US Democratic program

[Don Corleone]

Well, this was one of the principal complaints against the Democrats during the election:

-Okay, okay, you hate Bush. We got that. Loud and clear. Now what else?

The problem is the Democratic party isn't idea driven. It's a loose confederation of special interest groups: like ELF (Enivironmental Liberation Front) NARAL (Nataional Abortion Rights Action League), the NAACP and other groups. Frequently, other than their particular issue, the members have nothing in agreement. For example, most black religious leaders in the NAACP are opposed to abortion, but they have to keep quiet about that.

(Edit: aside...before anyone goes claiming Democrats represent blacks & Republicans don't, we do deal with the Urban League and the UNCF. We just don't deal with the NAACP specifically, as it has a pretty radically left agenda and fired it's president, Kwisei Mfume (no Republican stooge by any stretch) recently for not attacking Republicans enough. Not much ground to gain there).

You could argue that Republicans are also just a loose confederation of special interest groups, except there's one difference. No one interest group get's carte blanche on their issue.

Example: anti-gun people (The Brady Lobby) join the Democrats. All Democrats are now required to toe the line on outlawing personal firearm ownership. The pro-gun people (NRA) would love to have that kind of clout with it's fellow members of the Republican party, but they can't even get Republicans to guarantee no background checks. With the Republicans, the few are subordinate to the many, so we can actually put together coherent policies.