Ending Our Losing Ways

[ConservativeDemocrat]

I felt pretty foolish when I put my hand through a window just before Election Day. It turns out I was just beating the rush. Across the country, the same Democrats who stood in line for 10 hours to vote George W. Bush out of office are now standing in line to jump off the nearest cliff. After an Election Day that began with nerve-mending surgery at Sibley Hospital in Washington and ended in nerve-shattering despair at Kerry headquarters in Boston, all I can say to my fellow Democrats is: I feel your pain.

This loss hurts so deeply because the stakes were so high, and our side wanted to win so much. In Boston, a Kerry supporter told me of a voter in such a rush to get to the polls that he ran headfirst into a traffic sign. As soon as the man came to his senses, he shook it off, put his head down and charged on to vote.

Even in defeat we can be proud of that resolve. But if Democrats want to become a majority party again anytime soon, we'd better look where we're going. We can start by using this loss to look forward, not back. John Kerry and John Edwards did everything our party asked of them, and then some. No campaign is perfect, but this one did an awful lot right -- winning the debates, raising record sums of money, earning more votes than any Democratic ticket in history.

If we can avoid the circular firing squad that followed past defeats, we will see the deeper, more daunting challenge that awaits us. We ran a good campaign against a bad president, and we still got beat.

The rest can be found on the DLC website.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

[Warpy]

1. Those conservative hacks are the PROBLEM

not the solution! They're trying desperately to cling to power as kingmakers (though they haven't made any kings) and drag the party to the right to try to capture the gun nuts and religious loons from the GOP.

Until we dump them and manage to get the party's working class soul back, we're going to continue to lose. Until we put working class economic issues back on the table, we're going to lose. Until we take back the debate in working class terms, we're going to lose. Until we offer an ALTERNATIVE to the GOP instead of an anemic imitation, we are going to lose.

The DLC must enjoy losing, there's no other way to look at it.

[DireStrike]

4. My thoughts exactly.

Citing moral values? The notorious non-issue? This guy is trying awful hard to play up every piece of evidence, no matter how dubious, to show us a "crushing" defeat.

How about the corporate/right wing media? How can a revamped message even get out?

I love how he talks about radical changes in our position, and then about how we need to say how we'll do a better job in the war on terror. Newsflash: John Kerry tried that.

We need to push for religious groups to do more? Hell no. They can do whatever they want. It doesn't have anything to do with government. I'm sorry but I believe in the separation of church and state.

The DLC is really in a position to be talking about being an insurgent reform party. :eyes:

[bobweaver]

9. Democrats can win on policy because

the policies of the Democrats favor a much larger number of people than the policies of the Republicans do. The Democrats need to make this crystal-clear and obvious to even the stupidest Americans. The Democrats need to make it clear to the "moral values" voters that they are not going to lose their "moral values" just by voting for Democratic politicians. Their moral values will remain intact, in fact will be improved by voting for social justice, a moral value which is taught by the churches out of one side of their mouth while teaching hatred for gays and abortions out of the other side. The Republicans have been very successful at twisting the public debate in their favor and in eliminating economic issues from the public debate and dismissing any attempt to put them back in as "class warfare" (while everything they do is class warfare, for their class). Democrats must succeed in bringing economic inequality back into the public debate, because that is where they have a huge advantage over the Republicans. They also need to neutralize the "moral values" issues by showing that they are just as moral - even more so - than the Republicans. Which is more immoral - getting a blowjob from a fat intern in the White House, or killing 1100 Americans and untold numbers of Iraqis over a big lie just to grab control of the ocean of oil under Iraq? Democrats must play hardball. They have been playing to win while Republicans have been playing to kill. Whether they want to or not, Democrats must start playing to kill - because the Republicans are not going to stop playing to kill.

[Starlight]

10. Why don't these Republican wannabees just join the Republican party?

To the DLC: No, we DON'T need to move further to the right or pander to neocons & religious extremists. If that's what you want, then join the Republican party!! I'm sure they'll welcome you with open arms (or tentacles). Go. Leave. Good riddance to you. :nuke:

[Mandate My Ass]

11. Yup the DLC sucks intensely

and anybody who believes we should ignore the plentiful evidence of voting irregularities in this most recent election and focus instead on 2006 is no friend of Dems or democracy.

[Laughing Mirror]

2. Do you really believe you lost?

Are you not aware of the massive voting fraud that has taken place in this country, during this election and the election of 2000?

Fight for change, not for defeat.

[Jade Fox]

3. This is a good article, but....

Once again it seeks logical solutions to a problem based in illogic: Those
who have seized power in the Republican party are willing to tell any lie,
promote any sleazy smear campaign, and whip up a frenzy of fear in the
electorate in order to win. And it worked. Americans were given rational
reasons to vote for Kerry (how could anyone reasonably not think that
giving tax breaks to companies creating jobs in the US was a good idea?),
but the majority (apparently) voted against their own self interests.

I'm sorry to be a downer here, but studiously trying to appeal to logic is
a losing cause when your opponent has mastered the art of appealing to
hysteria. I don't know what the answer is.

[Old and In the Way]

6. First, we need to have a comprehensive understanding of who the

majority is. Did we really lose the election? Maybe - maybe not. The problem is, we don't know. Job1 for the Democrats would be to understand this as quickly as possible. They have got to canvass/poll their constituent base directly and not through the distorted lense of the Republican corporate media and/or associated biased polling companies.

