Edgewise

They laughed at Edison

And they laughed at Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy. Personally, I think its essential that the Democracts compete across the entire country and stop ceding entire regions to the Republicans.

For one thing, Red State Democrats are some of the most dedicated supporters the party has. It’s easy to be a Democrat in San Francisco. It’s a lot more difficult to maintain that belief system in Alabama or Utah.

Before we can win in those states we have to start losing better, losing by less, building a presence, building an organization, and building momentum.

An email circular I received today cites a number of compelling rewards already realized from this effort:

MISSISSIPPI: Republican Gov. Haley Barbour appointed Democrats representing competitive districts in the state legislature to various boards and commissions, triggering four special elections at a time when he believed that his personal popularity would translate into new Republican legislators. Just a few months prior, the 50-state strategy had taken the number of Democratic Party staff in Mississippi from one full-time person to five. By organizing on the ground the way Democrats in Mississippi haven’t had the resources to do in a generation, we swept all four special elections. Now Gov. Barbour has four more Democrats holding appointments in his administration and the same number of Democrats sitting in the legislature.

OHIO: The 50-state strategy means new staff in Ohio who have been reviving the field organizing efforts across the state. In a place where it had been typical to build and tear down an entire campaign infrastructure every election cycle, new staff are creating permanent organizing teams in every single county. These teams will be responsible for various functions during the course of the very competitive campaigns there in 2006 — and won’t disappear after Election Day.

SOUTH DAKOTA: With the added boost from new staff and resources, Democrats fielded a record number of legislative candidates this year, recruiting challengers in nearly 40% more races than in 2002.

INDIANA: With fresh resources and energy, Indiana Democrats have been making waves. The Indianapolis Star reported recently that, “Gov. Mitch Daniels and other state Republicans have taken a beating in recent months from the Indiana Democratic Party” thanks to the 50-state strategy, which provided the opportunity to hire a full-time spokesperson. Indiana is also the first state in the country to hold elections under new laws that requires voters to use photo identification that includes an expiration date. Predictably, rightful voters have been disenfranchised by this law. New staff and resources have helped collect data from the May 2nd primary election that will be needed to appeal to the federal court.

OKLAHOMA: The 50-state strategy has been credited with re-energizing grassroots throughout the state. In April, the new staff paid off when the Democratic candidate scored an upset victory, unseating a Republican incumbent as mayor of Tulsa.

NEW YORK: In rural upstate New York, which Republicans rely on for their base voters, unprecedented ground organizing is showing that the 50-state strategy means leaving no county behind. Already, new staff on the ground have identified 12,000 new Democratic voters - voters who we will get to the polls this November and in elections to come, helping Democrats up and down the ballot.

UTAH: Already, 2006 marks the best candidate recruitment for the Utah Democratic Party in over 15 years. Democrats have recruited candidates for every single State Senate race, and Democrats have challengers running in ten State House races that went unopposed in 2004. The recruitment efforts, led by new staff deployed as part of the 50-state strategy, include not only life-long Democrats but also six Republicans who have switched parties.

NEW HAMPSHIRE: Regional field organizers deployed as part of our 50-state strategy have already racked up important wins. They have already worked hands-on to elect three new Democratic members to the State House - in seats that had been held by Republicans since 1912.

Let's take South Dakota

Let the Libertarians take over New Hampshire (quickly, though - it’s trending Blue).

Let the religious nuts have South Carolina (Nick, we’ll find another home for you).

Let’s take over South Dakota (apparently, it’s not that hard to do).

Love the man, part two

Democrats.com says Karl Rove Has Zero Cred on National Security and quotes my favorite straight shooter, Howard Dean:

Karl Rove only has a White House job and a security clearance because President Bush has refused to keep his promise to fire anyone involved in revealing the identity of an undercover CIA operative. Rove’s political standing gets him an invitation to address Republicans in Washington, DC today, but it doesn’t give him the credibility to question Democrats’ commitment to national security. The truth is, Karl Rove breached our national security for partisan gain and that is both unpatriotic and wrong.

