{"id":284,"date":"2009-10-11T18:16:16","date_gmt":"2009-10-11T22:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/archives\/the-tip-of-the-democratic-spear\/"},"modified":"2009-10-12T20:07:44","modified_gmt":"2009-10-13T00:07:44","slug":"the-tip-of-the-democratic-spear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/archives\/the-tip-of-the-democratic-spear\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tip of the Democratic Spear?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/22425001\/vp\/33249445#33249445|80370\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"339\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"425\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; font-size: 11px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #999999; margin-top: 5px; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; text-align: center; width: 425px\">Visit msnbc.com for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\" style=\"border-bottom: 1px dotted #999999 ! important; text-decoration: none ! important; font-weight: normal ! important; height: 13px; color: #5799db ! important\">Breaking News<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/3032507\" style=\"border-bottom: 1px dotted #999999 ! important; text-decoration: none ! important; font-weight: normal ! important; height: 13px; color: #5799db ! important\">World News<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/3032072\" style=\"border-bottom: 1px dotted #999999 ! important; text-decoration: none ! important; font-weight: normal ! important; height: 13px; color: #5799db ! important\">News about the Economy<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%\" align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial, sans-serif\"><font size=\"3\">Alan Grayson&#8217;s been making waves lately. His calling out members of the Republican Party as \u201cfoot-dragging, knuckle-dragging neanderthals,\u201d was good for a laugh. And then, when they howled and demanded an apology, he refused to apologize to them, but, instead, said that he would only apologize to the 44,000 (actually closer to 45,000) annual dead and their families for Congress&#8217;s inaction failing to fix the health insurance mess.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%\" align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial, sans-serif\"><font size=\"3\">On Friday&#8217;s installment of Countdown, Lawrence O&#8217;Donnell, substituting for Keith, played a clip of Grayson&#8217;s recent speech on the floor of the House (above), and then also had him on the program for a softball interview (below). In both performances Grayson exuded confidence, comfort, and humor. In the interview he was just \u201cbasking,\u201d a really \u201chappy warrior\u201d in the tradition of Al Smith, Franklin Roosevelt, and Harry Truman.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/22425001\/vp\/33249516#33249516|41655\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"339\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"425\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; font-size: 11px; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #999999; margin-top: 5px; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial; text-align: center; width: 425px\">Visit msnbc.com for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\" style=\"border-bottom: 1px dotted #999999 ! important; text-decoration: none ! important; font-weight: normal ! important; height: 13px; color: #5799db ! important\">Breaking News<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/3032507\" style=\"border-bottom: 1px dotted #999999 ! important; text-decoration: none ! important; font-weight: normal ! important; height: 13px; color: #5799db ! important\">World News<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/3032072\" style=\"border-bottom: 1px dotted #999999 ! important; text-decoration: none ! important; font-weight: normal ! important; height: 13px; color: #5799db ! important\">News about the Economy<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%\" align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial, sans-serif\"><font size=\"3\">Based on these, and his other recent performances, we can certainly wonder whether Alan Grayson can be \u201cthe tip of the spear\u201d the Democratic Party has been looking for to speak to the public in the emotional common sense language needed to push Democratic ideas. The President is not that leader. He&#8217;s trying to be the leader of all the people, and he avoids partisan messaging, opening the way for the Republicans to attack the Democrats, their outlook and their programmatic ideas, while Obama defends his own agenda, but not the Party&#8217;s or the progressives&#8217;. Also, our leadership in both Houses of Congress has little mass appeal to say the least. Nancy Pelosi has many good qualities, when it comes to effectively herding the cats in the Party, but she certainly doesn&#8217;t project purpose, strength, or commitment to Democratic Party ideals on the national stage. Harry Reid has all the emotional appeal of the proverbial \u201cwet noodle,\u201d and only insiders are aware of his redeeming qualities.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%\" align=\"left\"><font face=\"Arial, sans-serif\"><font size=\"3\">In short, we have few Democratic or progressive spokespersons with \u201ccharisma\u201d in the Congress, who can both communicate and command media attention. If Alan Grayson can play that role, without resorting to language whose factual claims go off the deep end, he can be that tip of the Democratic spear the Party needs to once again convincingly carry its historic message: that it is, truly, the Party of the People.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: 150%\" align=\"center\"><font face=\"Arial, sans-serif\"><font size=\"3\">(Also posted at <a href=\"http:\/\/seminal.firedoglake.com\/diary\/9115\">firedoglake.com<\/a> where there may be more comments)<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy Alan Grayson&#8217;s been making waves lately. His calling out members of the Republican Party as \u201cfoot-dragging, knuckle-dragging neanderthals,\u201d was good for a laugh. And then, when they howled and demanded an apology, he refused to apologize to them, but, instead, said that he [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[693],"tags":[2325,1656,2370,1693,1553,2369,1673,1655],"class_list":["post-284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-alan-grayson","tag-democrats","tag-harry-reid","tag-health-care-reform","tag-nancy-pelosi","tag-party-of-the-people","tag-progressives","tag-republicans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kmci.org\/alllifeisproblemsolving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}