Hillary = NO
Edwards = NO
Richardson = NO

I offer you Gov Warner of VA.

I have posted similar thoughts to another blog today however you and many other bloggers today have forgotten two important facts. 1) The average republican has no idea of what you speak; even if they were presented with the thoughts or offered the text to read. Many of the "left" bloggers I have read today need to get out of New York City; Philadelphia; Denver; LA etc and spend a couple of weeks at the Walmart in Iuka, MS, Sheveport, LA and even deeper in the hinderlands. Ardmore, OK would be a good place to start also. What we on the left are dealing with is a couple of generations of massive ignorance. Deep thoughts; clever ideas; and 4 years will not change this single simple fact. 2) Following recent history the rise of liberalism followed A) the great depression and the election of FDR; b) the rebellion of youth in the 60's and the black race riots. Barring similar events there will be NO democratic victorys in 2006 nor 2008. I am a diehard democrat and abhor violence but watching democrat after democrat speak in this election made my stomach turn; what wimpy pussies with no attack mentality. I knew without any doubt in my own mind there was no chance of ANY democrat winning. I actually had believed a larger margin of victory for Bush
Jeb Bush will be the republican on the rise or the NY ex-mayor will be the likely next resident of the White House. I am a 60+ closet (necessary) gay white male in the hinderlands. The average democrat has no clue of what they are facing. John Kerry, while likely a decent man, had not a clue either. It will take events of epic porportions including but not limited to violent civil disobedience; loss of life and much blood to bring down the entrenched American Fascism now well rooted and growing well nourished in a swath from the south east to Texas and north to Canada. We are a violent gun toting society; the only thing the right understands is a bigger gun; and we simply do not have that now or in the foreseeable future. We also need a leader who knows how to shoot.

John Kerry was the low-risk low-reward "logical" choice. It means following the Al Gore strategy of trying to peel away enough voters to win and present a better candidate than George W. Bush. Just like Al Gore, John Kerry was indeed, logically speaking, a superior candidate. Unfortunately for us, swing voters make their choice based on emotion, not logic. Democrats need a candidate voters can connect with on that level to put us over the top. I didn't like the low-risk, low-reward scenario because I didn't want a repeat of the Al Gore strategy which, of course, didn't work*.

I accepted the verdict of the Democratic primary voters to go with the "safe" choice, and I hoped Bush would be bad enough that the alternative would look attractive to swing voters. I hope we will try a different strategy not just in 2008, but in the interim, to define ourselves without just a comparison with the GOP.

Now that we are firmly in the political wilderness for the next 4 years, I hope our party will recognize that the high-risk choice is the right one when you have nothing to lose. We have the opportunity to present big ideas to the American people - we can benefit from this loss in the long term if we learn from it.

I have to agree in some measure with ETnGuy. These people are not wavering in their grasp for ever more power. They have no interest in compromise; they see it as weakness. And that is the reason I am not sorry to see Daschle lose. He was "Go Along To Get Along" Tom, and I remember reading shortly after he became Dem Senate leader that he was always looking for "the one-vote margin." When you are facing a foe who is looking for your complete vanquishment, looking for a one-vote margin is largely futile. I hope the Dem Senate caucus chooses someone who will fight, rather than someone who looks to minimize the loss. Obstructing the fascists is not something to be afraid of being accused of. It is something to be encouraged.

Will Barack Obama be a viable presidential material by 2008? Would the angry white southern voters even give him a chance? He has the charisma and the passion behind him, but is he too green to be thrown into the political morass of presidential politics?

This election was likely lost in the early stages. Kerry never hit his stride until October, by when, it was too late. For all of this talk about "cultural issues," I think the decisive factor was how Kerry ran his campaign. When Bush was tanking after Abu Ghraib and the flare-up in violence, Kerry did not try to draw a contrast with Bush. At the convention, instead of telling us what he'd do as President, he told us about Vietnam. When the Swift Boat liars attacked, Kerry did nothing until the story dominated the news cycle for weeks. Then Bush hit Kerry with a two-by-four at the RNC. Kerry was reeling in the weeks after that, and he brought on new people. Kerry kicked Bush's ass in the debates, but ultimately, Kerry never gave us clear idea of what his campaign was about. Kerry only hit his stride in the debates, but he should have been doing that by the convention. We didn't lose this election because of "cultural" issues; we lost because of the incompetent campaign run by Bob Shrum and Mary Beth Cahill. They are good for winning primaries, but you need Carville and Begala for the general election. What we need in 2008 is a strong charasmatic candidate with a well-oiled campaign run by Carville. I'd say Edwards. After 4 more years of Shrub, a well run campaign will be able to take us to victory.

