I'd like to use this diary as a chance to lay down some of thoughts generated by the many conversations I've had in the last couple days. You'll find it to be as quick a sketch as I can make of what I think the big picture is. (It's still quite long, like....<warning>....really long.)
That being said, there are a couple points I'd like to make at the outset:
- our fight this year was a worthy fight. For Kerry, for our candidates, for all our voters (especially the new ones), and for our principles.
- we knew we had a significant "reform" battle within our party brewing regardless of the outcome of this election
- this is a time to remake the Democratic Party, not to tear it down.
All that being said....
i.
We lost.
This is a major defeat. There's no way to paint it otherwise. Even if Kerry had won an electoral college victory, we would have lost the popular vote by a fair margin and the Senate as well. As it stands, we are doubly and triply f....d. The ball game has shifted to working on long term goals while defending from near term disasters. That's just the truth.
Our party is sitting at the receiving end of the weak point of our Federal system: our support is locked into urban areas and large states:
- aside from the fillibuster and votes that require 2/3rds of the House, we are pretty much out of power in DC despite representing almost half the country.
- the GOP has not, since 1994 shown any moderation in how it runs Congress, and won't now. Their victorious Senate candidates are very conservative. We are effectively locked out of constructive governance in Washington.
- we have a very difficult electoral vote path to regain the Presidency.
- we have likely lost the judiciary for a generation, even if we succeed in opposing the worst of the GOP judges. this is real.
Further, a breakdown of the vote shows critical weaknesses for our party that do not bode well.
- familes with children voted against us. You cannot govern without the support of families. Further, these GOP families will not be easy to win over, and they are a strong presence in all of our Blue states.
- Bush's support grew from inside his Red zone, and was very loyal and strong despite his clear problems in governance. Values trumped pragmatism this year, and this trend is deeply troubling.
- The GOP red state margins were much higher than ours. We are much more vulnerable in national elections.
Finally, we lost something huge this time around in one further sense. 2004 will be the last big national election based on rallying to the "liberal" flag, with an old school Democratic ticket. We knew this was a transitional fight going in, and we knew the stakes were high. We put up John Kerry as the best candidate of our lot. We gave our hearts and souls and our last pennies to the Kerry / Edwards ticket. And we lost.
The fact is, though, that any of our primary candidates would have lost, John Kerry will join Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis and Al Gore as failed warriors for our cause. This is heartbreaking, yet true. Good men, all of whom would have made fine Presidents, and whose election might have staved off the straits we are in.
Power begets power. It did not have to be this way...but now that it is...we are more rather than less f...d.
ii. the immediate situation: hybrid tactics
I would like to pitch a strategy for this transitional moment for our party that I'll call, for lack of a better term: hybrid tactics. The principle is this:
We need to recognize that we are, in essence, fighting two wars at the same time. Both of these wars promise us some prospects for long term success, and yet, both of which are at a critical moment right now.
- the first war is a war of triage. It is a war of opposition and parrying of the GOP. We need to stand and fight. On judgeships, on policy, and on the inevitable GOP attempts to rig the system permanently against us.
- the second war is a war of Party building, and winning back the support of families with children and increasing our support with every demographic wherever we can. It is a war to win back Congress and build state-based Democratic power.
We need to understand that we are building the ideological and organizational structure of the Democratic party so that we get steadily stronger on a state and national level in each of the years leading through the census of 2010 and its redistricting. 2006, 2008 and 2010 are our new goal years. This second war is directed at the very core of power in the United States system of government:
legislative majorities.
The essence of this hybrid strategy is that we Democrats need to move directly and squarely into guaranteeing that our Party remain strong and relevant to voters wherever we can. State legislatures and governorships are critically important in this. We are "out of power" at the Federal level; the only place we can deliver the goods and offer successful policy alternatives is on the State and municipal level.
The hallmark of our strategy will have to be, then: tactical smarts, cooperative flexibility, and an ability to at once stand up for ourselves and all citizens, which we must do, and yet play the game in every locality with a strategic savvy that we have not mustered before. The first war is critical, the second war is essential; we cannot afford to neglect either.
