights", He's been with us in "one nation, under God", in America the Beautiful and God Bless America, in the inscriptions on hundreds of monuments and buildings in our Nation's Capital, and this is no time to begin to try to get along without Him.