I think why we are so upset is that we have lost two elections in a row that could have been won with competent campaigns. The critical part of the campaign starts with the convention. The convention needs to introduce your candidate to the people and give them soundbites about what your candidate stands for. In 1992, the DNC was incredible, and Clinton pulled ahead and never relinquished the lead. Had he flopped at the DNC and wasted August, Clinton would probably have lost because people would not know what he stood for and by the time he hit his stride, it would have been too late. Kerry could have sealed the election with a competently run convention. The way he did it, the only thing people knew about him was that he served in Vietnam; they had no idea what his policies were. In August, Cahill and Shrum's incompetence let the Swift Boat lies steal the show. Basically, starting with the conventions, candidates must run well-oiled campaigns that emphasize a certain message and perform somewhat well in the debates. I think a better run Kerry campaign could easily have made up that 2% difference in Ohio. No question. For some reason, Democrats just suck at campaigns. We lose becuase we can't campaign. Period. The next campaign absolutely must be run by Carville. He actually knows how to win elections, unlike Shrum, who is now 0-9. Edwards is the only Clintonesque figure we have in the party. He must run with Mark Warner or Evan Bayh as his running mate and have Carville manage the campaign.

Gov Warner of VA
anonymous, I think he'd be a great candidate.

Yeah the Shrum enterprise somehow keeps on trucking. It is about time to get rid of it once for all. We need to destroy the Shrum enterprise forever.

ETnGuy -- didn't write this for GOP readers. Have no quarrel with what you wrote, and you may be right that it's going to take something major before this country turns away from the GOP. However, even then if we offer no substantative alternative at both a cognitive and emotional level, any power we would inherit would be limited.

bushsucks - I don't think you understood what I said because your "solutions" are exactly what DEMs have been doing for the past three decades. I don't think it's working because with each election cycle we lose more power.

Your comments are quite wrong. The brutal truth is "we wus robbed". How, I don't know. But I do know that 120 million went to the polls, and only 113 got counted. Exit polls in ONLY FL and OH were "wrong", and by that exact missing number, too. Do it to me once, shame on you, do it again, shame on ME!

Would it have mattered? Having an ideology? Having Dean?

All these Goldwater comparisons I've been reading seem to ignore the role of the Civil Rights Act. I want to believe we can change things. That we can succeed. But the more I think about it, the more it comes down to racist Southerners. Whoever controls the racist South wins, it seems, unless there are major extenuating circumstances.

Unlike others, I don’t sense that a new dark force has gripped the nation in the past forty years. The change is that the dark force in this country no longer has a strong enough opponent and has learned how to get more of their irrational morons to the polls.

Look: This "dark force" has been with America since Day One, and it wins a lot, but every once in a while it loses a seismic defeat, like the Civil War and the New Deal.

The problem is that Dark Force adherents are way more willing to do anything to win. We're never going to be able to compete until the Dark Force forces America to bottom out completely (again).

This means that the Era of American HyperPower will now end in a few years (hell, it's already started). Maybe the country will still have enough advantages to be a superpower when it recovers from the impending World-wide Depression by remembering why the hell we bothered having that wild "New Deal."

[sigh]Ah, Good Times[/sigh]

Look, the elephant in the room here is that the Democratic party has drifted so far left that you make no sense to normal Americans.

You have moved so far left now that you look back at middle America and call it "far right wing religions extremism".

Until you admit this your power will continue to erode.

I never thought Kerry really wanted the presidency. It was "his turn" to give it a try. But I've said over and over that my dog should have been able to beat Bush. It was tough losing to a monkey, but it was tougher today to watch Kerry refuse to count the votes in Ohio. He gave up, and maybe he would have lost the Ohio vote (if it were ever counted) but damn it, make 'um count it this time. He wouldn't even try. Here is a news flash for 08: no woman will win, and no black will win. No combination of the two will win. Take off the blinders, Dems, we got to get a ! real plan ! and a real candidate. People won't vote for guys who will give up "to spare the country a trauma" . For christ's sake...we got a trauma in Bush....big time. Lets find someone who wants to fight for this country. Sounds like Dean, huh. Too bad we let Rove pick Kerry as the guy he most wanted to run against. Lets find some folks that the GOP doesn't want us to nominate and pick them.

You guys two major problems. One is your inability to see reality in an clear, logical and consistent way. Second, you are constitutionally passive in nature. That is your disconnect. You play mind games with no real world feedback because you are not IN the world. The problem is psychological not political. I know you don't get this, but its true.

wboy and wakeup

We aren't like 51% of the American public, you are right, where wboy is wrong is that we see reality as it really is and you see the faith based or claim based reality. To us you are in many ways religious extremists advocating all the time an anti gay and theocratic government. But reality to you 51% is not the way the WORLD sees it. The world quite clearly sees through the nonsense that the pew institute proved that bush supporters believe. The problem is we are the minority if only a tiny minority and the tiny majority is deluded while the rest of the world looks on in shock. This is only beginning now and we are going to be the most demonstrative and aggressive minority party in history.

