Advice from the "Common Man"

by: ProfessorMike

Wed Nov 10, 2010 at 16:06:13 PM EST
A week ago the Portsmouth "Herald" reported on a talk given by Mr. Alex Ray, the owner of the "Common Man" restaurant chain, to a group business owners in the North Country.  I don't know Mr. Ray or if he is a Democrat or a Republican but some of his comments apply to mistakes made in the last election.

"Your business is really dependent on what you do and not your competition. It's how you perform in the eyes of your customers, or not."

I think that this is where we made a mistake.  The policies of President Obama and the Democratic Congress have had a positive effect on our economy.  Government is our business and the election shows that the voters, our customers if you will, lost faith in us.  However in a real sense we lost faith in ourselves long before the election.  Week after week I listened to Democratic candidates talk about how bad the economy was, how we needed to cut the deficit, how we needed to take some unnamed action.  Nowhere did I hear praise of the health care bill which while not perfect is a strong move in the right direction.  No where did I hear President Obama's economic policies defended. I didn't hear Democratic candidates correct the misstatements and outright lies of the Republicans.  In other words we abandoned our principles and presented ourselves as a confused group of want to be Republicans.

President Obama is our leader and the policies he is pursuing are the best short we have correcting the economic mess that we are in.  By not backing the President we hurt ourselves and I believe cost Democrats the election.
On the road to Election 2012 we need to find ourselves again and take the leadership role.  We need to be less dependent on polls and realize that we have to sell our point of view to the voters or not simply follow the polls.  The Republicans, especially the "Tea Party" group, were perceived as leaders and even though much of what they said was nonsense, the people listened.  

To paraphrase Alex Ray, the Republicans didn't win the election, we lost it.  The voters, our customers, lost faith in us and we need to get that back.  We need to change how we present our message to the voters before it is too late.  The Democrats need to win in 2012.

(Source:  The Portsmouth Herald, November  
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