Tag Archives: Democratic base

Why Obama Can’t Reignite the Democratic Base

BY RON BONJEAN

Reprinted from U.S. News and World Report

It seems surreal to hear that the White House is announcing plans, six months before the November elections, to energize its base and appeal to such distinct groups as African-Americans, Latinos, and younger voters. Weren’t they supposed to have been helping these groups all along? After all, these people were a crucial voting bloc for the Democratic Party in 2008.

However, all is not well within the ranks. The Congressional Black Caucus had a meeting with President Obama last month to complain that their constituents were not seeing the positive change promised during the campaign. And a newWashington Post/ABC News poll reports that less than a third of all voters now say they will vote for their Members of Congress in November. Maybe this situation was created because the White House made healthcare reform their singular goal for over a year, ignoring other priorities.

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Zugzwang: Democrats’ Dilemma

BY GARY ANDRES

I first encountered the word Zugzwang in a 1985 New York Times Magazine column by the late William Safire.  It’s a chess term that means “compelled to move, but imperiled by doing so.” The word’s political implications are profound.

For the past 25 years, I’ve regularly witnessed the repercussions of that hard-to-pronounce term.  During the 1990s, my friend Arne Christenson (who served as chief of staff to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich) and I would lament some thorny political problem faced by Republicans or Democrats and how being “compelled to move” would cause unavoidable collateral political damage.  Arne would just shake his head and say, “Zugzwang.”  We both knew exactly what he meant.
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