Someone has to take the blame for all this, especially losing seats the House and Senate.  I wanted Daschle to step down from his leadership position, but not like this.  McAuliffe is certainly culpable.

One person I wouldn't blame is John Kerry.

Great idea.  He will help us reshape the party and recapture the country.

However, we need to finish the fight in Ohio before we can push for this.

Me, I say Amen brother, but I'm just wondering if Dean has said anything indicating that he'd be interested in a party position. It'd mean that he'd be out of the running in 2008, wouldn't it?

The dem's need to go back to their roots.  Why they deserted them, I will never understand or know.  Even is Kerry does take the election, this needs to happen.

The progressives need to take their message to all.  We are back.  Identify and present our plan for the future broadly and in detail.  Create those frames with the assistance and guidance of George Lakoff {sp?).  We must blunt the conservative messages out there.  We need to essentially identify and boycott all conservative and/or republican radio, tv, and businesses that thrive on our business.  Hit them where they understand it, in the pocket book.  It may be hard, but it has been shown during this political season with Sinclair losing more than $100 million and a plummeting stock price due to progressive activities.

We should then give our business and loyalty to those businesses and media that support our progressive ideals and ideas.  We need to be more activist than we have over the past couple years.

We should create our own progressive organizations that lobby congress harder than the existing lobbyists.  We have the intelligence, the integrity, and moral conviction to do so.

--Emit

I totally agree. The way to win this country back to our side is to become less and less like Republicans, not more and more like them. You simply can't out-Republican this crowd. There's no way. 2008 will be a huge shift in the tides. Mark my words. Let Obama do it, fuck it. He can do it.

The blogosphere likes him, but that's not quite enough, IMHO.

Everybody loved Terry when we won two elections with a mainstream democrat from a southern state.  Now he's an idiot when we lose with a liberal democrat from MA.  I don't see how this loss gets pinned on him.
The problem, as I see it from here in New York, is that we are simply not competitive in the vast majority of the south, southwest, or the non-industrial mid-west.  This has meant lost house and senate seats, and far too many easy, uncontested EV's for Bush.
Daschle needs to be replaced with someone from a solid blue state that can challenge what is certain to be an all-out conservative attack, without becoming vulnerable to political pressures at home, as happened to Daschle.
If Terry leaves, though, we need to look to the heartland for a replacement.  I kind of like Dean, but he is far too liberal, and far to "Northeast" to have any positive impact where our party desperately needs to improve if we want to become competitive again.
It is amazing (and unbelievably depressing) to me that people who actually believe that we found WMD in Iraq, and that Iraq was a party to 9/11 have control of the White House and both houses of congress.  How in the world did we manage to lose this one?

A head of party needs to both organize awnd energize.  Based on the Dean campaign, I think we'd have to really think about the organize part--that Campaign was both Dean's strength and weakness.

No doubt about the energize part.

BC

are what's needed.  We just saw what organization without courage and clarity brings -- defeat and despair.

We need Dean or someone just like Dean.  So why not Dean?

What we do NOT need is one iota of continued influence by the DLC types.  The long knives have to come out.  Zero tolerance.

DEAN.  He'd be SO good.  Courage, Clarity, Brain Cells...

Bye McAwful.  Don't let the door hit ya on the way out.

McAuliffe needs to leave.

Dean would be a great chairman.

Or Trippi.

blame him for this.

As hard as it may be to understand. Bush's power over people comes from fear. This is how he controls. Democrats have got to tap into this.

The other thing is that the Democrats are going to have to find a way to handle the Christian-right. Many people were discussing this very thing at the Kerry/Edwards party last night here in Knoxville, TN.

According to the media, the Latino vote in FL didn't help matters. I really think those Cuban-Americans need to decide whether or not they live in America or in Cuba with Castro. They are always worried about Castro, sometimes I think they need to go back to Cuba and live with him.

Terry did do one good thing and that's get the DNC organized. The DNC was very much unorganized under Joe Andrews.

Because the American people are porly informed, ignorant and proud of it.  This goes all the way to the punditocrcay, who babble away like feckless idiots, fiddling while America falls apart.

So how do we reach people?  Can progressives take on the media?  Four years is too short a time for a massive change in the way journalism is practiced.  Alternative media, which are very energetic to those involved, do not attract the majority of the people.  SO how dowe get our message out?

Another thing is that the progressives in this particular episode have been largely people under 50.  THis is not bad, because that is where most of the energy is, but there has been a lot of disrespect shown towards grandparents and older people, who are the ones who turn out to vote.  Progressives need to realize that they need to talk to old people too.

People of color need to move to the forefront, and progressives need to listen to them carefully.  The vision they articulate isn't the same as the Howard Dean progressives, but it is progressive,and we need to figure out how to integrate that into the progressive movement.

One last thing:  there has not been a true discussion of religiosity vs religious beliefs.  Religious people have been dissed by progrssives also, who have acted as if religious belielfs and religiosity are the same thing.  Not a good thing, since many religious people have the psychic energy to carry a movement forward (the fight against slavery, for instance, was largely carried on by very religious people).

 

As much as I am saddened by--if I may be allowed to say it--the idiocy of this country for electing Bush despite what he's done with Iraq and with our economy, we need to get ready NOW for 2006, 2008, and beyond.  Iraq's going to get worse, and as Colin Powell said, "you break it, you own it."  We need to continually hammer away at this in the next 2 years, and if we line all our ducks in a row, maybe there will be enough people out there we can convince to vote the GOP out in 2 years.

