I don't want to indulge in finger-pointing and self-recrimination right now, but I do have some initial thoughts about why we lost.
This was a campaign of ideas versus emotions. Emotions -- especially the emotions of fear and anger -- won. The GOP made the majority of Americans afraid of terrorism, and angry about gay marriage.
We should not apologize for running a campaign of ideas and hope, rather than one of fear and anger.
On foreign policy, we must continue to educate our more ignorant fellow citizens about the realities of the world, especially the realities of the Middle East, and to help them see how Bush is making our problems there worse, not better. We must address the strong desire for security, by pushing the idea of soft power -- of both speaking softly
and carrying a big stick.
On "moral values", which the exit polls say made the decisive difference in this election, we need to do much deep and careful thinking. Of course we all have moral values. But many of us feel that moral values encompass not just the right's issues, but also issues of war and peace, economic justice, the environment, etc. So far, the right has succeeded in defining this term more narrowly.
I just spoke to my friend and co-blogger Thomas about this, and he laid out three possible scenarios for the Democratic Party, which I agree with:
- The attitudes about "moral values" which currently prevail continue to do so. The Dems continue to address values as they have been doing -- failing to make the sale to most Americans. The Dems continue to lose.
- The attitudes about "moral values" which currently prevail continue to do so. The Dems address values in a way that somehow speaks to more people. The Dems start winning more elections. Thomas calls this option "Republican lite"; maybe, maybe not.
- The attitudes about "moral values" which currently prevail gradually change. The Dems continue to address values as they have been doing. This is the longest-term option, and it means Dems are out of power for many more years -- until either a majority of the country embraces liberal positions on abortion, gay rights, etc., or until the country's rightward drift provokes a strong enough backlash.
Option #1 is obviously fruitless. Option #3 means ideological purity at the expense of any practical influence: the Green Party route. So I have to gamble on option #2.
The question is, how do we talk about values in a way that is more broadly appealing -- and do it without simply surrendering our own identities and points of view?
It's not impossible. There have been some Democrats in recent years who have succeeded in addressing questions of social morality in ways that appeal to the broad center -- Bill Clinton and Barack Obama come to mind. I'm going to be thinking and blogging about this more in the coming days, so for now I'll just throw out two general notions.
I submit that to talk values to the majority of Americans, we have to embrace both the liberal notion of compassion and the conservative notion of personal responsibility.
And I think we have to decide what, at root, our party stands for and believes in -- and express that foundation in moral terms. We need to define the ethic that underlies all of our policy positions. Personally, if I had to distill it into two words, I think our bedrock value is "fair play."
Discuss.
More commentary at The Situation Room