GW Bush got the most votes ever recorded in American voting. John Kerry was second, he too got more votes then Reagan. You won't hijack this countries ethics no matter how many elections you smear your way through.

Today most democrats are too horrified and disappointed to remember, we are fighting the entire Republican Party apparatus not just one man in one position of power but all of them. The neo con agenda wasn’t going to go away the day after the vote and soon we liberals are going to remember that. This is only beginning.

THE REALITY THAT NEEDS TO BE FACED AND ADDRESSED:
What we are facing is the N and coastal states v. Southern mentality --as we all know.
The blue and red states are obvious. This country is permanently divided.
If they voted for him while sending their kids off to lose life or limbs, never the twain shall meet again. It wasn't the "swing voters" who gave him Ohio. The gay marr. issue really hurt too. It was the Kool-Aid drinking relig.wingers and the Kool-Aid drinking super military types who will send their kids off to lose life and limb for those ___ ___s and their plans. When the econ is so bad and so many in Ohio (although close) voted for the idiot emperor and his regime,never the twain shall meet any more. Even at that, Ohio was close (and we'll never know about machines used, etc. (I tried to inform this blogging group as to how people were thinking and why of.)

GEEZ, THOSE POOR PEOPLE IN OHIO STOOD IN LINES IN BAD WEATHER FOR HOURS. PEOPLE IN OTHER STATES STOOD IN LINES FOR HOURS. NO, NO, NO TO PAPERLESS MACHINES AND THE MILLIONS THEY'RE WASTING ON THEM.

WE NEED TO GET RID OF THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE --OR AT LEAST GO PROPORTIONAL!!! SOMEHOW SOME WAY AND AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. MAYBE, EVEN PARLIAMENTARY TYPE SOME HOW.

IN FACT, WE NEED TO SECEDE SOMEHOW POLITELY & FUNCTIONALLY FROM CONTROLS BY THE REST OF THESE IDIOTS AND THEIR CONTROL OVER THE SMARTER & THOSE WHO DON'T WANT TO LIVE IN THE DARK AGES IN THE BLUE STATES.

NOW, DO SOME OF YOU SEE THE BENEFITS OF STATES RIGHTS AND TAKING THINGS AWAY FROM WASH.'S CONTROL?

NOT OUT OF THE QUESTION REALLY. EDWARDS AND some others have millions to assist in changing things. I think the more evolved live and let live as long as decent type person and basically smarter people (whether coll. ed. or not) are in the blue states.

A POX ON EXTREME SIDES OF BOTH PARTIES. $600M BLOWN ON SOME ELECTION REALLY TICKS ME OFF...ALL WENT TO MEDIA WHORES FOR ADVERTISING... HOW MANY COS. WE COULD HAVE KEPT GOING ...OR HELPED GET STARTED IF LOOKED SOLID...HOW MANY LONG-TERM JOBS WE COULD HAVE GIVEN PEOPLE?!

I'M MAD AS HELL. YET, IT WAS ONLY 3% OF TOTAL DIFFERENCE.

SIGN ME UP. THIS IS JUST LIKE CIVIL WAR DAYS FOR ME. TOLD YOU ALL I WAS VERY, VERY SMART AND YEARS OF FAMILY AND ASSOCS. POL. EXPERIENCE,and so forth.

THIS IS ALL FROM A THINKING INDEPENDENT.

chicagodem: Would it have mattered? Having an ideology? Having Dean?

In the long run, I think so. As it is when BushCo blows up, and they will, the alternative still remains undefined in the minds of voters. Many voters today buy the GOP arguments even if they tend to take them as articles of faith and fail to see the irrationality of them.

Race helped to get them where they are today and there will be a substrate of racism with the GOP for a long time to come. But it's also important to note that the southern racist vote didn't get them to the WH -- Goldwater took those states in 1964 and it was a blow-out. Wallace took them in 1968 in both the south and other parts of the country; so, it did take the GOP a while to figure out the power of this. Those who don't consider themselves racist in both Parties have never fully acknowledged the existence of the GOP "southern strategy" and don't think it's actually true. But as each generation dies out, the racist element in this society, changes just a little. AA are welcome in the GOP today unlike what Wallace's party (and Strom's before that) stood for. And Lott was permitted to go on BET and tell AA that he wasn't a racist. Appealing to the ideals of "family values" (because we all know that sinners have aspirations) and an authoritarian religiousity is a more stable voter base than racists etal. Plus the cognitive dissonance between being a "christian" and hating someone for their skin color is too great at this time in our history -- far easier to be a christian first and let like minded AA into your club than preach love on Sunday and hate on Monday.