Secret ballots with a criminal Party in control of the machines to record the vote, the process to count the votes, and a compliant media to announce the results is a recipe for a bloodless transition into totalitarianism.

Time for the Democratic national leadership to do their job and lead....or they can assure themselves that they will quickly become irrelevant.

[Jade Fox]

8. You're right....

not knowing if we really lost the election has left us rudderless.

As I said right after the election, it is possible we did nothing wrong.
The media is against us and would not have adequately reported the
even the perfect campaign, and the insecurity of voting in this countrty
was discoverd too late to fully address the issue.

If the Democrats cannot stand up for themselves around voter security,
they have truely lost.

[Old and In the Way]

5. We need to take the common unity we had before the election and

apply it in everything we do from here on out. I want the Democrats to start showing unity in Congress and stop playing the game by the Republican rules. Time to start creating our own rules.

I want them to announce canvassing of districts and getting Democrats to sign affidavits on who they voted for, what issues are their priorities, and what we have for expectations in our leadership....so we can truly understand if the election was systematically gamed (I think it was). This will provide undistorted information to the Democratic leadership on how the rank-and-file voted as well provide a roadmap for building the Party going forward.

I want them to start staging media actions and calling for demonstrations/public activism. Time to make the Republicans remember that there is a real majority of Americans who aren't buying into the Republican future vision of America.

I want them to refuse to consider any more federal legislation until we have a national, verifiable system of making every vote count. No quorom until we get that. Democrats can spend their time in their home districts getting to know their constituents.

Strength is in unity of purpose. Time we start showing it.

[Jade Fox]

7. Excellent ideas! n/t

[CatholicEdHead]

12. Part of it is

a long term generational shift that started back after LBJ. Getting the grassroots even more organized is a start in the short term.

Once a clear, unified message gets out to the heartland (have to really push what the party really stands for, not just preceptions), things can swing back.

[bvar22]

13. This sums it up for me:

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."
-- Benjamin Franklin

I.
The 2004 presidential election was lost not by John Kerry over the last several months but by the Democratic Party over the last several decades. Democrats have lost control of all three branches of government for the foreseeable future. We are now a minority party.

II.
When the Senate Democratic leader is defeated while spending $16 million attempting to get the majority of 500,000 votes, the problem is not a lack of funding or effort.

III.
The failure of the Democratic Party to connect with America's desire for fulfillment is political death.

IV.
Democrats are now history's spectators, Republicans its actors.

V.
The obsession with denouncing the radical conservative project as a "lie" has become a useful substitute for vision.

VI.
Renovating Democratic politics is not a question of moving to the right or talking more about religion. It is about creating a framework that once again communicates to the core needs of the American people.

VII.
America is not now, and never was, simply "the economy, stupid." What the American people want is a deeper sense of personal meaning, a national mission, and passion in times of fear.

VIII.
Returning the Democratic Party to majority status will require a political realignment no less sweeping than that which was accomplished by conservatives over the last 40 years.

IX.
Only the breath of a serious and new moral-intellectual vision will be sufficient to resuscitate the Democratic Party.

X.
Democratic candidates will continue to lose as long as they treat Americans as rational actors who vote their "self-interest" after weighing competing offers for health care, jobs, and security.

XI.
Conservatives have spent the last 40 years getting clear about the values they represent. They have even developed a "family values" brand to represent a framework that coheres traditional prejudices around prayer in school, gun rights, restricting abortion, and restricting gay rights.

XII.
By contrast, liberal or "progressive" groups and Democrats have spent the same period of time defining themselves against conservative values, even "morality" in general.

XIII.
If resources continue to flow to the same leaders who have failed to construct a new vision and have thus left the Democratic Party in ruins then we can expect more of the same. And worse.

XIV.
Those who resist the process to create a new vision will be left behind.

XV.
Candidates who intend to win should no longer hire consultants who repeatedly lose. Those who counsel caution when dealing with the indifferent, the disaffected, and the undecided do not understand American history. Consultants who advise their clients against offering a clear and compelling vision in fear that it will be attacked should find themselves without a home in the Democratic Party. The sooner they retire, the better.

XVI.
Unconnected at a values level, the Democratic Party's laundry list of policy proposals is a confusing and alienating hodgepodge of special interests bound together by a vague sense that "we're all on the same side." Such a conflation demands no critical self-examination of the interest groups whose turf, and very identities, are treated as inviolable by Party chieftains.

XVII.
]The progressive vision must be a direct challenge to fundamentalism in all of its forms: political, religious and economic. It must match fundamentalism's power without replicating its authoritarianism. It must appeal to the values of liberty, equality, community, justice, unconditional love, shared prosperity, and ecological restoration, among many others.

XVIII.
Democrats serious about returning to majority status must:
· Retire any leader who believes that we are currently on a winning path that simply needs more money and effort.
· Define and articulate a coherent set of values of our base, and be willing to lose those allies who do not share these values.
· Fight battles, win or lose, that define and advance our values and expand our political base.

XIX.
In despair and defeat lie the seeds of triumph and victory. In that loss lies the opportunity to define a new progressive politics for the new century.

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/2004/11/002671.htm...

Those interested in making changes can meet me here:
http://www.pdamerica.org/
You will see a few other DUers at PDA.

You can go here and click on your state to get in touch with your grassroots organizers:
http://pdamerica.org/caucuses.php


There are SOME Democrats who haven't sold out.