I think there is way too much soul searching going on in the liberal blogsphere, you'd think that we had just been handed another Mondale or McGovern.
Looking at the numbers, these numbers aren't disemble-and-restructure-from-ground-up numbers, these are we're-right-there numbers.
In Virginia we're at 45%
In North Carolina we're at 45% (could be Edwards effect)
In Arkansas, we're at 46%
In Iowa, New Mexico, Nevada, and Ohio, we are within 3 points.
These are good building-on numbers. Remember, when Bush lost the popular vote, Rove didn't tear down Rome, he just simply asked, where can we get 4 million votes to put us over the top?
All we need to do is ask how to build our coalition.
When all is said and done, We simply need to ask whom we lost or who did not show up and why. We need to search for group with conviction that will be a steady perfomer.
I suggest that group is Catholics. Catholics were 27% of the electorate, compared with being only 20% of the population. Bush won the OH Catholic vote by 55-44 and the FL Catholic vote by 57-42. However, Kerry won the Catholic vote in IA, NM (63%), MN, MI, PA, WI and was only -1% in MO. The states in which Kerry won the Catholic vote are not that different from OH and even FL. The only difference, it seems, was the FL campaign did not take the Catholic thing head-on and neither did OH (I think). OH was more about guns and jobs.
It seems there was a strong Catholic radar in IA, WI, MI, MN as we specifically sought to counter the anti-Kerry Catholic campaign. But OH dropped off the Kerry Catholic radar.
In IA, NM, NV, and OH, we can build an effectve Catholic coalition that will consistently deliver for us. These are moderate Catholics who agree with Democrats on most things with the exception of Roe v Wade, which is an issue that can succesfully addressed.
I hope we don't go overboard with this soul searching. There is no need to revamp the party, we're right there on the cusp. We need to reach out to Catholics and we can form a winning coalition.