Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Here are the major discussions I've found on the midterm convention.   At the bottom, I'll lay out a few of the common threads I've seen in these discussions.

Madcasey - diary w/ petition calling for a midterm convention and a strong opposition party.

CMKay - suggestion for an online convention (crossposted to My Left Wing)

Stirling Newberry - We Can Do Better:  2006 Open Convention.  Stirling is arguing for what he calls an "Open Convention".  He suggests a series of regional/local events to 'design' the platform, culminating in a national event to ratify and kick it into action.  IMHO, that's a great way to go, and overcomes many of the biggest objections raised elsewhere.
Stirling at BopNews
We Can do Better
The Open Convention for 2006

EBGill- In the context of a midterm convention, discusses what sounds like a charrette model of developing and building consensus on a platform.  I think the charrette idea could be applied very effectively to building a platform.  Anyone have experience with this?

My own diaries arguing that Bush is a lame duck, that Americans' lack of support for his administration means we should treat his retirement as a fait accompli' and that we can demonstrate our leadership by making a public bid now to select a new President.  
The Time to Begin is Now
The more concisely put,  Starting Now

Around the blogs:

MyDD - Scott Shields on the Cronkite LTE
Fleshed out here, with a good list of ground rules to make a convention successful, including:
 * Introducing our candidates...
 * Making the case for our platform...
 * Show that we're a big tent party...
 * Not just a cheerleading session...
 * Democrats in action...
 * No cost to the host site...
 * Run a tight ship...
 * Be honest...

TPM - Picks up on the Cronkite LTE,  especially see the comment by American Dreamer

Alternet- Tom Cosgrove, calling for the Midterm Convention in a letter to Chairman Dean, in order to develop and communicate The Big Ideas

Democrats.com- some discussion on the topic

Media Matters - Offers a note of caution against being too specific, too soon in our proposals.  They note that the Republicans didn't unveil their Contract on America until just two months before the '94 election..

And this via Political Wire:  Robert Reich in 2001 discussed a midterm convention.  I think he had some very cogent points to make about the idea that are even more pertinent today.  

Democratic activists are pushing for a midterm convention next summer. The party hasn't met at midterm for more than two decades. But activists make a convincing case for rallying the troops next year before the 2002 midterm elections and using the occasion to articulate a new progressivism for America.
...
Finally, a midterm convention would enable activists to take the measure of potential presidential candidates for the 2004 race before the candidates begin rounding up money and locking in squads of campaign consultants and pollsters. Anyone even thinking about a run will want to attend and make a pitch because the race to become the Democrats' standard-bearer begins in earnest in 2002. By the time the 2004 convention rolls around, it will be over. Unless activists use a midterm convention to gauge prospective candidates, the next Democratic presidential candidate will be selected, in effect, by the party financiers who bankroll the primary campaigns.

Also, bunches of local blogs and community sites at least mentioned the Cronkite piece, available via google.

Common Threads:

  1 Pretty consistent agreement with the general concept, with the occasional voice arguing it just can't be done.

  2 A recurring call for openness and the widest participation possible.  A common reaction to the idea of the midterm convention is that folks don't want the same old professional politicians to be spouting the same old platitudes.  

  3 A call for the party to get down to business and communicate our ideals, coupled with a sense that the Republicans have been consistently better at articulating their core ideals that we have. (nothing new there!)

I put this together in hopes of moving the discussion on a convention past the Fitzmas Flurries, Scalito, Give 'em Hell Harry, etc.  I couldn't be more gratified than to have someone more eloquent than I am, and with more time on their hands, take this up and really push it here.  (yes that's a call for volunteers!)    I'll leave you with this quote from Scott Shields' post, and my questions for the VLWC community:


If something like this is going to happen, it's not going to be because some blogger said it was a good idea. It'll happen because you demanded it.

  1 Would some form of convention be of benefit to us strategically?
  2 If yes, what form should that convention take?  Single event,  multiple fora locally organized, regional events, some combination of these?
  3 How can we best create the momentum behind the idea to make it happen?
  4 Are you 'in' for helping with #3?

Look for more tomorrow - I have it on good authority that at least one prominent blogger will be publishing more on the topic.

Crossposted on Big Orange - I had a heck of a time chopping out the extra html tags that got inserted when I pasted over my text to tweak it for here.  Apologies if anything's haywire!