Dear Ted: Honk if You Get a Platform

It’s not often that I reach into my mailbox at home and find a letter from Ted Kennedy, so I was eager to see what was on the mind of the saber-rattling senator from the great state of Massachusetts.

The letter began “Dear Friend,” which is a little impersonal, if you ask me. When my friends at the Republican National Committee wrote to ask me to sign President Bush’s birthday card -- and send along a few bucks -- they began their letter, “Dear Steve.”

Kennedy, you’ll be shocked to know, was also hitting me up for money, in this case for the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee.

“Yes, Senator Kennedy,” said the contribution form I was supposed to check off and return, “I share your concern over the arrogance and incompetence of the Bush Administration.”

In anticipation of my generosity, Kennedy enclosed a complimentary bumper sticker:

HAD ENOUGH?

Vote Democrat in ’06

As a matter of fact, I do share Kennedy’s concern about the Bush administration, and so I was eager to read the four-page letter and other enclosed materials to find out more about the alternative vision being offered up by the Democratic Party.

Page 1, however, contained no such clues. It just fired more bazooka shots at the president and his “extreme right-wing allies,” so I figured the fresh ideas from the Dems had to be on Page 2.

Wrong again. Page 2 was nothing but groveling for money for contested races in Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Minnesota. (“It’s urgent for each of us to do as much as possible as soon as possible!”)

Page 3 suggested the Republicans will burn in hell for sins against humanity (“They’ve poisoned our air and water”), and Page 4 warned, “They’ll never stop unless we stop them. They’re shameless!”

That’s quite a cavalry call, but it seems to me the Democrats are once again rushing to the front lines with empty muskets.

I’m not asking for the Democratic equivalent of a 10-point Contract With America, having lowered my expectations while on the campaign trail with Al Gore and bearing witness to his nationally televised identity crisis.

I’d settle for a five-point “Contract With Western Blue States.” Heck, I’d be happy with a warmed-over crumb of an idea or two.

Instead all we get from the Democrats is the reminder that they stand for ... wait, let’s see, where was that platform draft?

Oh, yeah. They’re anti-Iraq war, or at least they are now that it’s turned out so miserably.

And they’re passionately ... hold on a second. What else was there?

Anti-Republican. That’s it.

Write a check today because “They’re shameless!”

Craig Smith, a former speechwriter for Gerald Ford and the first President Bush, said the Kennedy letter is a direct response to polls that show declining support for the war in Iraq and for the president.

But he finds it astounding that the Democratic Party still can’t move beyond its attack strategy and figure out how to define and sell itself with a specific, alternative agenda.

Smith, who teaches campaign persuasion at Cal State Long Beach, has a simple piece of advice for his political rivals:

Go back to your roots.

“They have not been the loyal opposition,” said Smith, who believes Democrats sold their souls under the influence of the Democratic Leadership Council, which pushed the party toward the center after Walter Mondale was blown out by Ronald Reagan.

There’s an intellectual distinction to be made in the essence of what it means to be a Republican or a Democrat, Smith said, and Democrats ought to embrace the difference.

“For me, it always goes back to this: If you put a gun to a Republican’s head and say, ‘Choose between individuality or equality,’ they’ll pick individual freedom. A good liberal will pick equality over individual freedom.”

Democrats, he said, need to get back to the social agenda. They ought to put healthcare reform back at the top of their to-do list, and not cut and run the way Bill Clinton did.

They ought to be screaming about wages that keep millions in abject poverty, and they ought to put up or shut up on education, doing something more than attacking Bush’s “no child left behind” program.

It’s a sad day in America when a Republican can deliver a more coherent agenda in a single paragraph than Ted Kennedy can in a four-page screed.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that instead of writing a check to Mr. Kennedy, I tossed his letter -- along with the bumper sticker -- into the can.

My decision was endorsed by Ken Khachigian, the GOP consultant who worked with Reagan. He recalled Kennedy’s speech at the 1980 Democratic National Convention, referring to it as the speech “left-wingers” love to quote:

“The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dream shall never die.”

“So,” Khachigian said, “regarding this letter, these are my questions for Ted: What work goes on; which cause endures; where does hope live; and, by the way, what IS the dream?”

Reach the columnist at steve.lopez@latimes.com and read previous columns at www.latimes.com/lopez.