In some respects, the urge on the Right to alter the tax system represents an awareness of the upper class that the living standard of Americans is now falling, and they are making damned sure that it's your standard of living that's falling, not theirs. If you look at the widening wealth gap, you can see that they have been hugely successful at it. Until, of course, it all falls apart. America is a gigantic version of Argentina. We have a stratospheric deficit driving a steady decline in our currency. We have a huge social security gap, declining wages, and a ruinous war. In the next 4 years, the pigeons will start coming home to roost. Pain creates change. When American begin to feel the pain, the scales will fall from their eyes. Democrats must be prepared for that day.

Boobus Americanus (Boobi Americani?) ultimately votes for the guy they like, irrespective of policy. That's the winning margin. Democrats actually found a nominee less likeable than GWB. Amazing but true. We went through a long primary season only to end up with a guy less stiff than Gore, but a stiff nonetheless. Message: the boobs in the bleachers also have to LIKE the candidate in addition to the candidate's positions. It was a close election because voters saw the correctness of the Democratic positions. They just did not think much of the candidate. Hell, I didn't and I voted for Kerry, made calls for him, etc. But he was not the strongest candidate and I hope he does not run again.

Well, it's partly oratory. But I tend toward the Mencken term "booboisie" to describe the great mass of Americans. Soaring oratory sounds a bit weird to them. As in: "who among us does not enjoy NASCAR?"  We had some bad luck with our candidate who is a nice guy but happens to be a Senator from MA, and a multi-millionaire. To me the underlying problem is that people feel insecure, lost, powerless, and frightened. Flag-waving nationalism and a turn to the right is a pretty common reaction to a decline in living standards. That's why they are called reactionaries. But the ideolgical response to all this is to attack the massive expansion in centralized power in this country. That means you oppose expansion of Federal programs in favor of local or State programs. That means you oppose weakening of civil liberties. That means you try wherever possible to tie the GOP into a paranoid populist vision of over-weening federal power. Most people are afraid of the federal government. That's our playground. So stop sweating the small stuff like oratory. I find that oratory takes off when their are ideological wings to flap.

I don't know if anyone picked up on this but it's the "General Accounting Office" not "Accountability". Actually haveing such an office would be a good idea!

Good point on reaching out to Chafee and McCain. The issue should be spending. Democrats should be fighting to rein in spending which grew 21% in the last budget if I remember correctly. McCain was furious about it, and a number of conservatives are unhappy about it. So that could be a good start. So blocking spending bills where possible is a good tactic. It will show the GOP leadership to be fiscally wet. That helps dems make the case that they are the smart party that can manage your money. Of course, you run the risk as a Senator that you did not bring good stuff home to your state. It's going to be an interesting Congress. I guess we will have to start looking at the mid-terms. Cannot let the bleeding get worse.

Look. The guy won. He won the popular vote. He won the electoral vote. That's a mandate. If Kerry had won that victory, you would have said mandate a million times by now. A mandate does not mean that the folks who did not vote for you don't matter. It just means that the winner can claim that his policies have the support of the majority. Just what do you think a democracy consists of? Is it only a democracy if you win?

I really sympathise with how you feel. But you have to be realistic. He won. We lost. He gets to decide where we go and what we do for the next 4 years. Getting set up to win next time starts witha ccepting reality. OK? We just have to make some huge changes, painful ones.

Couldn't agree with you more. Think about FDR for a bit. One thing he said is that we should not be afraid to experiment, to try new things, new solutions. We may fail at one thing but we will always keep trying new things. The legacy of FDR is a cheery optimism that will face up to hardship and evil with an exuberant flexibility and inventiveness. We have made a religion of social security. We worship government programs. We tremble  at the very possibility that the word God might be said in a courthouse. Social issues are not a fight to be fought; they are a tool to be used. I felt sad when GWB came up with the more inventive ideas in the debates. For example, allowing small companies to band together to buy health insurance. For example, the expense of health insurance is driven a lot by the fact that the consumer is shielded from the seller. These are good ideas. Of course, GWB will not enact them because his boss won't let him. But they are the sorts of ideas democrats should be bristling with. Instead so much of our energy is taken up with defending a status quo that doesn't exist anymore. We need a new democratic party that is more muscular, more vigorous, and more optimistic.

