Is that all there was?

With Obama's probable nomination, will come a 'generational' changing of the guard of the behind-the-scenes Democratic leadership. The people who've been there for a long time are like a cohort of singles bar aficionados, who pride themselves on being masters at sealing the deal. But their obsessive focus on the mechanics of seduction always ends up preventing the sex from being as satisfying as they imagine it will be.

An effective political party is not merely a vehicle for individual candidates who happen to share some policy goals. The party must be an instrument of a movement that brings together people who share some values, then determines what policies will best represent those values in government, and recruits and elects candidates who will support (and ideally, further develop) those policies.

The Democrats knew that in the 1960s, but got torn apart over foreign policy. So when a coherent* movement took over the GOP in the late 1970s, it dominated the political landscape for a generation.

The 50+1 orientation is the epitome of focusing on the mechanics rather than the relationship. It's not that you should never pay attention to knowing exactly how much you have to achieve to win. But when you forget why you're interested in the first place, the losses do more damage and the wins aren't nearly as rewarding.

*organizationally and sometimes philosophically coherent, but not intellectually so