It's OK. Love the man.

If you're a Democrat, whatever your feelings about Howard Dean, it's hard to watch this sequence and not, at least momentarily, love the man. Go on. Watch this video. I double-Democrat-dare you not to love him.

wonderful

what a lovely night to be a Democrat.
I'm just sitting here, watching the proposition results come in over on the CA secretary of state's site. And those two Ys have switched over to Ns. And we've got the floor all set up for a clean sweep. And there's Virginia! What a great state, Virginia. And my home state of NJ too.

And that's all. just wonderful lovely great. And home.

My other adopted African child

I just agreed to give $10 every month to the Democratic National Committee. And now I feel like I've now got another adopted child out there in the Sudanese desert, going to a new school, hopefully. Getting wells put in for clean water. All of that. I hope they send me a picture as my little DNC grows up. And as with my other adopted African child, whose name unfortunately I can't recall at just this moment, more than anything, I hope the DNC doesn't grow up wanting to kill me.

Ok, that's not really my number-one hope. But I liked the way it sounded. Send yer complaints to the blog-police. Lousy, stinkin' blog-coppers. Come and get me, ya no-good blog-screws!

-Cecil

He may be a loose cannon, but he's our loose cannon

Hey, I actually agree that Dean should be more careful in how he phrases his outrageous statements, and that it's not good that we're talking about Dean instead of about Bush's unpopularity or Republicans shutting down hearings on the Patriot act, but on the other hand it's about time we had a tough-talking Democrat with the courage of his convictions.

Quoting from Steve Clemons in the politics section of TPM Cafe (Howard Dean is Doing What Dems Need: Shaking Things Up):

I feel no need to defend Howard Dean because he's Chair of the DNC but rather because he's doing what the Democratic Party needs -- shaking things up.

To go directly to the comments that Josh Marshall posted from a TPM reader -- specifically about thinking about the position of an upwardly hopeful Governor of Virginia or a "wannabe Senator from Tennessee" -- these political characters should be embracing Dean's rough edges. He is taking the kind of risks and showing a bravado that the Dems haven't shown in years.

The Republican Party took weeks to finally admit that it was responsible for some of the most outrageous campaign flyers in the last election. The Washington Note was the first to post these -- and Howard Dean, on his blog, was one of the few politicians (then withdrawn from the race) to roundly attack these flyers that said Democrats would BAN the Bible and turn that respective state (Arkansas, West Virginia, Ohio, and several others) into bastions of homosexuality. And now Dean is being clobbered by his own party for asserting that the Republican Party is mostly Christian, mostly white, and mostly male?!

79 comments on this thread (over there) and counting.

Science and health vs. fanaticism

We know the Dems are playing defense. Part of what comes with that role is that you don't get to set the agenda. You have to play each game with your eye on the scoreboard to see what everyone else is doing. You can't just win - your opponents have to lose. They have to make mistakes. Mark A. R. Kleiman thinks George Bush is making a big mistake by planning to veto the stem-cell bill:

Perfect. Just what we need. Take an issue where public sentiment is clearly with the Democrats, and set it up so the radical conservatives of the Texas Republican Party are standing between sick people and miracle cures. Exectly the right issue for the 2006/2008 elections: science and health v. fanaticism.

Liberalism lost public favor mostly because it came to appear to many voters that electing liberals meant having the government get in the way of stuff they wanted to do. I'm delighted to see the right making the same dumb mistake.

Scott Chacon for Congress

Here's a candidate worth supporting: Chacon 2006 - Join the conversation. Scott is running in California's 11th District, currently represented by the horrible Richard Pombo. Scott is taking only up to $100 from supporters and is running a very open campaign, with a blog and podcasts.

Currently, he's trying to raise money to go to the Personal Democracy Forum conference in New York on May 16 (where I'll be on a panel, I should mention). Also, he did most of the fine-work in turning the East Bay for Democracy website's template into a real-live CivicSpace design.