I haven't got the hang of posting yet. But I think the President does indeed have a mandate. He told the lectorate what he wanted to do. They voted for him and now he has a mandate. I don't like what he's planning to do. But he most certainly does have the people's permission to carry out his policies. The last 4 years were a different matter, obviously. But it's a new day now, and we have to deal with it. BTW, it doesn't really matter what Dems in the Congress want, That's the painful thing about being in a minority. There are 2 things dems can do. 1. Be ready to take over when the GOP over-reaches with an extreme agenda and causes a catastrophe. 2. Start trying to form a winning coalition with constituencies we lack. (Hint: South/Southwest).

Howard Dean is a great guy. But the GOP would bury him. For God's sake, lose the northeastern liberals as standard-bearers.

I hear you, man. I guess what I am wrestling with today is how to find a path forward that will minimize the power of these guys. There is a constituency gap in the Democratic Party and it's growing. There are some unpleasant truths about both parties. But we can only work on ours. I know we won't get to the Company drones but we should be able to make them less critical. That's the goal. I really like what Chris had to say today. I just think we need a long-term strategy to forge a new alliance that gives some southern electoral votes and some southern seats. And there is no way around the fact that we have to go where the people are first, before we can bring them toward our position. And that's going to mean some pretty uncomfortable deals. The democratic party once was an alliance of northern labor and southern bigots. The GOP stole our bigots from us and  has transformed them into an enormously potent block. We will not wrest any of that block out of their hands by marketing the word "liberal" in some slicker way. Might as well use the word "communist". We could start by using the word "extreme". Whenever any GOP operative says anything, we call them extremists with an extreme agenda. And it happens to be the truth. We tie them to specific faiths. Sow division in the religious ranks, We did not do well among Catholics. That's bad. We should exploit the natural tensions between faiths.

Right. To quote Goldwater: winning beats the hell out of losing. If you don't win, you cannot act. But our problem is that, as Democrats, we have these annoying things called principles. The GOP only exists to trick the poor into voting for them so they can loot the treasury on behalf of their owners, the super-rich.

I wonder if there isn't a southwestern strategy that could work. Take the environmental principles that we all hold and marry them to the folks that work and live on the land in states like AZ, NM, NE, KS, MO, WY, etc. Just avoid the south itself. Become the party of the independent cowboy, the home on the range, Woody Guthrie, all that stuff. There is a populist strain throughout the Western states that Democrats could take on with not too much adjustment. With a less coastal, more rural image, we could take advantage of the sunbelt demographics. I think we saw something of that in this election but it takes a while. We need our own kind of cowboys to saddle up for the next round.

Marginalized, yes. Destroyed is a bit strong. The GOP was a marginalized party for 35 years until Nixon in '68. They clawed their way back. So can we.

What is a compassionate conservative? Well, you know how a conservative will say: "You're fired"? A compassionate conservative will say: "I'm sorry - but you're fired". Let's get our sense of humor back...in a few days.

I should point out that some of the greatest writers in America are southerners, and there is much that is good and decent in the south. My point was not so much that there is anything wrong with southerners, it's more that there is a cultural divide that democrats best understand and deal with if they ever want to win another national election. Another disturbing trend is that southern hispanics are becoming southern in their thinking and moving toward republican viewpoints, rather than becoming part of a democratic base. If you look at the voting breakdowns in Florida, Bush got (I think) more than enough of the hispanic vote. Next time they plan to do even better. So the demographics of the "new" south is what we need to understand. It's not possible to be a democrat and really embrace the fundamentalist ideology. What we have to find is a way of working in the south that effectively neutralizes the potency of the evangelist message. My hunch, and it's only the vaguest supposition, is that the rapid movement of people into some of these areas may create opportunities for democrats to capture some constituencies in a way that does not at the same time alienate or enrage the christian right (pretty hard to do). Somehow, for us, issues and identity got separated. In the south, that's the whole ball of wax.