to transform the Dem party to a reasonable and accomplished party, there needs to be a healthy mix of time-tested, older patterns and new, transformative ideas on the table.

Many of the older platforms included revolutionary ideas for their day: civil rights; universal Healthcare; gay rights; abortion rights; equal pay for women; strong unions; an unsuccessful immigration policy proposal; profit sharing; ending child labor; ending poor houses; low income housing; welfare; and so on.

They were pioneers in their day. They built the platform that got so many important things done (that we take for granted today), getting them through Congress as well encouraging acceptance in society.

They knew HOW to get stuff done even though something broke along the way to getting here today. That was when partisanship became more important to much of Congress than actually doing their jobs representing us. Compromise became a dirty word and everything became a zero sum game rather than everyone ultimately getting some part of a win and sharing a piece of the inevitable loss when opinions differ so much. Of course, the majority got the bigger piece of the pie in any compromise, but also had to eat some of the yucky liver.

That way the "losers" didnt only lose, they also won something whether something they wanted moving forward or something they didnt want not going as far as the other side wanted. In the case of a basically even spkit, each usually got half a win and half a loss. People are far more likely to be reasonable and to compromise when they have choices and get some kind of win too.

Congress NEEDS help finding their way back to employing compromise again and working together to advance priorities for this country. Who better than the old guard in each party to lead the way back to that? So keeping some of those ideals alive to impress upon the newest "stars" who know nothing of those days will show them the basic building blocks of a successful platform that can actually advance their priorities..

At the same time, LYS, they also need NEW ideas to keep up with a radically changed world.

If compromise and at least basic respect doesn't return to congress, everything will require 60 votes to pass and each party will pummel the minority when they get the majority. Elections will be MUST WIN CONTESTS to "save the world" from the evil other party.