Murray assures followers of powerful agenda

Local Democrats need to emphasize issues important to average people and can count on their national leaders for more help in coming elections, party stalwarts were told Monday.

Patty Murray, the state’s senior senator, told a luncheon crowd they don’t need to look far for a message. She talks to people every day who are concerned about jobs, retirement and troops overseas.

“I’m tired of talk show hosts saying ‘Democrats don’t have an agenda,’ ” Murray told members of the Warren G. Magnuson Democratic Club.

Their agenda revolves around strength at home, from good schools to good roads to good health care, she said.

Troops who return home from Iraq and Afghanistan need to be able to find jobs, get into schools and have veterans benefits available to them.

Joining Murray was Democratic National Committee Vice Chairman Mike Honda, a California congressman, who conceded the national organization had lost touch with many parts of the country like Eastern Washington, which have voted increasingly Republican in recent years.

To have any chance of winning back the White House in 2008, the party will have to get back in touch with local communities and their concerns, Honda said.

While many of those so-called “red states” are leery of the federal government and its powers, Honda said the poor response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita showed the need for competent, organized federal agencies to marshal the forces to respond to disasters.

Instead of a federal government filled with “cronyism and people with no idea what they’re doing,” Democrats need to stand for a government that is available to help people, he said.