To put it succintly, he's a mensh.

The Pro-Life Party: Us, Goddammit!

"Are you pro-life or pro-choice?"

"Yes."

That's not an original "joke," but it's one that bears repeating. This morning on Democracy Now, Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez were interviewing a woman from NOW and a man from the Democratic Senatorial (?) Council about the latter group's policy of encouraging pro-choice senatorial hopefuls to step aside for supposedly more electable anti-choice candidates in 2006. All four of them used the phrase "pro-life" to describe opponents of legal abortion.

That's [bleep]ing crazy. Of all the distortions and hijackings of language perpetrated by the right-wing noise machine, none is more pernicious in its scope than their claim to be "pro-life." Those of us who can loosely be called "progressives" are the party of Life. We are pro-life when we assert the right to regulate economic activity to prevent species extinction, to preserve workplace health and safety, and to improve air and water quality. The right opposes all those kinds of regulation because they don't see any value to life and health beyond what can be quantified monetarily. We are pro-life when we oppose war, and particularly the targeting of civilians in war. We are pro-life when we oppose the death penalty. And we are pro-life when we assert the value of a mother's actual life over the abstraction of a fetus's potential life.

Having said that, I also found it disturbing that Amy Goodman took issue with Hillary Clinton's description of abortion as a "sad" choice. To be sure, Mrs. Clinton's comment implies more in the context of her DSC maneuvering than it literally says, but it seems grotesquely callous to suggest that the decision to end a potential life is not sad, even when it's the only humane choice.

Obviously, there's a lot more to be said about this. The progressive movement and the Democratic party need to find a way to deal with the fact that even though the majority of American voters support legal choice, they also support candidates who oppose it. This is a deeply rooted paradox. It has something to do with the tension between the morality we actually practice (what I'm calling "humane" values) and what we think we believe. Others may be able to articulate this better than I can.

California über Alles

Mark A. R. Kleiman proposes a nuclear option for the Democrats: changing the state constitution to elect a congressional delegation on a winner-take-all basis, take over the Congress, and elect Speaker Pelosi.

Sounds cool, but what happens if other states do it too?

The Nation likes Dean

Now He Has the Power, writes John Nichols.

As has often been the case, conventional wisdom on Howard Dean is dead wrong:

The Washington-insider line on Dean was that he would be anathema to Democrats from "red" states like Kansas, where Kerry won only a single county. The reality was the opposite: Some of Dean's first major endorsements for chair came from party leaders in Alabama, Mississippi and, yes, Kansas. When Reid suggested that Justice Antonin Scalia would be an acceptable Chief Justice, Dean disagreed. That created a stir in Washington, including an "it's not your job to set policy" admonishment from outgoing chair Terry McAuliffe. But it didn't hurt Dean with DNC members. "That, to me, is one more reason to elect him chairman," says Roy.

(Krugman gets him too.)

Chait at the New Republic still doesn't get him:

New Republic commentator Jonathan Chait put their fears into words when he grumbled that "Dean, with his intense secularism, arrogant style, throngs of high-profile counterculture supporters and association with the peace movement, is the precise opposite of the image Democrats want to send out."

What do you mean "we," white man?

Zack Exley's advice to Dean

Zack Exley advises Howard Dean to use his e-bully pulpit to communicate directly to wired Democratic activists his first day on the job.

p.s.: Pete I'm sorry but I accidentally allowed the URLs to be stripped from your comment on the previous post here. Please feel free to re-post them in a main entry.

Yeeagh!

MyDD :: Democratic party just committed suicide!

This MyDD diarist points out that the conventional wisdom on Dean and what he stands for is dead wrong.

This is good. The Democrats have to stop being so transparent with the media.

Atrios has been pointing out that the Republicans have gotten in bed with media elites with its phony-crisis insurance social engineering project.

Beautiful losers

Fire the Consultants by Amy Sullivan at the WashMon asks the musical question, "Why do Democrats promote campaign advisors who lose races?"

