Budowsky: "Obama and the Democratic base"

Brent Budowsky (The Hill):

In a recent Gallup poll Americans chose President Kennedy as the most popular president of the last five decades. The Kennedy legacy lives. Those who deny this do not understand the soul of the Democratic Party or the state of public opinion in America today.

President Obama was elected in 2008 with the dramatic and high-profile support of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.). One of the most widely quoted statements in 2008 was by Caroline Kennedy, who said Obama would be "a president like my father."

What does it tell us that even after the 2010 election in what was called the year of the Tea Party, Americans chose a populist progressive Democratic president, not a Republican or conservative president, as their favorite over the last 50 years?

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The Democrats' mantra should be to stand tall, fight hard, organize first, mobilize for battle and negotiate later, from strength.

This is how Reagan and the Kennedys so often prevailed. They never unilaterally disarmed their base. They never surrendered positions of principle before a negotiation began. They knew the difference between smart compromise and perpetual retreat. They knew that elections are lost when a great party's most faithful voters are moved to stay home, and won when the faithful are moved to fight on matters where they agree with a majority of independents. MORE...