6.21.2006
The Democrats Reassess (WashingtonPost.com)
Effort to Win Battle of Ideas Includes New Web Site and Journal
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 21, 2006; Page A19
This is idea week for the Democratic Party.
On Monday, three veteran party strategists -- William Galston, Stan Greenberg and Ruy Teixeira -- launched a Web site ( http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org ) with the goal of generating fact-based, empirically tested theories that might help Democrats resolve their policy differences and win more elections.
Yesterday saw another launch party, this time for Democracy, a quarterly journal that also will be available online ( http://www.democracyjournal.org ). The magazine will be edited by Andrei Cherny and Kenneth Baer, two younger veterans of recent party wars. Their goal is do for the Democrats what journals such as Public Interest did for conservatives and Republicans decades ago, which is to bring forward big ideas to challenge what they regard as the tired thinking that grips Democratic politicians.
On Thursday, NDN (formerly the New Democrat Network) will convene its annual conference. NDN, founded by Simon Rosenberg, has recently been in the forefront of moving beyond differences between centrists, liberals and the new world of blogs and net-roots activists, all with an eye toward tipping the political balance back in a Democratic direction.
Those in the middle of these events share a similar conviction, which is that for too long Republicans have been winning the battle of ideas (and often campaign strategy) in American politics, in part because conservatives invested in what is now a well-funded infrastructure of organizations that have produced ideas, thinkers, publications, strategists, and politicians who now control the White House, Congress and increasingly the federal judiciary.
(More ... The Democrats Reassess) ¶ 22:44
By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 21, 2006; Page A19
This is idea week for the Democratic Party.
On Monday, three veteran party strategists -- William Galston, Stan Greenberg and Ruy Teixeira -- launched a Web site ( http://www.thedemocraticstrategist.org ) with the goal of generating fact-based, empirically tested theories that might help Democrats resolve their policy differences and win more elections.
Yesterday saw another launch party, this time for Democracy, a quarterly journal that also will be available online ( http://www.democracyjournal.org ). The magazine will be edited by Andrei Cherny and Kenneth Baer, two younger veterans of recent party wars. Their goal is do for the Democrats what journals such as Public Interest did for conservatives and Republicans decades ago, which is to bring forward big ideas to challenge what they regard as the tired thinking that grips Democratic politicians.
On Thursday, NDN (formerly the New Democrat Network) will convene its annual conference. NDN, founded by Simon Rosenberg, has recently been in the forefront of moving beyond differences between centrists, liberals and the new world of blogs and net-roots activists, all with an eye toward tipping the political balance back in a Democratic direction.
Those in the middle of these events share a similar conviction, which is that for too long Republicans have been winning the battle of ideas (and often campaign strategy) in American politics, in part because conservatives invested in what is now a well-funded infrastructure of organizations that have produced ideas, thinkers, publications, strategists, and politicians who now control the White House, Congress and increasingly the federal judiciary.
(More ... The Democrats Reassess) ¶ 22:44