In essence, we are on the wrong end of a post-New Deal majority. Further, we are living in a post-Civil Rights, anti-Great Society majority America, and have been for some time, and the sooner we wake up and smell the coffee the better.
iii. kitchen table politics
If I have one critique of the campaign John Kerry ran for President it is that he did not take it to the kitchen table. There was little in his campaign where a voter who might vote for him was given a strong reason to sit down at the kitchen table with their pocket book and calculator and do the math for themselves. In the absence of this, George Bush ran the table on "values" and "fear".
If we are going to win back the vote of families in this country, we are going to do it at the kitchen table. We have to relish this. This needs to be our fuel. Local issues. Bread and butter. School bonds. Highway funds. Health care initiatives. Municipal elections. Unless the Democratic Party becomes the party that loves this stuff, we will continue to lose and be frozen out of power.
Right now, in Washington, I can guarantee you that George Bush is looking for ways to take critical components of our coalition to the kitchen table...and they have the legislative muscle to do it. If you don't think the GOP is planning on sitting down with Latino and Black America, with working families, and making some kitchen table deals, you've got another thing coming. The stakes are that high.
Since the civil rights era, we've run our campaigns and Party on the fuel of our ideals and moral code. (I am as much "guilty" of this as anyone.) But the fact is that, while holding to our principles, principles that are no less potent today than yesterday, we need to run our party on a new fuel. A hybrid fuel if you will.
And that fuel is derived from a focus on nuts and bolts, on delivering results, on good governance and coalition building. That fuel comes out of an "I scratch your back you scratch mine" framework that we will only find at the kitchen table. If we don't get excited about this stuff and do it we will be locked out of legislative majorities for the next generation. If we don't find a way to translate our ideals into pragmatic political programs that let us win back legislative majorities in this country, our party will be on its way to a wilderness from which it may never return. That is our task at hand.
You can be "right" and still so politically wrong. The penduluum must swing in a new direction.
iv. national politics and hybrid coalitions
I mentioned that we are in a post-New Deal, post-Civil Rights, post-Great Society majority America. That much is true. The new GOP majority is based on two things.
- tax cuts which are directed specifically at disconnecting voters from the sense that their tax dollars fund progams which help all of us.
- a wave of Constitutional Amendments that are directed at denying parts of the population civil rights.
The new GOP majority plays hard ball. And they have won. The national conversation is no longer about implementing new federal programs, solving the health care crisis and spending the public purse on the common good. It is instead about cutting, gutting and privatizing the programs that are already in place in the name of 'ownership' and 'individualism'. The conversation is no longer about protecting the rights of minorities and ensuring they have a place at the table. The debate is now framed as one in which our legal system is being used to
impose the will of this new 'moral majority' upon the rest of the nation. These are the "new civil rights": The right to evangelize, to practice religion in the public sphere. The right to insist that one's tax dollars never fund or support something that one's religion disallows.
Needless to say, this turns much of the longstanding values that made up the 20th Century Democratic coalition on its head. It is also, to my mind, against everything the American experiment stands for. They are wrong on ideals, and wrong on pragmatic policies. They have gone so far that I suspect that core aspects of the old GOP...namely business people across the nation, who know the value of tolerance, fiscal discipline and social spending...may be open to listening to a Democrat for once.
What to do?
We need to define our own new majority, and build it step by step. We need to reach out to fiscally sound, socially moderate independents and Republicans today to this end. In essence, the "reality based community' is the framework for our new majority. And our next successful Presidential candidate will be the one who understands this terrain and assembles that majority.
The GOP has bet the store on conservatism. It is a big and bold gamble based on core support in the South and the West. They are vulnerable, however, especially in how they implement policy and in states that don't find a mandate for Christian 'conservatism' appealing. I suspect that the next Democratic Presidential ticket will target that vulnerability and assemble a new national majority that successfully defends our principles within the framework of a pragmatic and hybrid policy mix that brings people in.
If some of you are smelling a dose of Clintonism here. You are right. And I will go the wall on this. We cannot build a new national majority on the New Deal and the Civil Rights coalition. It's over, done for, it won't happen. The GOP is at the kitchen table too and looking to break up our coalition, and they have the muscle to do it. Our new majority must be hybrid, pragmatic, kitchen table based, and must successfully root our ideals in fiscally sound policy and delivering results to the braodest possible coalition of families in this nation, period, end of sentence.
