A man asked me at the region 6 meeting on Saturday what I thought Democratic values are. I didn’t give him a very good answer, but I keep thinking about the question and would like to attempt a better one–because it is something I’ve thought about, because it’s the reason I’m working with the party.

It’s pretty obvious who the Republicans represent: the rich and the religious right. The rest of us are irrelevant to them. In fact, I think they’d be pretty happy if we just all fell off the edge of the flat Earth some of them still believe in.

That leaves the rest of us two options: the Democratic Party or a third party. Since our system is structured to make it difficult for a third party, that leaves us with the current two. Since I’m clearly not part of the GOP demographic, the Democrats seemed like my best option. But I can’t say the party was exactly representing the values I wanted it to. So here’s what I think Democratic Party values should be:

Equality: Of opportunity, in education, to healthcare, to be heard, to justice.

Fairness: In the application of the law, in access to services, in the level of reward for work and creativity.

Liberty: Civil liberties, the rule of law, the sorts of legal protections the Constitution and the Bill of Rights give us.

Democracy: The rule of the people, responsiveness of elected officials to their constituents; regulation of corporations and other special-interest groups that tend to damage our health, liberty, and environment.

There are probably others. But these are some of the big ones I’d like to see the Democratic Party stand for. I apologize to the questioner in Oakland, and hope someday I can tell him this.

More than that, I hope someday the party I work for will stand for all of this and more.