Some Strategizing
What the Democrats need to Do.
A 51-48 loss does not mean the country has been thrown into a pseudo-fascist Christian Theocracy. The first thing Democrats need to do is stop whining. This election was lost in the middle. Anything close to the Left's worst fears will bring a backlash regardless of any mandate Bush claims. Everybody hates sore losers and whiners look silly trying to puff themselves for the next campaign as being tough on terrorism.
Democrats need to own up to the quality of candidate they put out there. Does anyone doubt that a candidate with half of Bill Clinton's personality and half of John Kerry's foreign policy credentials would have trounced Bush?
Most importantly, Democrats need to stop telling people about their policies. Democrats have talked to death so many of their issues that people are listening anymore. Too many people think the Democratic policy speeches are fancy talk to win elections and let homosexuals marry and keep abortion legal. The New Deal coalition with its foundation in the Great Depression only needed some verbal reminders to keep on winning. Memories and family stories about the Depression times created a visual and instinctual foundation for Democrats to continue their coalition through only speeches. This underlying foundation is gone, yet the Democrats are still talking. They are talking to the wind because there is no gut-level foundation for their policy speeches to build upon.
What the Democrats need to do is start showing people. Enough telling, start showing the people what they are about.
Democrats are concerned about education. John Kerry had the statistics memorized for how much each state was shortchanged by No Child Left Behind. So what? Telling people their schools are losing money and showing them are two different things. Why was there not an advertisement showing an overcrowded classroom? Not just showing how overcrowded the classrooms are, but ask the viewer to find the computer in the classroom. Too many classrooms do not have computers. Show people that and tell them they can either vote for tax cuts or to give these children computers.
Show a school parking lot turned into a trailer park of classrooms where students have to wear their coats in the winter because the heat is just not enough in the tin cans they call classrooms. As viewers if they favor tax cuts or helping these children out. This is gut level campaigning and the Democrats need to do more of it--instead of just telling people.
The Democrats need not stick to their own issue turf. On gay marriage, why not show how intolerant the other side is. There are plenty of protests with posters saying `God hates fags" and "fags will burn in hell" etc. Why not have a candidate stand in front of a screening of the protest, affirm his support for civil unions, talk about real American values, and ask the President to denounce this intolerance? Or better yet, ask the protestors who they are voting for.
On abortion, why not have a women's personal story of her considering an abortion when Clinton was President but deciding against it because she had a good job and good health insurance. And then a women who did have an abortion because she lost her healthcare or job in the last four years. This is tough, but so is being called a baby killer.
On religion, claiming religiosity but then saying you don't wear it on your sleeve is defensive and perceived as just being slick. How about affirming one's religion but pointing out it's a different Christianity than Jerry Falwell's.
On defense, the Bushies ran a tough add about wolves. The Democrats used this opportunity to give a National Geographic lesson that an Ostrich finds food with his head in the sand and ass in the air. This ad was largely ineffective. If the Republicans want to get tough and get wolves then hit them back real hard. How about counterpunching with pack of rabid wolves frothing at the mouth ready to tear something apart, show them up close too, not in a distant forest. A gun goes off and a wolf in the distant background clunks to the ground. Then the announcer saying that George Bush killed the lone wolf by going after Hussein--the most dangerous wolves-bin Laden and crew-are still out there.
The Democrats need to get tough and start showing people. The New Deal Coalition is completely gone and you can't win votes just by talking economics. Lyndon Johnson in 1964 didn't just tell people Goldwater was a dangerous--he showed them. The Republicans learned this lesson the hard way and never forgot. The Democrats are on a long learning curve.