Wishing the President Well

Gary Hart's op-ed "The restoration of a mythical golden age" concludes by striking just the right balance between the degree of respect that any president is due ex officio and that which this president has actually earned:

"Despite all this, people of goodwill must wish George Bush well and hope that his hubris will be tempered by reality."

Torture is bad

There. I've gone out on a limb and said it. I feel so brave.

Quoting from the Nielsen Haydens' blog (Happy New Year):

Ogged of Unfogged:

[...T]his will become a "Democrats are soft and looking to score points" issue. I've given up. Complain, protest, organize and fund all you want; one more attack here and your neighbors will be lining up to torture somebody, anybody.

Ezra of Pandagon:

Unfogged is right; barring a miracle of competence and media responsibility, opposing torture will end up making the Democrats look like we get the vapors whenever the menfolk whip out the cigars and talk terrorism. Our press flacks are ineffective, our caucus can't stick to a message, and we don't have a party leader charged with articulating our position to the public.

Doesn't matter. Torture just isn't something you compromise on. I'm as coldly political as the next guy, but not torture. That's not part of the country I grew up believing in.

Digby of Hullabaloo:

[T]he mere act of finally drawing that line in the sand, of saying "No More," is the very thing that refutes the charge. It's hemming and hawing and splitting the difference and "meeting halfway" and offering compromises on matters of principle that makes the charge of Democratic spinelessness believable. This isn't about a special interest giving money or bending to the will of a powerful constituency. People can feel the difference. There is nothing weak about simply and forcefully standing up for what is right. [...] I think it may just be a defining issue for Democrats.

It's not that I believe that all Americans are horrified, or even a majority of Americans are horrified. Clearly, the dittoheads think it is just ducky. But that isn't the point. Just because they aren't horrified or even endorse it on some level doesn't mean that they don't know that it's wrong. They do. And it is very uncomfortable to be put in the position of defending yourself when you know you are wrong. Even good people find ways, but it cuts a little piece out of their self-respect every time they do it.

Every person alive in America today grew up with the belief that torture is wrong. Popular culture, religion, folklore and every other form of cultural instruction for decades in this country has taught that it is wrong, from sermons and lectures to films about slavery to photographs of Auschwitz to crime shows about serial killers. ^[1] It is embedded in our consciousness. We teach our children that it is wrong to torture animals and other kids. We don't say that there are exceptions for when the animals or kids are really, really bad. We have laws on the books that outright outlaw it. The words "cruel and unusual" are written into our constitution.

The problem is not that there isn't a widely accepted admonition not to conduct torture, it's that many people, as with all crimes, will choose to ignore the admonition under certain circumstances. However, that does not mean that they do not know that what they are doing is wrong. There is nothing surprising in that. It's why we have laws.

The arguments for torture being raised by the right are rationalizations for what they know is immoral and illegal conduct. Their discomfort with the subject clearly indicates that they don't really want to defend it. (Witness the pathetic dance that even that S&M freak Rush Limbaugh had to do after his comments were widely disseminated.) Will they admit that they know it's wrong? Of course not. But when they take up their manly jihad and accuse the Democrats of being swooning schoolgirls they will also be forced to positively defend something that many of them know very well is indefensible. And every time they do that their credibility on values and morals is chipped away a little bit.

I don't expect them to change their tune. Way too much of this comes from a defect in temperament and garden-variety racism and that's not going to go away. But Democrats have to thicken their skins and be prepared for the usual attacks and insist over and over again that it is against the values and principles of the United States to torture people, period. It is not only right, it is smart.

As I wrote below, the opposition will bluster and fidget and scream bloody murder. But listen to the tenor of their arguments. ^[2] [The Wall Street Journal] rails against the "glib abuse of the word" as if they can run away from the issue by engaging in a game of semantics. They are reduced to claiming that unless we torture it will be unilateral disarmament. We, the most powerful military force the world has ever known, will be defeated by a bunch of third world religious misfits if we don't engage in torturing suspects. Just who sounds weak?

