The Left is adopting a new strategy. That’s hardly new. They are using a phrase, but they want to define it. Again, hardly new.

Democrats seem to be unifying under the phrase the ‘Common Good’, which sounds good, but is nothing short of terrifying if they are allowed to define what that means.

“It’s a core value that we think organizes the entire political agenda for progressives,” said John Halpin, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. “With the rise of materialism, greed and corruption in American society, people want a return to a better sense of community — sort of a shared sacrifice, a return to the ethic of service and duty.”

Republicans have used the phrase, too. GOP Sen. Rick Santorum, who faces Casey, a fellow Catholic, in November, wrote a book last year titled, “It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good.” But liberals say that Republican policies promote a “radical individualism” — advocating individual retirement accounts above Social Security, health savings accounts over affordable insurance, and tax cuts that Democrats say benefit only the rich.

It sounds as if they want to use *this definition:

A system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.

That’s not my common good.

The “common good” theme came up in meetings among Democrats and faith groups after the 2004 election, when the party felt blind-sided by the values vote and was frantic to solve its religion problem.

Heck, I can help them with their “religion problem”. They have to stop thinking of religion as being a problem! There.

They can dress this pig up in the prettiest prom dress they can find, but it’s still going to be a porker they’re dancing with.

*Dictionary definition of communism on Answers.com. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.