Welcome to IdeasPrimary.com. This is a new Web site, sponsored by the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), that is about ideas, which are the most important — but often least appreciated — element of politics.

In an era of instant communications, 24-hour news cycles, incessant polling and the permanent campaign, America needs a permanent ideas primary — a place where new ideas and innovative approaches for solving our country’s ever changing challenges will be showcased and debated continuously. IdeasPrimary.com will serve just that purpose.

The IdeasPrimary.com mission statement explains:

During the years preceding an election, the money and endorsement primaries dominate the political echo chamber in Washington. But for most voters, stories about fundraising, endorsements and political sniping are both unhelpful and discouraging. They highlight just how dysfunctional Washington can be — focused on everything but finding real solutions to the problems facing the nation.

Moreover, a focus on tactics rather than ideas means that voters don’t get the information they need before casting their vote. They want to know where a candidate wants to take the country.

That’s what this site is about. The Ideas Primary aims to refocus attention on the central challenges the country faces, and what our leaders plan to do about them. It will serve as a forum — cutting through all the political hype — for a real contest of ideas.

The 2008 election offers an historic opportunity for Democrats — not just to hold onto Congress and win back the White House, but to build an enduring, sustainable political and governing majority in America in the progressive center of the political spectrum.

These are heady times for Democrats. Americans are clearly dissatisfied with the Bush administration — three in four believe the country is going in the wrong direction. The president’s personal approval ratings are the lowest of any president in more than half a century.

As the 2008 presidential campaign moves into high gear, all early signs point to Democrats winning back the White House and holding onto, if not expanding, the Congressional majorities they won in 2006. The president’s mishandling of the war in Iraq and his general ineptitude has alienated the very voters at the heart of the electorate who have been essential to his political success. Democratic activists who have long loathed the Bush administration feel a real sense of vindication. Their tendency is to pile on, to keep hammering away at Bush’s many failures.

That strategy may well be enough to return a Democrat to the White House in 2008, but it will not be enough to take advantage of the historic opportunity that next year’s election brings to build a enduring, sustainable progressive-centrist majority.

Democrats can only build that sort of governing majority by proving themselves in office — by solving the big challenges facing our country.

That’s why it is critical that the Democratic candidates offer practical, workable ideas for making America safe even as we extricate ourselves from Iraq, for giving every American the opportunity and tools to prosper in the international economy, for reducing our dependence on foreign oil, for cleaning up Washington and reforming our government, for strengthening families and for assuring that no American who works lives in poverty.

Those challenges and many more will confront the next president. He or she must tackle them with new and innovative ideas. Those ideas should be grounded in the first principles of the Democratic Party: Jackson’s credo of opportunity for all, special privileges for none; Roosevelt’s thirst for innovation; Truman’s muscular internationalism; Kennedy’s summons to civic duty; Johnson’s quest for social justice; and Clinton’s insistence on new means to achieve progressive ideals.

Challenges will forever change — and so will the ideas to meet them. But the first principles of the Democratic Party — and of the New Democrat movement — should be our guide in shaping them.

Bush’s failure to solve — and often to address — America’s great challenges has left our country dispirited, disillusioned and divided. A new Democratic president will have the opportunity unify Americans and rebuild our spirits around ideas that will solve our country’s problems — ideas that will make Americans proud of their country again. We hope that such ideas will be promoted and debated on this site.

In the end, we believe the best ideas will also prove to the best politics.

This entry was posted on 7.23.2007 at 11:25 am and is filed under Other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response.