Dem young guns launch journal of ideas

Reflecting a demand for new ideas in the Democratic Party, two young intellectuals have founded a quarterly periodical modeled after influential conservative journals like Commentary and The National Interest.

Kenneth Baer and Andrei Cherny, both speechwriters and authors who have worked within the New Democrat movement, will launch Democracy: A Journal of Ideas today at the National Press Club. They will appear on a panel with Weekly Standard Editor William Kristol, American Prospect Editor Michael Tomasky and Francis Fukuyama of The American Interest.

“We think that the party is rich in tactics and poor in ideas,” said Baer, who worked as a speechwriter for former Vice President Al Gore. “What we really need for long-term success is deep, serious thinking about how we’re going to apply long-held progressive values to new challenges.”

“I had started thinking about where all of the conservative ideas, for better or worse, had come from,” Cherny said. “Every big idea — Social Security privatization, supply-side economics, preemption, faith-based initiatives — had come out of one of their journals in their intellectual infrastructure.”

Over lunch last year with Baer at Mackey’s Public House on L Street, Cherny proposed starting their own journal to help foster debate across the political spectrum. The first issue appeared online yesterday at http://www.democracyjournal.org

http://www.thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Campaign/062006_journal.html

Glad to see this. :)

Just about 30 years too late, but it's good this is finally happening. We need a LOT of this, because there's so much lost ground to retake.