Campaign 2008: Democrats Must Work Smart
By BOB BURNETT News Analysis
In Silicon Valley folklore, a typical project goes through five stages: unwarranted enthusiasm, unmitigated disaster, search for the guilty, persecution of the innocent, and promotion of the uninvolved. Evidently, the Kerry-Edwards “project” has advanced to the fourth stage where many, including Berkeley’s MoveOn.org, are being blamed for the Nov. 2 loss.
If Democrats are to learn the difficult lessons from the defeat, they are going to have to stop whining; quit claiming that they lost because Republicans cheated or because certain individuals or groups were incompetent. Democrats need to face reality: Republicans won because they ran a better campaign; one where the GOP made fewer mistakes and did a superb job of getting out their base. Democrats worked hard, but did not, alas, work smart.
There are five big lessons to be learned from the Kerry defeat. Democrats must take in each of these lessons if they are going to work smart in the future.
Lesson one is that the Democratic Presidential candidate must be perceived as authentic; someone who is not easily typecast as a free-spending liberal or a member of the cultural elite. Neither John Kerry nor Al Gore was seen as authentic, but Bill Clinton was; and many contemporary Democrats, from Barney Frank to Nancy Pelosi, are viewed as authentic by their constituencies.
http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/article.cfm?issue=12-28-04&storyID=20413