-----
[1] Maureen Dowd: "Before [Alberto Gonzales] helped President Bush circumvent the accords and reserve the right to do so 'in this or future conflicts,' you had to tune in to an old movie with Nazi generals or Vietcong guards if you wanted to see someone sneeringly shrug off the international treaty protecting prisoners from abuse. ('You worthless running dog Chuck Norris! What do we care about your silly Geneva Conventions?')"

[2] The Poor Man: "The point is this: 'To protect subordinates should they be charged with torture, the memo advised that Mr. Bush issue a "presidential directive or other writing" that could serve as evidence, since authority to set aside the laws is "inherent in the president."' Alberto Gonzales thinks that the Magna Carta is liberal pablum."

Kerry health care petition

Kerry's bringing a health-care-for-children bill to the senate this year and is looking to get folks to sign a petition in support. I did it and thought some of youse might be interested in giving it a look. Click here for more info.

What do Democrats stand for?

I suspect that we (Democrats) don't have an organizing principle but instead a motley set of strongly felt ideals. Because of this, we are rarely able or willing to sacrifice specific issues because we don't have a common goal (aside from opposing Republicans) that we are all willing to sacrifice to achieve.

What is the organizing principle of the party? Social justice? Economic fairness? Liberty? Peace? I'm not sure we'd all agree.

If the organizing principle of our party is winning, then to what end? Right now I think we're a coalition of freedom lovers and nurturers whose commonality is that culturally we are comfortable with questioning authority and believe the world to be nuanced and subtle.

The other coalition harkens to old-fashioned authoritarianism and paternalism and certainty, order and discipline.

But the issues are spread unevenly among the parties. The economic libertarians are allied with the Republicans because they think not paying taxes makes the economically freer. Few of the leaders of either party are true economic populists (hence the Nader critique).

I used to feel we were overdue for a realignment, but along what lines? I'm neither a libertarian nor a socialist. I think I'm a moderate on most of these axes but I'm alarmed that in most cases the orthodox / authoritarian / right / masculine end of the spectrum is overpowering the rest, so I've found myself more closely attached to the center-left Democrats.

I don't know if we can get a majority as the "anti-party" and I'm afraid that 9/11 gave a real edge to tough-guy paternalism, so organizing around nuance and subtletly and cooperation and questioning things is also going to be tough until bullheaded certainty crashes and burn, unfortunately to the ruin of us all.

I saw the party try to woo responsible Republicans (guess what, nabbing Daniel Drezner didn't do the trick) behind a responsible facade but ironically Clinton sold responsibility behind his irresponsible charm and Bush sells irresponsibility behind his. The grownup, do-good, middle-of-the-road sensible technocracy that Kerry (and, yes, Dukakis) represented doesn't seem to have enough flash to sell.

Again, I feel like we need to hone our cherished principles to the few we can't do without, and then figure out how to gather a majority who can work together. I don't know if this is a social justice / economic justice majority that cuts across the cultural divide or a cultural progress majority that cuts across the fairness / inequity spectrum, but right now we're neither and we're losing.

I think Republicans are losing too. I don't hate those voters - but I do despise who they are willing to let represent them.

The Lakoff stuff is important. You have to make people who don't like you and who you don't like still trust you and you have to appeal to people's self-interest and their deeper drives.

If my top priority were equal rights (and maybe it is), perhaps I should try to bring out those issues on both sides of the Dem/Republican divide, pitching liberal culture to Democrats and libertarianism and economic equal opportunity to Republicans. This would include gay rights, women's rights, fighting racism, and getting the government out of our bodies and minds.

If my top priority were economic reform, perhaps I should be in a PIRG type organization and appeal to working people on the basis of limiting the rampages of capitalism with a strong safety net and capitalists on the basis of making the system function well. This would include worker's rights, workplace democracy, transparency, checks on the financial system, accountability, and so on.

