Navigating a battle between partisan, progressive organizing and decentralized petition drives is, at bottom, like trying to choose between the Democratic Party and democracy. The ideas are on different planes.
Education in democracy must be carried on within the Party so that members can understand the meaning of democratic life, the meaning of the relationship between democracy and centralism, and the way in which democratic centralism should be put into practice. Only in this way can we really extend democracy within the Party and at the same time avoid ultra-democracy and the laissez-faire that destroys discipline.
The Democratic Party has been my party over 50 years, where I waged my battle to change America and change the world from its progressive wing.
Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? It means that we choose between two bodies of real, though not avowed, autocrats. We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
Democracy necessarily means a conflict of will and ideas, involving sometimes a war of the knife between different ideas.
Voters are smart. They know the difference between a Democratic Party that wants their vote and a Democratic Party that believes in making their life better. They'll forgive you for pushing a policy they don't like as long as they believe you're doing it because you genuinely believe it's what's best for the country.
My party was the party which was created by Mr Mohammad Ali Jinnah. He didn't create that party. But he was the main pillar of the party. Our party is a very forward-looking, progressive, democratic party.
I don't choose between my house phone and my mobile. I don't choose between my laptop and my notebook. And I don't intend to choose between my e-reader and my bookshelf.
I see some parallels between then [Lincoln's era] and now. Certainly the division of ideologies between two parties, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. In 1865, the Democrats were the Conservatives and the Republicans were the progressives, and today it's just the opposite.
There are two outstanding issues in democratic politics these days. One is the relationship with the media, which is now 24/7, and operates with a completely different intensity than even 15 or 20 years ago. How do we have a proper conversation between leaders and country when it's moderated sometimes in a very partisan and inflammatory way? And the second thing is the effectiveness of our democracy. How do we get the right gene and talent pool in politics?
This is not a battle between the United States of America and terrorism, but between the free and democratic world and terrorism.
If you were to ask me to choose between democratic values and wealth, power, prosperity and fame, I will very easily and without any doubt choose democratic values.
One of the things the Democratic Party is trying to do is take the word off-year out of our lexicon, because we've tended to be an accordion as a party. We expand in the presidentials; we shrink in between; and we scratch our head and wonder why we lose midterms.
[Most progressive in the Democratic Party] won't stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership or take a position against it, you know, which is an absolute assault on our democracy.
I like to see myself as a bridge builder, that is me building bridges between people, between races, between cultures, between politics, trying to find common ground.
The rules in this new 'post-partisan' era are pretty simple: If the Democratic Party wants it, it's 'stimulus.' If the Republican Party opposes it, it's 'politics' - as in headlines like this: 'Obama Urges GOP To Keep Politics To A Minimum On Stimulus.' These are serious times: As the president says, it's the worst economic crisis since the Thirties. So politicians need to put politics behind them and immediately lavish $4.19 billion on his community-organizing pals at the highly inventive 'voter registration' group ACORN for 'neighborhood stabilization activities.
The Tea Party is not monolithic. There is a battle between people who care about liberty and the Constitution and the Republican Establishment who is trying to take ownership of it and redirect it for its own purposes.