If GWB can bring conservative religious minorities into his fold (and he is made an excellent stab at this with "faith based initiatives" and fomenting homophobia in politicizing same sex marriage), then the DEM task will become even more daunting. Nobody likes discrimination when one is the target of that discrimination, but strangely enough too many of those same people cannot extrapolate from their history and lives and see that all forms of discrimation are bad.

trieatalot: Will Barack Obama be a viable presidential material by 2008?

IMO - no. We tend to prefer candidates with a longer political resume (or at least one that appears to be longer and richer than it is like that of Bush's) and tend not to like Senators. To renew/reinvigorate an existing strong political force, we couldn't do any better than Obama (sort of in the JFK/GWB position). I think someone needs to set the stage a bit before Obama can step into the starring role. VP in '08 would be an option, but history is not generally all that kind to VP's stepping up.

Regarding the possibility that the election was stolen by the GOP. I'm something of a doubting Thomas on this. Not because I don't think they could or would do this, but because they probably didn't need to. The FL margin seems artificially high to me, and I wouldn't be surprised if several points of it were manufactured by Jeb! as an insurance policy, just as he did in 2000. But when you look at all the individual states, GWB improved upon his percentage of the vote in almost every state, even MA (and I'm much too skeptical to think that they managed to rig machines nationwide). Whether this was Rove's evangelicals or merely people prefering him more this time around, I don't know. He only managed to match his 2000 percentage in OH and Kerry was able to add a point from what Gore received (he mostly performed less well than Gore), that suggests that the economy did hold him back back a bit in OH -- I thought it would have been a bit closer than it was, but OH is too close to KY and IN to have had a great deal of hope that it would swing blue this time, particularly since the the DEM Party has been braindead in the state for a while.

There's so much meat in this thread, it's hard to know where to start chewing.

ETNguy is right. We are very vulnerable on the "elitist" issue. Look at the exit polls. We appeal to people with graduate and professional degrees. Kerry led among dropouts (less than 5% of electorate) and those with postgraduate degrees. But Bush cleaned his clock among high school graduates, people with "some college," and college graduates (88% of the electorate).

Walking the streets of Columbus, Ohio, in low-income Democratic precincts (much of it Section 8 housing), this is what I observed: If a black woman opened the door, you were always talking to a Democrat. If a black man opened the door, you were usually talking to a Democrat. If a white woman opened the door, you might be talking to a Democrat, but the minute a white man appeared you got ready to fend off curses.

We were once a party representing low-income white men -- even when we helped suppress black men and women. I'm not sure how, but we need to find that connection again. Right now, too many NASCAR Dads sneer at us as wimps.

Don't kid yourself. Cultural issues played big in this election. I think the anti-gay initiative carried in Ohio by over 60%. It brought old men and women who have never before voted out of their homes, and my guess is very few of them punched out the Kerry chad.

Some analysts hold that the FDR coalition was built around encouraging the middle-class to sympathize with the poor (out of fear of downward mobility), while blaming corporations for economic problems ("malefactors of great wealth") and pointing to government as the solution. Reagan reversed all that. He asked the middle class to demonize the poor (while encouraging them to think they might become wealthy), while maintaining government was the problem, not the solution. The solution, of course, lay in the magic of the "free enterprise" system and markets.

We can't be a national party (or at least win consistently on a national level) if we write off the South, the Southwest, the Mountain and Plains states, and much of the Midwest. What kind of political strategy is that?

Any one know the current stand of W. Virginia Elector who told that he Might Leave Bush

You have moved so far left now that you look back at middle America and call it "far right wing religions extremism".

If you want to know what caused this nonsense, research consistently shows that Bush supporters are misinformed about Bush policy. As stupid as it sounds, the majority of Bushco morons voted for what they don't know. You are Bushco jacanapes, nothing more. Bush winning does not mean victory, it means self-righteousness mixed with ignorance at a sufficient level to get the idiot son of George Bush re-elected. No more than that.

Wait till you see what happens over the next four years. Hell, wait two weeks and see how Fallujah morphs slowly into the draft (and it's all the 'will' of god). Mix in a little Thai terrorism...viola! That feeling of insecurity you'll have is brought to you exclusively by Bushco.

Hurry! Back to Rush and Hann-jobity to know what to say, little bushco jacanape. Hurry!

Marie-
thanks for writing and sharing your analysis and thoughts.
I always appreciate it and learn from it.