It truly seems as if the republican party is sinking under the weight of their own hubris, and the excellent
RIP GOP diary does a great job of explaining this. However, there are a few key elements we MUST deal with if we want to use this as an opportunity to recapture America's trust, and votes, as a party. First off, a cursory visit to the winger sites makes it quite clear that the rank and file are learning quickly from their leadership when it comes to passing the buck, making excuses, and blaming liberals for every one of their failures. Like their leadership, they are unwilling if not incapable of accepting responsibility when their policies fail.
More below....
The number one comment I see on those sites is that the democrats have no ideas of their own, just attacks and hindsight. Sure these are just the more outspoken right wingers on a few scattered blogs, but a more in-depth analysis would likely show this sentiment is far more widespread than that, permeating into even the most moderate of households, and is probably our primary soft spot as a party. I would wager it is the single largest issue keeping us from reclaiming congress and beyond.
Obviously our policies and ideas are there, but for numerous reasons they aren't being heard and, more important, we aren't doing a good enough job of projecting them onto situations. For example, we rejected many of Bush's financial and military policies specifically because they would leave us so exposed as a nation. We have argued this for well over four years, but our warnings and alternatives were roundly ignored by the arrogant republican party (NOT Bush). Once those chickens came home to roost in the form of Katrina, the many speeches, articles and policy papers by dems explaining that the fiscal and military misadventures in Iraq would drain us of much needed resources and, ultimately, make us less safe here at home, went straight down the memory hole. Unfortunately we keep clinging to the notion that if we instead just tie these negative events to Bush, we'll win as a result. That will never happen, because as we all know people need what they consider to be a viable alternative in place before they will dump their current leadership.
We need to learn from our past mistakes, and frame ALL ISSUES, including Katrina, in terms of how democratic policies would have changed things or prevented them in the first place. Attacks on Bush (who's numbers are sinking fine on their own) are a wasted opportunity, as many recent diaries have pointed out these are failures of republican party policy not just George Bush policy. In fact, blaming everything on Bush allows them to go on tv and frame it as just a bunch of "Bush-haters" trying to bring the president down. At every turn, as things crumble, we need to point out unambiguously the specific policy we advocated that would have averted some of the problems we now face, and how the current situation is a direct result of republican party policy. Hang it around their necks. Once they are all lumped together as supporting the neocon policy which is sinking like a rock in popular opinion, watch as the rats flee the ship to save their own hides.
Lump them together. Hang it around all of their necks. Use these events as an opportunity to show how OUR policy would have made things different by being specific. Doing so throws up barriers to the many defenses repugs try to resort to, especially the blame game. Once we master this, perhaps the GOP will fall.