If my top priority is changing the way we relate to the world and trying to bring about an end to violence as a problem-solving tool, perhaps I need to be in a Kucinich-inspired teach-peace movement that again lobbies both parties, but then it's an uphill battle all the way. I have no idea how to make that work.

Instead I'm in coalition that doesn't agree on any of the above principles in all cases. Somehow, the Republicans are grabbing the bigger piece of each of these axes.

I've gone on too long. This is a glimpse of the turmoil in my mind lately. I still feel like I'm missing a big piece of the puzzle.

What's the vision?

I'm going to quote Jeff Jarvis at length below the fold. I disagree with him as often as I agree with him but I think he's got a mouthful of something important in 'Whose Values II?' from his BuzzMachine blog.

I'm not sure why he thinks Hillary Clinton would be a better candidate then the others he dismisses. He says she is a centrist with a vision, but what's the vision? I'm not trying to be provocative here. I sincerely hope Jeff sees this entry and posts a comment to clarify what vision Clinton represents.

I suspect she'd do more than enrage the fringe. I think the mushy middle would go against her too either as a woman, as a New Yorker, as a Clinton, or as a very intelligent person. Sure, she's positioned herself in the middle politically, which is smart for taking power, but again to what end? In the service of what vision? I'm ready to be convinced but I don't know what Jarvis has in mind or what he's implying.

I just wrote something on a mailing list I'm on and I'm going to post it next because I think it pertains to this same process of soul searching that we ineffectual bloggers seem to be convulsing through this week, on both sides of the partisan divide, on both sides of the economic-theory divide, on both sides of the culture-war divide.

: The NY Times op-ed page today reflected the post I wrote Thursday on the bogus impact of "moral values" on the election as measured by the bogus exit polls (proving only that print punditry has a helluva lead time):

: Gary Langer, head of polling for ABC News, said he fought against including the "moral values" question in the joint exit poll because it was so vague and it was the ultimate mom-and-apple pie question: Who's against moral values here?

Pre-election polls consistently found that voters were most concerned about three issues: Iraq, the economy and terrorism. When telephone surveys asked an open-ended issues question (impossible on an exit poll), answers that could sensibly be categorized as moral values were in the low single digits. In the exit poll, they drew 22 percent.

Why the jump? One reason is that the phrase means different things to people. Moral values is a grab bag; it may appeal to people who oppose abortion, gay marriage and stem-cell research but, because it's so broadly defined, it pulls in others as well....

Moral values, moreover, is a loaded phrase, something polls should avoid. (Imagine if "patriotism" were on the list.) It resonates among conservatives and religious Americans. While 22 percent of all voters marked moral values as their top issue, 64 percent of religious conservatives checked it.

: David Brooks, on whom I tend to be binary, writes a very good column on the bull that is "moral values" as an issue.

If you ask an inept question, you get a misleading result.

The reality is that this was a broad victory for the president. Bush did better this year than he did in 2000 in 45 out of the 50 states. He did better in New York, Connecticut and, amazingly, Massachusetts. That's hardly the Bible Belt. Bush, on the other hand, did not gain significantly in the 11 states with gay marriage referendums.

He won because 53 percent of voters approved of his performance as president. Fifty-eight percent of them trust Bush to fight terrorism. They had roughly equal confidence in Bush and Kerry to handle the economy. Most approved of the decision to go to war in Iraq. Most see it as part of the war on terror.

It's a simple and clear analysis. He then says, "The fact is that if you think we are safer now, you probably voted for Bush. If you think we are less safe, you probably voted for Kerry." I disagree there. That assumes that terrorism is the only issue. If it were, he'd be right (and I'd have voted for Bush). But there were many issues and each of us weighed them differently. That's why all efforts to explain an election over one issue are wrong. So he's oversimplifying the opposition, slightly. But he's also right about the opposition oversimplifying the victors:

But the same insularity that caused many liberals to lose touch with the rest of the country now causes them to simplify, misunderstand and condescend to the people who voted for Bush. If you want to understand why Democrats keep losing elections, just listen to some coastal and university town liberals talk about how conformist and intolerant people in Red America are. It makes you wonder: why is it that people who are completely closed-minded talk endlessly about how open-minded they are?

