I am not a huge fan of The DLC, but I try to put the blame for losses in context. So I thought that maybe he is right that we need to ask ourselves some tough Questions. Let look at the start of his piece. Here
Here it is in full.
Here are some simple truths every Democrat needs to hear. To win back the White House in 2008, our party must change. We must be willing to discard political strategies that may make us feel good but that keep falling short. We must finally reject the false choice between exciting our base and expanding our appeal, because unless we both motivate and persuade, we'll lose every time.
But above all, Democrats must be bold and clear about what we stand for. It's time to show the millions of people who can't tell what Democrats stand for that any American who believes in security, opportunity, and responsibility has a home in the Democratic Party.
I find this hard to argue with it is what many of us have been saying for along while.
We congratulate Gov. Howard Dean on his new job as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He needs to raise hundreds of millions of dollars, hone the party's political machinery to rival the Republican juggernaut, and rebuild state parties, particularly in red states. That's a tall order, even for someone with Dean's energy and tenacity. We've had differences with Governor Dean in the past, but we wish him well in this endeavor. If he succeeds in building and funding our party, all Democrats will benefit
The making peace part is interesting, but a positive step. What are your thoughts on this issue.
He then offers us this and again it has some merit.
For example, it's a delusion to think that if we just turned out our voters, we could win national elections. The 2004 election should have dispelled that myth, once and for all. With an unprecedented effort to get out our vote, Democrats far exceeded all expectations -- and we still lost. Next time, we need to mount an unprecedented effort in persuasion, not just turnout. A party that has averaged 44.5 percent of the vote in the last 10 presidential elections and has only won a majority of the popular vote for president twice in six decades needs to start winning over some of the voters it's losing.
The argument about base versus swing voters is the longest running false choice in Washington. We simply need both to win. If we only win our base vote, we'll lose every time. If our base doesn't come out to vote in large numbers, we won't win, even if we do well with swing voters. But if we offer a clear, progressive approach for tackling the big challenges facing America, we'll do well every time, and so will the country.
All in all it is interesting, but I do disagree that the problem was only about vision. It was a number of things and vision was a big one. It also went to the way in which we defined our opposition. We had more than enough bombs to toss but few generals that new how to place them in time, effect, and disruption.
Democrats like to believe that we have the right message and our problem is one of communication -- of getting our message out more effectively. The Republicans, we like to argue, win with an inferior message, because they're better at getting it out. But after losing two presidential and three congressional elections in a row -- all of which Democrats thought they would win -- maybe it's time to think hard about what we say, not just how loudly we say it.
Finally, Democrats like to feel that if we just pull together and sharpen our differences with the Republicans, we'll win. We're all for Democrats standing our ground to defend what we believe in -- and no one has opposed President Bush's corporate conservatism more sharply than we have. But at the same time, we couldn't disagree more with those in our party who are so green with Karl Rove envy that they want to try to out-smashmouth the Republicans. If Democrats want to make a lasting difference in American life, we have to define ourselves by what we're for, not simply what we're against.
Let's not kid ourselves: Americans didn't have any trouble telling the difference between John Kerry and George W. Bush. The trouble they had was figuring out what our side stood for.
We faced a similar problem after the 1988 election. Then, as now, many Democrats argued that the party's troubles were all about mechanics -- that we had a communications problem, a turnout problem. Clinton realized that all those troubles would take care of themselves as soon as he solved the root one -- Democrats' vision problem.
There is more in this and many of the same things we are talking about. I have some problems with the moving right on social issues unless there is some unseen drive I'm missing. In regards to the direction our society is taking that has so impirical evedence in polling numbers. This seems another example of us letting others define and wall us because we are silent. As Hudson has shown in his great talk on fencing.
Read it, debate it, I might update with some more guts if we get enough interest.