I'm sad about Daschle, but you know what, he was a horrible Senate leader.  As I seem to recall, he gave in to the Medicare prescription drugs while Pelosi fought the GOP tooth and nail.  Chris Dodd would be good--we need pitbulls; I think Harry Reid has the same red-state (although narrow red-state) baggage as Daschle did; Obama was just elected.

Interesting, the last senate leader to be defeated for either party was back in 52.  Then, the Dems chose Lyndon Johnson to be our leader.  Where's our Lyndon Johnsons?

Despite all this, the blogosphere should find solace in the fact that we almost won KY (who would have thunk that?), and won CO.  And the GOP will rue having Tom Coburn in their ranks!

He is going to be a candidate.  One of his people, maybe, but I'm not sure who it would be.  Not Trippi, I don't think.  Maybe just somebody that Dean blesses, or maybe somebody Dean and Clinton can agree on.

In case no one was paying attention, the Dean campaign failed miserably.  What seemed like a "grassroots" campaign was a train wreck when it came to actual primaries and caucuses.

All this talk of the web and young people is a joke.  

We got our asses handed to us in an ABB year.

You all need to have a serious reality check on the role Dean and the internet played in this election.

The party can go back to its roots by promoting Northeast liberals such as Howard Dean to party prominence.  If they do, they will lose, again and again.  More of the same will lead to the same: defeat.

Republicans have figured out that people DO NOT vote with their intellects, but with their hearts.  They care about moral values, and as long as Republicans (appear) do a better job of meeting that, Democrats will continue to lose.

The trend in this country is AWAY from Enlightenment-era rationalism and towards a Pietist feelings-based perspective.  Media Matters is a great site, and for an Enlightenment-era rationalist such as myself, it is a godsend.  But most people do not think that way.  If they did, then this country would not be losing its edge in science to other nationa--and Democrats would be winners today.

Republicans are no more "moral" than Democrats, and are probably, genuinely, less so (at least according to Jesus's Sermon on the Mount) but people perceive them to be, because Democrats have done little to take the moral high ground (in marketing, particularly).  The average person here in the South thinks that Democrats are godless liberals out to destroy this country's morality.  It is not true, of course (I would argue that it is REPUBLICANS who are doing that), but that is what people feel.

You know what? If you are going to lose then lose with your best shot - playing your game your way.
Frankly, I'm tired of trying to out "moderate" the R's when in fact they aren't moderate at all. Let's be progressive, let's be blunt, and let's play OUR GAME next time.
I think Howard Dean is a good first choice for Dem leadership. I also think Wes Clark can be an important player as well.

We won 19 states.  Assuming we shun the red states, as this implicitly suggested, we cap the size of our Senate delegation at 38.

OK, you say, I'm OK with electing them, just not allowing them in positions of leadership.  That's the road to having more Zell Millers, or just having them as one-termers.  

Daschle was a great leader because he could keep the caucus together - keep Paul Wellstone and John Breaux on the same page.  That really is leadership.  I'm sorry he wasn't enough of an ideologue for some people here, but coming from a red state gave him a certain perspective that I find sorely lacking on these boards.  

Go ahead, take Howard Dean, whose attempt at outreach to the South involved invoking hillbilly stereotypes.  What a great idea!

Perhaps we also ought to stop regarding those who vote with their faith against their own economic interests as sub-clinical morons.  I know that it is difficult for those without faith to understanding, but for many, there are more important values than money.  These are hard-working decent people who seek to create a decent society.

It's just that we disagree on both the means and the ends; but we don't need to condescend to them as if we were all-wise, or that their faith was a silly appendage, getting in the way of the 'real-world'.  We ought, rather, to find a way to find commonground with the, including over social justice issues, while respecting (and even recognizing the validity of) their faith.  

The Clintons claimed they wanted abortion to be "safe, legal, and rare" yet did little to work on the rarity--that would be a common ground effort, for many prolife folks could share in that effort.  Again, on abortion, the consistent rejection of pro-life democrats at the national convention makes a mockery of our claims to openmindedness; we ought not continue that sort of organizational behavior.  

Especially with Catholic voters, there is so much common ground on social justice issues; we need to respect and work with them to bring them back to the fold.

BC

Retiring Democratic senators in so-called extraction (agricultural, mining) states are replaced by young Republicans.  That is what happened in the Senate elections yesterday, and that is what will continue to happen.  Soon the Republicans will become the PRI of the United States in that they will have the 60 votes needed to dominate.

That WILL happen, unless Democrats do something to reach those voters.  That does not mean adopting the underhanded, often racist strategies of Republicans.   Rather, it means making the strong case that Democratic party is the party of moral values and that Republicans might seem to be but are not.  They are wolves in sheep's clothing.

The Chair is the guy how runs the party operation, not the one to set its policy or its comm strategy.

Not only is Dean anathema to most of the existing big donor base (which we will be at great pains to hold onto, given the pressure the GOP will put on them not to donate at all to us) but to a lot of the small donors, like myself, who still admire the guy but resent how his campaign mishandled our donations last winter.

Plus the media has already made him a figure of national ridicule for most Americans, like it or not. Making him chair sends them the message that the Democratic Party is in fact what they are told by the Republicans it is -- angry, arrogant, out of the cultural mainstream.

A much better choice would be someone like Mark Warner of VA who has proven he can speak to the mainstream and run a large organization or better yet, someone like Wesley Clark who brings a bit of star power to a position that will be our most prominent spokesman (since we control no part of the government).

What about the Ragin Cajun?  He did a good job with Bill.  Or Stephanopolis?  I know he is a New Englander but might be an interesting choice.

Oh, the days...