I see that that the Economist and I are thinking along similar lines:
The Democrats certainly need to engage in a vigorous debate about the future of a party that has been in relentless decline for the past 50 years. A machine that once enjoyed a huge advantage in voter registration is almost at parity with Republicans; a party that once lorded it over Capitol Hill is now a minority in both houses of Congress, as well as being locked out of the White House. Worse, the defection of the white working class to the Republicans has left behind an awkward alliance of the upscale and the downscale—of educated elites (with a few billionaires thrown in) and ethnic minorities.
Moving the party farther to the left is unlikely to do the job. Democrats need to learn how to relate to a culturally conservative country. Mr Kerry made some feeble attempts to do this by claiming that he was a champion of “conservative values”, and by donning goose-hunting kit from the L.L. Bean catalogue. But this did not disguise his (Swiss) boarding-school roots, or the fact that his party is dominated by urban professionals who have little in common with flyover America, or his party’s failure to come to terms with American religiosity. Supporting partial-birth abortion may be fine in France, where only one in ten people say religion plays a very important role in their lives, but not in America, where six in ten people do.
A good start on this, as Mayor Daley pointed out, would be for the party leadership to get out of Washington and start talking with Democratic leaders in Chicago, for example. Here in Chicago the Democratic Party is no less committed to Democratic principles than the party elsewhere and it’s one helluva lot more successful than the party is in most places. The focus here seems to be on getting the job done rather than homogamy, abortion, and stem cell research
As I prowl around the blogosphere I’ve read a number of different reactions from Democrats. So far I’ve read these reactions:
- It’s Terry McAuliffe’s fault.
- We didn’t lose by that much.
- The voters are evil or stupid or racist or homophobe or all of the above.
- It’s John Kerry’s fault.
- Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.
- You’ll all be sorry when everybody’s being killed in a foreign war or laissez-faire capitalism brings civilization crashing around our knees or there is no Social Security or they’ve cancelled Christmas or all of the above.
- To the barricades, mes amis!
I don’t think any of these reactions are particularly constructive approaches to solving the problems facing the Democratic Party. Part of it is Terry McAuliffe’s and John Kerry’s faults but who put them into their positions? If you maintain the same process with the same inputs you’re going to get the same results. And losing is losing. If it were just as good as winning, no one would bother to win because it’s a lot harder to do. Neither accusing your potential voters nor retiring to your strongholds to sulk are likely to result in more voters. And the “you’ll be sorry” and “to the barricades” notions are just childish.
