The future of the Democratic Party...?

Barack Obama, senator from Illinois and rising youg democratic star, posted this very interesting piece on several blogs about the future of the Democratic party.

It's main point is that left wing groups should not attack centrist Democrats just to preserve ideological purity. He makes a good point - if Democrats want to replicate Republican successes, they should look at the Republicans' deeds (electing moderates), instead of its brash purist rhetoric. Obama makes his point incredibly forcefully.

It's also interesting to look at what Obama thinks Democrats stand for. As he sees it, the party's main priorities are energy policy, fiscal policy, a balanced foreign policy, health care reform, and alleviating poverty. Fair enough.

But Obama implies that Democrat's chief opponents are "those who seek to chip away at the very idea of government." To me, that sounds wrong (Republicans are for a strong government, they just want government to do very different things than Democrats want it to do), and a little dangerous. It sounds like it's playing to the idea that "conservatives are against government, and liberals are for more government" (quotes mine). To me, that idea seems like it was created and promulgated by conservatives in order to put liberals in a box. If American voters are presented with a truly simple choice - "more govt. or less govt.?" - they will tend to go with less, which is exactly why conservatives started saying that they were anti-government. Democrats are going to win, they must break out of the false dichotomy that conservatives appear to have successfully forced them into accepting.