This is why I wrote my post-election peace pledge and my letter to Democrats: Insulting the people who voted for Bush is no way to win the next election.

: Nick Kristof says it's time for Democrats to be more open and he's right. He also says our model should be Labor under Tony Blair and he's way right. He's way wrong in a minute....

As moderates from the heartland, like Tom Daschle, are picked off by the Republicans, the party's image risks being defined even more by bicoastal, tree-hugging, gun-banning, French-speaking, Bordeau-sipping, Times-toting liberals, whose solution is to veer left and galvanize the base....

Mobilizing the base would mean nominating Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2008 and losing yet again. (Mrs. Clinton has actually undertaken just the kind of makeover that I'm talking about: in the Senate, she's been cooperative, mellow and moderate, winning over upstate New Yorkers. She could do the same in the heartland ... if she had 50 years.)

So Democrats need to give a more prominent voice to Middle American, wheat-hugging, gun-shooting, Spanish-speaking, beer-guzzling, Bible-toting centrists. (They can tote The Times, too, in a plain brown wrapper.) For a nominee who could lead the Democrats to victory, think of John Edwards, Bill Richardson or Evan Bayh, or anyone who knows the difference between straw and hay.

He's way wrong in thinking that Edwards, Richardson, or Bayh are the people to re-energize the party. They are dull and safe. They don't have vision. Clinton (Hillary) is a centrist who has a vision and can energize the party. She'll piss off the opposite fringe, but that won't matter.

He also says that the Democrats need to work hard not to be the obstructionist party over the next four years. Again, I agree. I disagree with his particular prescription for how to do that, but that's all a matter of politics. The moral to the story is the same.

: Finally, Steven Waldman of Beliefnet looks like a bit of a fool quoting the "moral values" poll results as if they mean something, surrounded by those who show how it doesn't.

: The Democrats must find the path to:

1. Not insult the victors by acting as if they're all a bunch of right-wing religious nut jobs if they voted for Bush. They are your neighbors.
2. Not obstruct progress in the country by insisting on only attacking the administration instead of finding ways to work with it.
3. Not hold to ideology and become the (small) party of exclusion. I know what that felt like during this election; just because I supported some of what Bush did, I was seen as a disloyal unDemocrat and I swear there were some who would rather have held onto their orthodoxy than get my vote. That's no way to win elections.

OK, so if it's not ideology, what is the unifying principle of the Democratic party?

Arise and walk

Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | Sidney Blumenthal: America's hidden vote:

Since 2002 ... what can only be called a new Democratic party has been summoned into existence by extra-party groups. More than 100,000 activists are tramping through the precincts. In Ohio alone, more than 300,000 new Democratic voters have been added, Cecile Richards, director of America Votes, told me. These registrations of literally millions of new voters did not just happen; they were organised.

The polls, nearly all showing a dead-even race, fail to account for the new voters, who have no past records. They do not measure those for whom a mobile is their main phone - 6% of the population - who will vote Democrat by a margin of two-and-a-half to one.

The Democracy Corps poll, however, filters in newly registered voters. Four months ago, the newly registered made up only 1% of the sample. One month ago, they comprised 4%. Now they are at 7% and rising. And they will vote for Kerry over Bush by 61% to 37%.

Maybe the other side should stop mocking Edwards' Lazarus act, in which he strongly implied that President Science would have helped Christopher Reeves get up and walk by any means necessary.

Seems that the Republicans have gotten sloppy about reinforcing their opponents message, the way Bush has made "Wrong war, wrong place, wrong time" into more of a mantra than Kerry was ever able to do.

It's almost as if Bush, as Daffy Duck, has been tricked by Kerry as Bugs, who keeps "misplaying" that song until until Daffy finally can't resist pushing him aside and saying, No, no, you're doing it wrong and hitting the note with the booby trap attached.