Radiofree West Hartford - Selling the 2004 DNC Platform by Stephen Erwin

Putting a Ring in a Sow's Ear:

Selling the 2004 DNC Platform

By Justin Darr

August 05, 2004

Hey! Wake up! Hello! Time to pull yourself out of the semiconscious state you were lulled into by the Democratic National Convention. In retrospect, we can say that the Convention taught us two new facts. First, John Kerry knows that the moment his voting record is revealed he is going to lose the election, therefore, he is avoiding it at all cost. And, second, there are, indeed, more boring things to experience in this world than watching paint dry, or moss grow; i.e. watching that nationally televised sleeping pill of a Convention. Strange how when the Democrats make a conscious effort to avoid negative campaign attacks, they have nothing left to talk about.

Despite John Kerry's efforts to make us think that he has stepped straight out of a Vietnamese rice paddy into the 2004 Election race, the leaders of the Democratic National Committee realize they actually have to make some kind of statement about what Kerry stands for and what he might do as our Commander in Chief. Otherwise, the DNC would have to be content in sticking with Kerry's "Vote for Me Because I'm not Bush" campaign. I cannot imagine what a daunting task it was for the Democratic Platform Committee to actually nail down a few positions that John Kerry will not flip-flop on a weekly basis. To the Committee's credit, they accomplished the impossible and pieced together 37 pages of wishful thinking that constitutes Kerry's plan for America.

The DNC wants you to read this platform about as much as they want you to scrutinize Kerry's voting record on intelligence and national security. Both indicate a candidate whose understanding of the key issues is so lacking as to indicate a person unqualified to be a United States Senator, let alone President of the United States.

Over half of the platform discusses Kerry's plan to win the War on Terror, which can best be described as an exercise in futility. In summary, the plan states that we will stop fighting the War for now unless America is attacked at home and thousands of civilians are killed for a second time. Then, with the approval of the French and other assorted anti-American and Eurotrash factions in the EU and UN, we will launch a measured response to any massive assault on our freedom. I call this the "Don't Do That Again!" doctrine. This policy might sound good to some, but Kerry's reliance on erstwhile allies who only support American military actions when their own interests are at stake and the cooperation of non-existent "non-governmental" entities in the Mid-East (independent media, trade unions, and human rights groups) to help improve America's image in the Moslem world is as unrealistic as it is dangerous. Kerry's plan shows his ignorance of geopolitics, history, and the nature of the pseudo-fascist regimes that govern the Mid-East. The DNC could write a 500 page platform on Kerry's plan for the War on Terror, and it would still be unworkable anywhere this side of Fantasy Land.

The truth is the Kerry Campaign knows that it will lose the War on Terror issue to Bush. The only reason the DNC is going through this drill in senselessness is to try to scrape up a few votes from the ranks of the uninformed and car accident victims who have just emerged from comas and think it is still September 10, 2001. Kerry's real plan to beat Bush is the same one Clinton used to beat his father: promises of domestic spending. Democrats have long claimed the domestic policy arena as their forte, just as the Republicans have laid claim to foreign policy. The problem for the Democratic Party in 2004 is that Kerry's domestic platform is just as goofy and impracticable as his foreign.

To begin, here is a non-inclusive list of spending proposals from the 2004 Democratic platform that Kerry pledges to enact in his term:

Modernize the military; improve intelligence gathering; secure the Russian nuclear stockpile in 4 years instead of 13; increase active duty personnel in the military by 40,000; develop hydrogen fuel celled cars; make solar and wind generated electricity economically viable; develop more efficient ethanol fuels; invent new "technologically invisible" shipping containers for all product entering the US; universal access to wireless broadband services (which in some strange way will produce 1.2 million jobs and $500 billion for the economy because people can go to chat rooms while waiting for the bus); tax credits for every student entering a 4 year university; partial funding of health care to companies, workers, and retirees; child and elder care; increasing the Earned Income Credit; extending increased child credits; increase farmer conservation credits; increase funding for teaching farmers sustainable farming methods; after school programs; keeping schools open until 6 pm; raise the minimum wage to $7 an hour; increase Medicaid spending; government will "pick up the tab" for all high cost medical procedures (they do not know which ones either); improve technology in health care administration; more biomedical research; improve veterans' medical care, build new schools; revamp and remodel existing schools; increase teachers' pay; increase funding for the arts; use federal resources to clean up polluted sites; increase federal funding to verify election results; and offering more English language and civics classes to new immigrants. If this was not enough, at the same time Kerry will cut the budget deficit in half in 4 years.

To cover the spending for the hundreds of billions of dollars needed to fund all of these programs, Kerry has two solutions.

The first is to roll back the Bush tax cut to the top 2% of all wage earners (those making roughly $200,000 a year or more). The only problem with this plan, other than the fact that it is Communistic, is that if the government would tax all the income from the top 2% of wage earners (by that I mean every last dime they make), the revenue generated would only fund the federal government for 35 days. That is right, 35 days. So, needless to say, claiming that rolling back the Bush Tax Cut will fund this spending is intellectually insulting. Even if you would close every corporate tax loophole and increased the taxation on major businesses, it would only generate enough to cut the deficit. It would devastate our economy and stock market in the process, and not even start to fund Kerry's social programs. Alright, so idea number one is stupid, Kerry must be placing all of his hopes with solution number two.

I am about to admit that I actually feel sorry for intelligent, thinking, Democrats who honestly want George Bush elected out of office. They deserve far better than the drivel Kerry is trying to pass off as a policy. Kerry's second plan to generate revenue for the federal government is to achieve energy independence through the development of an alternative energy source that will free us from reliance on foreign oil. And what might this new miracle fuel be? Who knows! Kerry does not because it has not been invented yet. Kerry plans for Americans to "roll up their sleeves" and have someone invent something just like we did when we defeated polio and traveled to the Moon.

That is right, no plan, no ideas, just a hope that some mystery scientist will invent a revolutionary new energy source that is cheap, environmentally clean, and capable of producing millions of high paying jobs. What the hell, since we are already going to be in the "inventing mode", we might as well tell this scientist to make this fuel a cure for cancer, AIDS, and male pattern baldness to boot.

So, if you are a scientist, you better rush on out to your garage right now and get to work! After all, the Election is less than 100 days away and if Kerry is going to attain all of his funding goals in 4 years, you will have to figure that you will have to have your miracle fuel fully developed and tested by the end of Kerry's first 100 days in office. After all, for Kerry's plan to work, we will have to completely retool our entire fuel supply infrastructure, develop and roll out to the public economically priced automobiles to replace their old combustion engine vehicles, find jobs for the millions displaced workers from the now outdated petroleum industry, and completely revamp every power plant in the country by the end of Kerry's first year. The DNC actually granting a degree of validity to this farce of a theory is nothing less than insanity. I just do not believe that this is the best the Democrats could develop. Why do they not just make "beaming messages into outer space begging extraterrestrials to help us" into their platform? That would stand just as much of a chance at success as Kerry's actual plan and be far cheaper.

The really frightening part about the Democratic Platform is how often Kerry's "Energy Plan" is listed as the rationality for the success of other Kerry spending programs. Read the 37 page Platform. Kerry's energy plan is sited at least eight times as the source for funding one program or another (that is six more than any other). It is the entire lynch pin for his entire platform. But what, on the off chance some reclusive, environmentally conscious scientist does not develop Kerry's "Ubergas"? I will tell you what will happen. We will lose the War on Terror, have a President we do not know one day to the next what his policies will be, and our taxes will go up. The bottom line is we will end up with a guy who wants to be President for no other reason that making the office the next stop on his personal ego trip. Kerry wants to be President for the sake of being President. Beware, an ego manic like this will say and do anything to win except make sense.