I came into Election Day more confident than I had been at most points in the campaign. Polls were showing Kerry leads in Florida and Ohio. I'm not going to try to figure out what went wrong, but what the Democratic Party needs to do in preparation for 2008.
The day after Election Day, the London Daily Mirror asked "How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?" Many liberals here at home in their exasperation faulted the American people for the Election Day result.
While I find it incredibly discouraging that voters didn't feel America needs a change in direction, the "blame" does not lie with them.
The reason we lost this election, in the end, falls on the Democratic Party. I sympathize with their situation. The party has been struggling for a solid stance on military policy since Vietnam, and while Kerry's war rhetoric became coherent by Election Day, it came too late and was still largely reactionary.
The Democratic Party was caught with its pants down when September 11th happened - without a message or a way to frame the party in its relation to the country, and to our dismay, on domestic issues as well as foreign policy ones.
I don't blame the people for the result of November 2 because I believe that on Election Day, the people cast their vote for the candidate that has convinced them - it is on the candidates and the parties to convince them, and Democrats didn't know where to begin.
Should the party move left?
No. I wish that it could and still resonate with the country, but moving further left will truly make the Democratic Party a bicoastal party. We need to reach the heartland of America. Our policies help it, but the heartland doesn't feel like it relates with the image of secular and elite Democrats. We need to show the people that we are still the party of blue-collar workers and struggling families, letting no one get left behind. Will this party be attacked for being the party of "big government"? I don't think so, because Bush's administration and campaign has not issued that criticism, as nothing in his policy reflects a committment to the scaling of the role of the federal government.
It is not that Democratic policies do not help out struggling families or show moral leadership, it is that we have trouble talking about it. Adam Nagourney at the New York Times has a great article on a Democratic Party struggling for meaning. Gov. Napolitano of Arizona asks:
"We need a fresh reassessment of how we communicate with people. How did a party that has been out of power in Washington, D.C., become tagged with the problems of Washington, D.C.? How did a party that is filled with people with values - and I am a person with values - get tagged as the party without values?"
In a campaign, the Republicans and Democrats frame the world in two different ways, creating two different realities that voters get to decide fit their conception of the world. What should we stand for?
I would say demonstrating moral leadership.
This means invoking God and moral responsibility. We need to abandon the notion of exclusive structural liberalism (institutions in society are solely responsible for bad things in the world)
This used to be the context for the discussion on poverty, but it is now the subject of how to handle terrorism. The Republican Party has limited its handling of terrorism to military options exclusively. When Democrats say "These brutes must be hunted down and destroyed" - it seems less sincere, because it probably is. I honestly believe that Democrats are perceived as weak on defense because they don't speak as naturally about it as they should since they are worried they are going to look weak on defense. If we talk about terrorists as a force that we need to dedicate all tools to stopping, including military, economic, and social options, I believe Democrats can be and sound credible on the issue.
Article comments
1 - RJ
I don't consider Hillary unelectable in 2008. She is the likely Dem nominee, and she may very well win.
And I will vote against her.
2 - Hal Pawluk
Hillary would be a great Democratic presidential candidate - for the Republicans.
If she were to run, even California might go Red.
I hope the Democratic party apparatus isn't even dumber than I think it is.
3 - Victor Plenty
I may have some objectivity here, being neither Democrat nor Republican.
It seems to me, the Democrats nationwide would do well to study Barack Obama and the points he has been making. 2008 may be too early in his own political career for him to make a run at the Presidency himself. But I predict that any Democrat whose politics sound closer to Mr. Obama's than to Mr. Kerry's or Mr. Gore's will have much better chances of winning a nationwide election.
4 - RJ
"Hillary would be a great Democratic presidential candidate - for the Republicans.
"If she were to run, even California might go Red.
"I hope the Democratic party apparatus isn't even dumber than I think it is."
Why do you think she would be such a poor candidate? Who do you think would do better?
5 - bhw
As someone who would vote for a candidate with Hillary's political stances and who would love to see a woman run for president [and win!], I have to say that I don't think she's a good candidate for the party.
1. Too many people simply revile her. Very few people are neutral on her. If you think this election was ugly in terms of the tone and the personal attacks, just wait until Hillary runs for president. I think the Democrats need a strong candidate who doesn't placate the religious Right, but who also doesn't piss off the moderates every time she opens her mouth. The vote for ABH (anybody but Hillary) would be huge.
2. I agree with her politics, but she even pisses ME off with her inability to deal with being a public figure. She just can't help but put her foot in her mouth. Case in point: during her senate campaign, she stopped at a diner for a meal. After she left, Hillary's waitress commented that she hadn't been tipped. [Hillary didn't pay the bill herself; aides did.] When a reporter asked Hillary about it, rather than say something rational like, "Oh no, really? It must have been an oversight. I'll make sure she gets her tip," Hillary got defensive and DENIED that it had happened. Of course, the waitress was telling the truth, and Hillary looked like an idiot.
