The Washington Post describes what some top Dems are talking about these days:
Bob Shrum, Kerry's chief campaign consultant, told reporters during a Democratic panel yesterday that Kerry "will not do what Al Gore did after the last election -- he will not disappear."
I wish perennial loser Bob Shrum would disappear...
Shrum made his remarks in an appearance at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast with James Carville, chief strategist of Bill Clinton's first presidential campaign, and Stan Greenberg, a Democratic pollster. The session started out as a clinical dissection of what went right for Bush and wrong for Kerry.
But it quickly became a blunt, emotional discussion of the future of the Democratic Party -- a high-decibel preview of countless conversations that will occur as Democrats try to figure out how to retake the White House after winning only twice in the past seven elections.
"I'm not in denial. Reality hit me," Carville said. "Let's take the greatest morality story of all -- we're born again," he added, in a play on words connoting both his view that the party needs a fundamental change, as well as the importance of evangelical Christians to Bush.
"We have to treat the disease, not the symptom," Carville said. "The purpose of a political party is to win elections, and we're not doing that."
Carville said that the party's concern about interest groups had resulted in "litanies, not a narrative."
"The party needs a narrative," he said. adding later that one possibility would to become "an aggressively reform, anti-Washington, anti-business-as-usual party."
More Carville, less Shrum!
Dems are now the ultimate outsiders, yet the Repubs are continuing to play the "we're the oppressed victims of the liberal elite" card with impunity. Let's start acting like an aggressive minority party, and framing the GOP as the Washington insiders and the true elite that they are.