What Is to Be Done?- Part II
By Part II
1) Build on the organizational and structural steps forward we’ve made. We’ve made progress in three areas, to varying degrees. Our best progress came in terms of fundraising. We were far closer to parity with the GOP than we have been in ages. Given the economic disparity of our respective bases, this is a very impressive outcome. The blogs played some role in this, but let’s also credit Terry McAullife (I’m open to the idea that he should be replaced for other reasons, but in this ares I don’t see how he can be criticized). The gains of the last cycle in this regard must be consolidated and advanced if we’re to secure future electoral successes. Second, we made substantial gains in the ground game. It’s clear these gains came up short, but it’s not clear (to me) exactly why. Still, we’re closer to having the GOTV machine we need than we were before, and we ought to be able to figure out why and how we fell short. Third, message quality and control. Our steps forward here must still be characterized as baby steps. The blogs certainly kept some stuff alive long enough to get it into the news cycle, and that’s not trivial. But both message discipline and media manipulation are areas that require tremendous work.
2) Following up on that, figure out a way to appeal to the white working class. I won’t repeat what I said in the post above (#4) about how not to do this. I will suggest. Simply saying we need to shift to the right culturally, as The Poor Man suggests, isn’t all that helpful. It would seem to make the most sense to speak to this constituency on economic matters, and Kerry tried to do that. I do like the Poor Man’s suggestion of framing poverty as a moral issue–Kerry and Edwards hinted in this direction, and they certainly framed jobs as a moral issue. It would be charitable to call the results mixed. What was wrong with his economic message? How can a message best be crafted to this constituency? I have absolutely no idea. As much as I railed against the conventional wisdom about nominating a southerner, I must admit that the vessel in which that message is placed matters a great deal, and John Kerry may not have been the man to deliver it.
3) Document the atrocities. Monitor and report. This goes for bloggers and their readers, but everyone else too. The media has been deeply reluctant to peeking under the hood of this administration. In particular, we ought to be finding out everything we can about the human rights abuses (Guantanamo in particular) that are flying under the radar. It may seem like the exposure they get for stuff like Plame, Abu Graib, etc. have little impact on their future behavior, but we can’t let that stop us. It may help in eroding the whole “morals” thing (not much, but ever so slightly, if framed properly).
4) The Democratic politicians themselves are in a bind. They simply must be obstructionist, but can only do so on a selective basis. First, as Amy Sullivan and many others have said, they need a safe blue-stater in charge of the Senate Democrats. I like Dick Durbin, but I’m open to other suggestions. The Senate will be our last line of defense, and we simply need someone who won’t (for example) roll on the energy bill in exchange for five dollars worth of magic ethanol beans (with all due respect to Daschle—this has more to do with his state than him personally). Moreover, we need to combine our righteous obstructionism with small, sensible, unobjectionable policy schemes, co-sponsored with Republicans whenever possible (McCain is a party loyalist when it counts, but he’s occasionally a sucker for a good idea). Frist and company will make sure most of these will die in committee, so getting them into the public discourse will be a challenge. See point one. But with message discipline, it’s doable. While the Democrats will be de jure obstructionists, we must do our level best to make the (entirely accurate) point that the GOP are the de facto obstructionists—of sensible, compassionate and fair policy.
5) Within the party; reform but not revolution. This must be seen as pretty much the same outcome as last time. The extra four million or so votes are actually probably less than you’d typically earmark for the incumbancy advantage. There are two obvious ways to frame this outcome. Scott hit the first one below–Kerry went up against a wartime sitting president in a non-recessionary economy and almost won. Pretty good. The second is, Kerry went up against the most incompetent and obviously reactionary president in the last century and couldn’t beat him so he must have done terribly, or been a terrible candidate. I understand why people would gravitate toward the latter interpretation, as it makes intuitive sense and seems obvious. But it betrays a lack of understanding of the dynamics of elections. Incumbancy and wartime advantages aren’t really about competence. And no, we didn’t just learn that the middle part of the country is culturally conservative and homophobic. Those of us who were paying attention knew that. We learned that we’re still miles behind the GOP in crafting and directing our appeal to these people–that’s what we’ve got to figure out.