Time to stand and fight...

Simon Rosenberg of the New Democrat Network talks to New Deal Magazine, a new progressive magazine. Here's the main gist of it:

My basic counsel is that this is a time for people to stand and fight and not cut and run. The Bush Administration has taken the country to a dangerous place and we need soldiers in this battle. The sort of battle were in is one that will require people who can relate arguments as well as turn out voters.

Simon is one of the new message makers of the progressive world, he was even a dark horse canidate for the DNC chair. If Dr. Dean is smart, he will bring in and listen to Simon.

One of Simon's main points is the Hispanic vote. Nationwide, Republicans gained 14% of their vote over 2000. In states where the New Democrat Network ran their spanish language campaign, Democrats gained 5% of the vote over 2000.

We had a legacy with Hispanics, but not a strategy. So NDN tried to craft a winning national strategy for Democrats in 2004. If you look at the numbers, Bush gained around 14 points nationally with Hispanics, and it’s very troublesome for Democrats if that trend continues. If we continue to hold the same number of Hispanics, somewhere in the 40’s, we simply can’t become a majority party again. What I’m very proud of is, in the 4 states we ran our campaign we actually gained 5 percentage points amongst Hispanics. There is a simple lesson to learned from this election: if we don’t communicate with Hispanics and aren’t culturally sensitive in a serious way, we’re going to lose ground. If we do communicate in a serious, culturally sensitive way we can gain ground.

?entiende, isabella dems?