I think this election is the Dem's bottom, and we're already making a little progress at the state level. In fact, I think if the Dems play their cards right and do the right things, including learn from the Republican organization, this election could be the catalyst to turn the party around. We're (I hope my use of we don't offend people who don't agree with me, I speak as a Democrat. I'm willing to hear everyone else's opinion out, but this is my plan) very vulnerable right now, but if we stick together and conserve our strength, this could be the route to a lasting majority.
I am firmly convinced that the GOP will implode within a decade. (Cognitive dissonance, internal power struggle, Pottery Bar rule for people who can't fix jack shit, and a major major case of buyer's remorse for everyone involved). In the meantime, I think the Dems need to make some major philosophical and organizational changes to prepare themselves for their role as the opposition party and win big when the GOP blows up.
Below the fold are some specific points I've thought up.
The main takeaway is that the Democratic party right now has no organization, no discipline and no message, and that all has to change if the Dems want to win a lasting majority. I'm proposing 4 areas of emphasis and 4 specific places to start. (Also, I'm writing as if I have a huge audience. If you're the only person reading this, please indulge my (mis)use of language.
Emphases
1. Organization, organization, organization.
The Democratic Party is fractured and disorganized. There's very little vertical or horizontal mechanisms to coordinate messages and actions, to communicate messages and relay concerns within the party, or live on between the election. This has got to change! The Republicans' great strength (other than fear and a fanatical devotion to ... nevermind) is organization. That organization allowed them to hit us with their complete might; during this election they had very few defections from their base and almost none from their elected politicians, we've got Zell Miller and no idea about how the DNC picks its head.
We also need to have living/working/growing Democratic Party on the ground in non-presidential election years. The Republicans do this through their ties to fundy/even mainline churches and DC "think tanks". This isn't just effective in getting the message out, it also changes the experience of the party members from voting to being. The labor unions used to be amazingly effective at giving Dems loyal active voters. FDR won two generations of Americans by giving them New Deal programs that they live with, we need to get that kind of deep loyal support back.
2. We need to stand for something and not its opposite.
The Democratic Party is the party of the big tent. During the election we snickered about Bush loyalty oaths and how we're open to everyone. But their plan worked and ours didn't. Repubs had the perception of consistency while Dems looked like and were all over the map. This is not good for loyalty or identity. I was a complete anyone-but-the-Republicans voter until the debates convinced me that Kerry had it in him to be a great president. Please, Democratic Party, tell the world what being a Democrat means. I want to be a Dem but not if the meaning is muddled with the likes of Zell Miller. As for the voters, why should they vote for a party that can't even tell them what it represents? (
Let's the Democratic Party get a clear message from top on down. Let's kick people like Zell Miller and John Breaux out of the party, because they've done nothing except muddle the Democratic message to the country and alienate natural allies on the left, who see us as Republican lite. To hell with the Conservative Dems. They're just dinosaurs leftover Dems's shameful past history as the bigots' party. Let's finish the Civil Right era's realignment and tell the country and ourselves that the Democratic Party will not shelter bigots and snake oil salesmen who put their personal interests above those of their party and their country.
Yes, pushing these people out may hurt us in the short run (I wouldn't advise it we can keep them filibustering with us and is the margin for 40 solid Democratic senate votes). However, in a couple elections, the Democratic party will have a coherent and better message to woo voters with. And we can free up our resources to electing and converting moderates Republican seats in blue states. Those seats are our future, let's get a move on it!
The polls tell us that majority of all Americans are with us on Democratic core values, let's tell these people what those values are and pick them up on a clear message of better values, real strength, and true integrity.
3. Make me proud to vote for a straight Democratic ticket, and not just because the alternative is so bad
This issue has been largely covered by point 2. I also think that the Democrats need to do some selective surgery against some of its more irresponsible and hide bound organizations. (DNC? Labor Unions? New York Democratic Party?) Be more responsive, better communication, less turf wars, less corruption. How can we do it when they're so entrenched? I don't know, but I suspect it'd be a sustained grass root effort to take all of our party and organizations back from people who are in it for themselves.
The second point is to nurture great candidates at all levels, and give non-incumbents a better short against unappealing incumbents. It's all going to take a lot of grass root participation, but this election has energized a lot of people, including me. Don't lose us. We all miscalculated 51% of the American electorate's mood, but I believe in the long run, the Kerry/Edwards campaign of hope is absolutely the one to go with. Make the voters vote for Dems first, because that's only way we can stop the Republicans from defining us.
4. Everybody stop pretending like this is a parliamentary democracy, or that it'll ever become a parliamentary democracy
In this country, the choice is binary. You all get over it, okay? We either win a district or we lose a district. There is no representation for 5 flavors of left of the mean, even if they add up to 80%. We live or die as a block of votes within a single party. If the Democratic party dies, that reality just moves to a different party. The republican form of govern dictates this, we have to work within that framework.
That means, for the lack of better wording from me, putting up with necessary evils. Yes, that means sometimes individual pet issue will get pushed aside or even voted down, because less than 50% of the party are with you. And here's the worst part, to be perfectly Republican about it, is that we will have to hide our disappointments while in public.
Maybe one day soon we'll all have a big enough majority to game each other effectively to get our issues across. But being minority party in all three branches of government is not the time to do it. Party survival and protecting irreversible like the Supreme Court, protecting the education/health of children, and prevent the Republicans from establishing a permanent banana republic are the most important, everything else can wait til better times.
If any Greens, Socialists, or relatively mainstream Independents read this msg, please know that the system goes for you too. You will be more effective within the Democratic party than outside of it. Yes, being in a big party with all it's warts and imperfections and people who disagree with you is frustrating, and you're a lot more likely to be disappointed than people in the middle ideological spectrum of the Democratic party. But you're a lot more likely to effectuate real change inside of it. And now is a great time to be a left block within the Democratic party, because we the moderate to liberal Dems need you, for your electoral votes and for helping us cleaning up our party. Here's your chance to push a major party in your direction. The Republicans have been lethally effective in pushing the Dems and the dialogue of this country rightward, help the progressives Dems to push the Democratic party and the country back left again.
4 Starting points. These are just what I thought up.
1. Work to end the California referendum system. You've all heard the complaints. This is just an example of a blue state absurdity that costs us in terms of wastage and inadequate service for our communities. Make the system truly accountable by forcing elected legislators to make tough budget decisions.
2. National network of paid district coordinators. They can do three things. Keep good channels of communication between the local interests and the national party. Keep the base excited, active, and growing between the elections. Nurture tomorrow's party leaders.
3. Tighter national level communication. Crossed wires, blah blah blah. Mainly, meet and decide on a message and then deliver it together. The Rethugs can deliver their absurd claims with straight faces, why can't Dems do that when we have truth on our side?
4. Think tanks and brain trusts. Dear George Soros and other Billionaires with a ConscienceTM, please go out and buy a lot of policy/communication critters. Now is the time for bargain basement deals! (high unemployment rate esp. for young liberal arts majors, lots of passionate and thoughtful people with fresh first hand political experience) Let them work the rhetorical range between the AEI and the Brookings Institution. We need more than policy wonks. We need people who can get their point across in on TV and in Radio (yes this SCLM, they're going to have buyer's remorse on Iraq et al very soon, and we've gotta be ready to hit them) and package our messages for mass dispersion.