Ultimately the facts didn't matter. The incompetence. The scandals. The lies. The war. The casualties. The economy. The lack of jobs. The worry over health insurance.
None of it mattered to the 51% of voting Americans who last Tuesday decided this election in favor of George W. Bush.
These voters live in what I call the Other America. I met some of them in the working-class neighborhoods I canvassed in Milwaukee over the last several weeks, the ones with those red, white and blue Bush-Cheney yard signs and the orange "Sportsmen for Bush" signs and the ones with no signs at all. I didn't understand them then. I still don't.
They weren't rich enough to vote Republican, I told myself. If anything, they are the Republican Party's victims: their jobs and pensions are in jeopardy; they work ridiculously long hours; they often work two jobs to make ends meet; their kids go to schools struggling to keep up with underfunded federal mandates; the increases they pay in health insurance premiums and property taxes have wiped out any so-called tax relief they got; and yet they vote Republican and they turned out like trained monkeys to ratify one of the most regressive regimes ever for another four years.
The Republican right has done a masterful job selling the Other America on the notion that gay couples marrying in Massachusetts and California threaten their way of life in Ohio and Florida; that liberals want to take away people's guns; that Democrats want to jack up taxes and give the money to welfare queens; that latté-drinking Democratic elites want to ban God. It isn't true. But so what.
These are the myths that majorities in red states subscribe to, facts be damned. Facts: The divorce rate in God-fearing Texas is twice what it is in Massachusetts, the state with the lowest divorce rate in the nation, by the way. Doesn't matter. There are nearly as many pro-gun Democrats in Congress and state legislatures as Republicans; the split cuts along urban-rural lines, not party lines. Doesn't matter. And while taxes did increase under Clinton, real incomes of the middle-class rose, deficits fell, the size of the federal government shrank and the country enjoyed a trillion-dollar-plus surplus. Doesn't matter. As the Onion put it after Bush claimed the White House in 2000: "Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over." So where's the outrage?
The bright spot in Tuesday's elections disaster, if there is one, was the multitude of people who for the first time got passionately involved in the political process. Led by the likes of Joe Trippi, Howard Dean, George Soros and others, hundreds of thousands of grass-roots outsiders gave the Democratic Party a much needed spine transfusion, mobilized support, registered new voters, created 527s, invested in infrastructure and raised gobs of money over the internet, freeing the party from a poisonous dependence on big corporate donors and special interest money.
This is the foundation of a powerful new base for Democrats that will generate ideas, media, fund raising and voter and activist mobilization outside the box of the DNC or DLC. But as much as we need to build on all these assets, we also need to articulate a consistent message that will bring back traditional Democratic constituencies.
As Ruy Teixeira at EDM points out, Kerry and the Democrats rallied a powerful coalition of minorities and college-educated professionals based in post-industrial metropolitan areas like Philadelphia, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
Unfortunately, Democratic successes in the Northeast, upper Midwest and West could not make up for Republican successes in the South, the border states, the Southwest, and the Great Plains. Also Bush won support across the map among suburban and rural voters by a margin of 5 and 10 points, respectively.
Of course, it's ridiculous to talk about trying to peel off voters from the Christian Evangelical right. Pandering to this segment is antithetical to the Democratic platform and base. It simply isn't us. Democrats can't be rightwing Christian lite, just as they can't be Republican lite.
But we cannot afford to continue to lose white male voters in such large numbers. Bush won this demographic segment by 62% to 37%. In particular, according to Teixeira, Democrats need to increase support among white males working class voters -- those without a four-year college degree -- if they want to win presidential elections.
The party lost this sizable group of voters in the 1970s and it's been tough winning the White House ever since. While Clinton carried the group by a point in his two elections, Gore lost it by 17 points in 2000, Democratic congressional candidates lost it by 18 points in 2002, and Kerry lost it 53% to 47% last Tuesday.
Given the degree of cultural alienation this constituency feels, it is unlikely that candidates like Gore or Kerry can bring them back. So the party not only needs the right message to sway them, it also needs the right messenger.
To me the candidate coming closest to presenting the right message-messenger combination was John Edwards with his Two Americas theme. While it's likely that Edwards lacked the experience and gravitas to prevail in 2004, it is undeniable that his personna and message connected with voters, white working class males included.
Edwards's working-class roots and résumé as a political unknown who shocked the pros by winning a US Senate seat in Jesse Helms's arch-conservative North Carolina his first time out is proof of his ability to reach out to liberals, moderates, conservatives and independents.
I believe that candidates like John Edwards of North Carolina and Tom Vilsack of Iowa represent Democrats who can run successfully on the national stage. If we want to avoid a repeat of last Tuesday, we'd be well advised to follow such a model in recruiting and supporting candidates in 2006 and 2008.
Without more votes from the Other America, we simply can't win.
Link to other stories on my blog American Muckraker