April Fool?

The girl who first got me reading blogs - August 2004 it was - said in passing the other day "I'm reading Kos and Wonkette these days, just to see what the other side is saying".

Here it is, a rainy Saturday morning and I've finally decided to check them out.

Daily Kos isn't instantly recognisable as the work of one person, which is what appealled to me when I first started reading Michelle and Glenn and Charles and Hugh. They were people with writing styles and ways of thinking I appreciated. I went through a Christopher Hitchens phase and had a huge passion for Michael Yon, still do but he's not writing from the battlefields of Iraq these days so my stomach isn't turning over everytime I hear about IEDs and terrorists blowing themselves up in that neck of the woods - well, not so much.

I was instantly on guard with the report of a "focus group". I always hear alarm bells when people talk aboout "focus groups". The term has become so devalued and any collection of people giving an opinion becomes a "focus group" - whether there's been an attempt to apply scientific principles to the composition of the group or not. Fine, conduct your "focus groups" but don't expect labelling them that way to obfuscate that they're a bunch of your mates agreeing with you over a bottle or three.

Ah oh, April Fool joke? Some of the findings made sense:

Edited Highlights from "TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR 2008 DEMOCRATS"

1. ...Democrats don't want to be told what's wrong with America. They want to be told what you plan to do about it...
2. ...Leave Bush out of it. We know why we don't like him. Tell us why we should like you instead.
3...The time for a conversation about faith and spirituality is in the general election, not the primaries...
4. Don't tell me what's wrong with America unless you can tell me what you're going to do to make it right.
5. Tell me something new. Tell me something I don't already know.
6. Be a Deficit Democrat. Every time a Democratic candidate talked about ending wasteful spending and tackling the deficit, the dials spiked up, as did the approval. In the arena of deficit spending, there really isn't much difference between Democrats and Republicans.
Note: there are no "dials" in qualitative research, no idea why the writer used that terminology)
7. The 2008 Agenda: education, healthcare, prescription drugs, energy independence. The war in Iraq may grab the headlines and the attention, but Democrats are much more focused on concerns right here at home.
8. The 2008 Attributes: intelligence, competence, accountability, getting things done, passion, honesty and being ethical.
9. You are the message. Watch the negativity. Democrats want hope. Beating up on Republicans will generate applause, but it doesn't generate votes. The candidates focused on the future will have a significant advantage. The candidate that generates the most hope in a better future will win the nomination.
10. Winning is everything. And the only thing. As in 2004, Democrats want to win. Unlike 2004, they REALLY want to win. No candidate will secure the nomination whom they fear will lose to the Republican nominee. Electability is going to play a major role in 2008.

What, picking John Kerry meant Democrats didn't REALLY want to win?

But seriously folks, if this is the blog democrats are reading there is SOME hope that America will finally get a DECENT opposition party, which is what is needed right now. The beauty of having a responsible, intelligent opposition party is it provides a VALID alternative to the party in power. The threat that the opposition will take on considerable political power is a wonderful way to focus the attention, which has not been required of the republican party to the detriment of all.

Sorry about all the words in caps, I was just copying the style.

No time to check out Wonkette.