That's the kind of thing that turns me off to her. And I'm aligned with her politically, generally speaking.
6 - RJ
Hillary, running as both a Senator from NY AND as a "Southerner" AND with Bill Clinton at her side, would do quite well.
Imagine all the hagiographies that will run in the MSM about the 1990s...ugh.
7 - bhw
She's not really a Southerner. She's from Chicago, isn't she? Won't those with a real Confederate lineage call her out on that?
Don't get me wrong -- it would be great if she ran and won. I just doubt if she can actually win.
8 - Bob A. Booey
Hillary's not my ideal choice for 2008, but she would have probably outperformed Kerry. Kerry didn't win a gender gap -- Hillary would have by 15-20% minimum, which probably wins in 2004. Her strengths would be similar to Bush's: despite the intense personal dislike and negative ratings she draws from opponents, she would mobilize the Democrat base.
What Nagourney says is obvious: of course she'd turn off the South and the rural West. But guess what? Those are lost causes right now unless the Democrats can develop a message that speaks to working people. The base strategy could have worked in 2004 for the Democrats -- it might work in 2008. But it's not a long-term solution for the party and doesn't address the structural limitations that make Democratic presidents an aberration in modern American electoral history.
Good news for you liberals, though:
Bush's win this November makes a Democrat in the White House in 2008 a virtual certainty. Not because the Democrats will be any smarter (although I hope they'll find a message that they've lacked the last several), but because another Bush term will further polarize Bush opponents and impair the strategic options of the 2008 GOP candidates. In many ways, they'll have to present themselves as continuing W's legacy and will probably pale in comparison in the eyes of Bush's base. Another problem for the GOP is that most of the people whose names are bandied about as possible nominees (Giuliani, McCain) are far too centrist to appease the newly gained evangelicals and social conservatives who are the bedrock of any GOP electoral map. Bill Frist is the only true-conservative exception among those names, but he lacks Bush's personal charisma (I hate to use that word), his fervor (read: arrogance), or his skills on the stump. He'd suffer some of Kerry's faults, to a lesser degree: the Senatorial demeanor, the abstract intellectualism, the surgeon's reliance on clinical, austere logic rather than moral language and ideological clarity. Or at least Democrats should hope so. Jeb would have his brother's brilliant team supporting him in the primaries, but lacks the national credentials and resume his brother has while automatically gaining most of his baggage. Democrats also have Howard Dean and Internet contributions to thank for the modernization and expansion of a fundraising structure that gave Kerry every opportunity to win, which I assume will be back in force in 2008. It will also be an entirely different world in 2008, assuming no further terror attacks -- it'll be 7 years removed from 9/11 and Americans' memories aren't that long that terrorism and national security will continue to be the primary default concern to sway undecideds.
The Democrats are already the bettor's favorite for 2008, whomever they choose. Odds are that 2004 is vindication for the Southerners, DLC, and centrists within the Democratic party. The Clinton team members that were added far too late to the Kerry campaign will be in demand -- if they're not all snatched up early by Team Hillary. There will of course be a big push for Edwards as the presumptive favorite because of his political skill, higher profile, and Southern background, but I'd caution this: Edwards was an abject failure for Kerry as a VP candidate and offered nothing in the South or Midwest. I think he'd do better as a Presidential candidate and probably would have beaten Bush in 2004, but let's not assume he's Clinton yet.
I could say a lot more about all this, particularly McCain and Guiliana specifically.
That is all.
9 - Eric Olsen
very interesting and well-put analysis, but I think you underestimate Kerry's performance, which wasn't great, but not that bad either. He didn't tank like Gore and did finish well from the debates on. I don't think any of the other names you nmention would have beaten Bush.
I agree that the Democrats should be in a good position by '08 because a lot of moderates will be sick of 8 years of Bush, especially those like me who mostly went for the foreign policy argument.
10 - Peter Duncan
I think the author of the article has it right.....it's not the man (or in Hillary's case the woman) but the message. The party needs a coherent message. Critisize the repubs all you like but they prove this trueism to be ....well you get the picture.
11 - Jim Scott
I cannot support Hillary CLinton for President. Moreover, it someone within their right mind doesn't reform the Democratic Party and bring them back to the center on crucial issues I will NEVER be able to return to the party of my childhood and heritage. The Party is apparently controlled by idiots who haven't got a clue about what middle of the road American is thinking or what they want out of government. The most disturbing thing is that you can't seem to tell the Democrats anything anymore so they are doomed to continue to lose to the Republicans. Dangerous!