All this talk about what the Democratic leadership needs to do and what they haven't been doing ignores a crucial reality. The Democrats did win in 2000. So much of this handwringing is completely moot.
The Democrats may very well win the elections in 2006 and 2008. Will it be because they orchestrated some grand strategy -- because they tweaked their message ever so slightly and finally caught the attention of the voters? No. If they win, they will do so while repeating what they've been doing for at least the last decade. The only difference will be that the post-analysis will give them credit for their strengths instead of making up reasons to explain the "loss."
There is no overarching philosophical reason why Democrats have lost the last few elections. There's no philosophical reason why the Democrats have been unsuccessful within government over the past five years. The Republican victories -- electoral, legislative, and executive -- have been wrought through brute force, NOT through triumphs of ideas. 2000 election? Force. Iraq? Force. Bolton? Force. And so on and so forth. There's one major reason why people insist that there has been a great void of Democratic leadership and message. Because IT SELLS BOOKS. And then the idea caught on and it was repeated ad nauseum until it became conventional wisdom. But it's nonsense.
I don't have much of a problem with what the Democrats have or haven't done in the last five years. I think the country would be in pretty damn good shape if Gore had been allowed to take his rightful place in the Oval Office in January of 2001. It's tragically comical that the Republican ghouls, who scammed their way into power five years ago, cut short their own period of extended "soul-searching" (yeah, right) and handed it off to the Democrats who, understandably, didn't know what to do with it.
Will the Democrats win in 2006 and 2008? I don't know. But if they do, what will it be attributed to? Politics as usual? A thorough vote count? A new and innovative leadership strategy that's in play as of this moment that apparently no one can see? Will it represent vindication or will it be a fluke? It really doesn't matter. Post-analysis, in this era, is garbage. Most of the premises are lies anyway. Microwave-speed revisionist history.
If Democrats are elected there will be a policy shift. But it will not represent a change in message. It will represent a change in the power structure -- in capability. The new conventional wisdom, whatever provides the easiest storyline, will be utterly predictable and inane. Some things never change...