Take my home state. If we cannot hold California based on "liberal" ideals, we can't make them work anywhere. As a Californian, let me tell you....if the California Democratic Party does not adopt this "kitchen table" approach to politics and build a new coalition, we will lose this state. The "Arnold" model is powerful and is making inroads into every segment of our base. The writing is on the wall, just check out the Bush returns from California. The choice is ours...adapt or lose.
v. whither the Left?
That is the question of the moment here. I think one of the hardest things to do in the face of a tactically rapacious and, at times, malicious Party like the GOP is to stay calm and play the strategic hand. But that is what we have to do. We need to practice a politics that is more level-headed than ever before. In the face of the ideological monster that is the GOP, we need to, paradoxically, be ideologically flexible ourselves. Is the Left up to it?...I don't know. That cuts to the core of the matter.
Let me frame it this way. Across this country today there are folks in all of our cities and communities having discussions and speaking to our despair. Out of that despair and rage will dawn the realization that while we are "out of power" we are not in the least powerless. In the hybrid politics I am describing, there is a vital role for us on the left to play...it is up to us to decide for ourselves if that role is one we want take up:
- an emphasis on local and community politics
- a targeted drive to get more progressive members of state houses, municipal government and the United States Congress
- a goal of building a progressive legislative track record in states we have power in
- a commitment to making our ideals real from the inside out...on our block, in our schools and moving outward with flexibility and foresight
- a commitment to evolving "how we talk" about politics and present ourselves to our fellow citizens and build these new coalitions
- a new savviness and pragmatism in how we pick our battles
To be real, the DLC bogeyman is a thing of the past. There's no one "thumbing" us down, and the sooner we realize that, the better for all of us. We
need to get along within our party, and actually have that as one of
our priorities. It is highly likely that our Presidential candidates for the next twelve years will look alot like John Edwards and Barack Obama...if not actually be those two guys themselves. It is also likely that our Presidential candidates will espouse Bill Clinton style political platforms aimed at drawing a new hybrid coaltion. In my opinion, for cultural reasons, it won't be Hillary and it won't be Howard if we want to win and keep our party together. That is just the bald truth.
The question to ask ourselves then, in that context, is: Can we live with a Democratic Party whose Presidential candidate is in the Edwards/Obama/Clinton mold and espouses hybrid policies? What expression of our politics can we find within that framework? Can we be a vital, informed, creative wing of our party with strong representation in our zones of residence? After 2004, we know that we cannot make this nation look like us, agree with us or even love us. Knowing that, will we choose to play a part in building a new, broader coalition that accepts us as full and equal members without necessarily embracing all our goals and yet allows us to trade our numbers, dollars and alliegance for results on our agenda?
Let me be utterly frank and take this "moral values" bullshit head on. Gay men and women and their families...and all of us who support and defend them...need a successful coalition. In essence, gay families need every likeminded straight family they can get, and some who aren't so likeminded, and vice versa. We are in this together. We don't know what we can achieve in this new political environment for any of our agendas. But I can tell you this, if we don't come together with all the creativity, unity and tactical prowess we can muster, we all will lose.
vii. free speech, comity and the culture of opposition
I am burned out on hating, mistrusting and disliking my fellow citizens. I am just being honest with you. I don't think it works...and I don't think it advances the good of the people I love and with whom I share my community and my life.
At the same time, I recognize that free speech is important....that if we lose the "f... you" spirit, we lose something that is our best defense against the leadership of a political party that is, in my view, a dastardly bunch who've led our nation on a disastrous policy track, at times, with clear-eyed ill intent.
It is critical, in this moment...to insist on free speech and our right to protest and speak for ourselves. I am convinced that free speech issues will come to the fore during a second Bush term. But it is imperative, now more than ever, that we understand that how we communicate with our brothers and sisters in this nation is as important of the content of what we are saying.
To be honest, it is high time for us to break down the myths and lies of the GOP and some of the organized religious zealots who prop them up. People need to know what's really going on here, and oppositional culture is one of the best weapons of the left. However, as someone deeply committed to that process, I also acknowledge that "comity" and "respect" for our fellow citizens must accompany our efforts and be incorporated in our appeal. The more connected the speaker is to our organized politics, the more this is true.
