The best launching point for a second part is the comments on the first part. Yes, I know that Harry Reid is very conservative for Democratic Senate Minority Leader. While a promising step, it went too far.
As I said previously, the Radical Right is already claiming the spoils of the 2004 election. On the social issues, moderates such as Arlen Specter are pressured both in Republican primaries and now in his new post as head of the Judiciary Committee.
On economic issues, Grover Norquist continues his quest to kill America's successful social programs. Now, economic moderates (i.e. Republicans not for a tax) are given the ignonimous label of RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) and are hounded in primaries and on Capitol Hill, just like the socially moderate comrades.
In the process, they have antagonized many moderate voters. What keeps these moderates in the Republican camp? The equal partisanship on the Democratic side. If Democrats can avoid this partisanship, they can very quickly reverse the Republican tide.
One of the main issues that the "liberal" media trumpeted was how divided the country is. Yet, there is less to this than meets the eye. Let us look at the House of Representatives. As The Economist sardonically noted, the average winning margin for House Elections was 2:1. Fewer than 30 House races across the country were competitve.
The reason for this is quite simple: gerrymandering. Though its most famous practioner is Tom DeLay (or, as he should be called, Tom DeLie), gerrymandering occurs in both Democratic and Republican states. This leads to astoishingly safe incumbents in a country as closely divided as ours.
What does such astonishing amounts of incumbent sympathy lead to? Partisanship. Because almost every district in America is now safely Democratic or Republican, few House incumbents have to worry about satisfying people across the aisle. Instead, they have to worry about satisfying the radical leftists or rightists in their district, so that they don't have to deal with a bruising primary fight. They naturally become more partisan, because that keeps their seat safer than bipartisanship.
In many ways, the House is indicative of the national problem: the partisanship in this country is due not to the fact that too many places are closely divided, but the fact that too few are. Let us look back to 2004 election. Sure, the popular vote was close, but how many states were very close? Five? Certainly no more than 10. That still means that for 80 senators, their voting base is solidly in one camp or another. So they go through the same partisanship that their House colleagues do.
Yet, this is not the important issue. The important thing is that currently the two parties are quite partisan. And by almost sheer coincidence, our country's moderates are nearly split down the middle. We all know that both parties are much more rigidly left or right than the average American.
Yet both parties remain ignorant of this fact. If Democrats could mollify themselves ever so slightly, they could shift one percent of America. As of right now, that would be enough in many places to swing the election, not only for the Presidency but also in the Senate.
All Democrats need to do is act as though they listen to moderates. I do not think they needed to go as far as Harry Reid as Senate Minority Leader (though I am by no means opposed to him), yet I do believe that there is some "liberal elitism" with social and economic moderate. Offer Republicans shelter from the Radical Right. Stop the red-meat (or should I say "blue-meat") speeches that only satisfy the "Democratic wing of the Democratic Party." Maybe what Dean said was right, but if so, there's a big chunk of Americans who aren't part of that wing.
One of Karl Rove's main strategies was to introduce wedge issues: issues that would polarize America even more. Why did he do this? Because he knew that more Americans will chose a radical right over a radical left, and he knew that most Americans are stupid enough to believe the "liberal-elitist-Massachusetts" characterization of the Democratic Party and John Kerry. The Democrats fell into his trap. We played partisan and lost. We must remember this lesson and change our tactics, our words, and our message. Reach out an accepting hand and a listening ear to the rest of America and watch the votes pile up.