Daily Kos: Note to Dems: Put Voters Ahead of Broders

by davidsirota
Wed Dec 06, 2006 at 09:06:00 AM PST

On February 27, 1968, CBS's Walter Cronkite famously said that "the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate." As Iraq and the hubris that led to the invasion shows, Cronkite's words were never taken to heart by the political system, or even just the majority of Democrats, who supported the war. Instead, what many in Democratic politics really internalized to great folly was President Lyndon Johnson's reaction to Cronkite's declaration. "That's it," LBJ said. "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America."

In most political circles today, it is assumed that there are three tiers of people that a candidate must satisfy in descending order: 1) Media and financial elites 2) grassroots organizations and 3) the public at large. The key point here is the descending order - very often Democrats have their eyes first and foremost on media and financial elites, to the exclusion of grassroots organizations and the public at large.