There are many ways to say..."f... Bush"...and, believe you me, they all will be deployed in the next four years. But it is critical for us on the left to understand that our opposition to the political leaders of the GOP must not be allowed to descend into the simple communication of raw "hatred" and "contempt" for their supporters.
There are contexts where that is appropriate. ie. When there is that rare chance to sit down for two way communication. Where we can trade the hate and get it out. But when we are engaging in one way communication. When we are speaking for our cause. It is critical that we frame our appeal in the context of citizenship, comity and free speech.
As Eminem, who walked that fine line in his video Mosh stated: We beg to differ. Yes, we need to speak out for ouselves and our cause. In the coming months, I am sure we will have to more than once. But, post-2004, we need to consider the fulness of what that speech communicates, about how it affects the coaltion that we are building to defeat their coalition at the polls.
vii. the GOP and the "how" of our opposition
Week by week, we will see what cracks form.
They are tremendously powerful, and yet, tremendously overextended in the direction of the religious right and their Southern base. They have scandals that are brewing and coalitions that are fraying. They have enormous policy liabilities. Our job is to fight those policy liabilities week by week with our eyes on our new prize...building a legislative majority.
We Kossacks have been much more "right" about how the GOP is wrong that we have been about what choices our fellow citizens will make at the ballot box. We need to use this to our advantage. If we are clever, determined and learn from our mistakes...we can plot out a position that moves us in the only direction that is important: winning back our govenment.
Legislatures are won back when the majority party's failures are made clear. Our job is to define those failures and win a mandate for change. That is the task at hand.
Stand and fight, yes, but also to build and educate and make the case for change. In effect, we here at dKos are sitting at the kitchen table with prospective members of our new coalition. We need to teach them in terms they can respect and understand; we need to educate them about exactly why the GOP is wrong as a first step in winning a new mandate.
Take, for example, judicial appointments. We have a vital role to play in educating the nation exactly about who George Bush has already appointed...and who he intends to appoint, and how the process he is following is wrong. We need to make this clear instead of simply raising hell...we need to reach out and educate instead of simply raising our voice.
Fight, yes. But seek to understand, and educate and persuade...yes more.
ix. conclusion
Too often those of us in the Democratic Party have been overly concerned about simply being morally "right". There are many ways to be "right" and this is a personal lesson that I am beginning to learn. If being "right" to us means simply scoring points against cable news hotheads and AM radio hosts...then we have gone astray. If it means simply standing in the streets and expressing our conscience, in the absence of a path to building a majority coalition in this country...then we will be "right" and powerless at the federal level.
I am 35 years old. I have watched every national Democratic politician in my lifetime get dragged down and defeated by the GOP.
I want to say to you now if you share the dream of someday electing a President Obama, then I would implore you to help build the legislative and organizational framework that will be our surest defense against that happening to him in the political or media sphere.
There is a tide that will turn in this nation. I was wrong about when it would turn, and I am ashamed and saddened to admit that. But this election has taught me that we need more than our idealism as our fuel. It will not be so, just because we believe it can or should be so. Even our strongest leaders are vulnerable if we don't build the structures to defend them. And the most powerful structure in that regard is the legislative majority.
As I walked out onto the streets of Oakland today...I breathed easier..and let my heart open out to everyone I met. Some of them, even here, voted for George Bush. I know that because I've seen the stickers in the Safeway parking lot. Personally, I am letting go of the hate and trying to see the nation with clearer eyes. With those eyes, I can more easily see the strength of those I agree with and the power we have when we work together. And the limits of that power and how we need to expand it.
We did amazing things this fall, and yet we failed to achieve our goal. It's not the first, or the last, failure on our road to sitting below that fully grown oak of justice that remains our goal and ideal.
There is no shame in burning brightly for those ideals. Just as there is no shame in failure in our fight for them. But there is a steep and pragmatic price to pay for that loss, and we all know it now. That price will be all the greater, however, if we don't learn from these experiences and move forward, together.
If you've read this far, I owe you many thanks for considering what's on my mind this day after election day. Please take it as one kid's opinion, and let me know what you think.