Let's Be Blue -- A Plea for Partisanship

Yes, yes, I know we are all a bunch of enlightened, Obama-style post-partisans, and isn't that wonderful -- but we are missing an opportunity here. As our economy continues to underwhelm, with each week bringing more and more catastrophic news, we are not taking advantage of our key strength and McCain's key weakness:"the brand."

McCain is a Republican. Despite his alleged possession of magical maverick fairy dust, he is a Republican who votes Republican, and is therefore responsible for much of the mess we find ourselves in today. We should be pouncing on this. We're not.

Obama, in all his post-partisan glory, is a Democrat. Again, not something to be ashamed of. Democrats fix broken economies. It's what we do. It's what we should be bragging about. We're not.

By running to the party label instead of from it, we are linking Obama to a grand tradition of economic champions and linking McCain with the philosophies that have put this economy in the toilet.

Here's the ad I want to see:

(We hear a Narrator over a montage of scary footage of Wall Street and the struggling middle class)

NARRATOR
The US economy is in crisis. Again.
Eight years of Republican policy have
turned surplus into debt.
Tax cuts for the rich.

(Images of rich Republicans: Jack Abramoff, Cindy McCain, etc.)

NARRATOR
Deregulation.

(Images of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bear Stearns, etc.)

NARRATOR
Bowing to the whims of the oil companies.

(Images of Bush, McCain, Saudi prince, etc.)

NARRATOR
Again.

NARRATOR
Republican economic policies, the same policies
John McCain has been fighting for his entire career,
are laying waste to our economy and proving
disastrous for the middle class.

(Image of a baby carriage teetering on the edge of a cliff. A hand reaches up to stop its fall.)

NARRATOR
Let us help.

(Scary images turn hopeful.)

NARRATOR
We're Democrats.

(Positive images of Democrats, Obama, Biden, happy Americans, etc.)

NARRATOR
It took a Democratic president to get us out of
the Great Depression.

(Image of FDR.)

NARRATOR
It took a Democratic president to turn this nation's
largest debt into its largest surplus.

(Image of Bill Clinton.)

NARRATOR
We're good at fixing problems.

(Image of hard-at-work Democrats)

NARRATOR
Besides, why would you trust the economy to the
same people who screwed it up in the first place?

(Images of Bush, McCain, Cheney, etc.)

NARRATOR
This November, vote for a Democrat.

(Fade out on images of Obama and Biden.)

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A bit heavy-handed? Sure (Particularly the baby carriage imagery, I admit). But I'm just spitballing here. The point is, we have a huge weapon in our arsenal that we're not using. Maybe Barack Obama can't talk much about party if he wants to keep his post-partisan cred. But we can. Just imagine if the DNC started putting out pro-Democrat ads. It would be newsworthy. And it would shift the conversation to a topic where we win big easily.

"Democrat" shouldn't be a dirty word. Let's use it and be proud of it.