NY Times - brilliant and insightful!
Here, my friends, is a beautiful, soul-searching article from a sincere, committed Democrat. He nails MANY things square on the head, and is honest enough to say it.
The italics in there are my own. If you don’t read the whole thing, don’t miss the second from the last paragraph - to ME, this contains the very crux of the matter, and the key difference in MY perception between what the Democrats and Republicans were offering this campaign, and have been offering for a very long time. Americans, it seems, want to at least enjoy the PERCEPTION of liberty.
The Republicans extend the hope that the solution to the human condition lies in the ingenuity and creativity of the individual. (Witness lower taxes, SS reform and medical savings accounts, to name a few.) The Democrats extend the hope that the solution lies in bigger, stronger government. Fewer people seem to be believing in that anymore.
Please… read on.
New York Times
November 5, 2004
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Why We Lost
By ANDREI CHERNY
Washington
On Wednesday morning, Democrats across the country awoke to a situation they have not experienced since before the New Deal: We are now, without a doubt, America’s minority party. We do not have the presidency. We are outnumbered in the Senate, the House, governorships and legislatures. And the conservative majority on the Supreme Court seems likely to be locked in place for a generation. It is clearly a moment that calls for serious reflection.
I had the honor of working for both Al Gore and John Kerry. I believe America would have been fortunate to have had them in the Oval Office. That neither won is not primarily a commentary on them. Nor were their defeats really the result of the mistakes, attacks and tactics that pundits are so endlessly fascinated by: Al Gore’s sighs in debates or John Kerry’s slow response to the Swift boat veterans; Bill Clinton’s campaigning (or lack thereof) in 2000 and 2004; the handling of the Elián González and Mary Cheney controversies. Any time Democrats spend in the coming weeks discussing the merits of our past candidates’ personalities or their campaigns’ personnel will be time wasted.
The overarching problem Democrats have today is the lack of a clear sense of what the party stands for. For years this has been a source of annoyance for bloggers and grass-roots activists. And in my time working for Al Gore and John Kerry, it certainly left me feeling hamstrung.
Democrats have a collection of policy positions that are sensible and right. John Kerry made this very clear. What we don’t have, and what we sorely need, is what President George H. W. Bush so famously derided as “the vision thing” - a worldview that makes a thematic argument about where America is headed and where we want to take it.
For most of the 20th century, Democrats had a bold vision: we would use government programs to make Americans’ lives more stable and secure. In 1996, President Clinton told us this age had passed, that “the era of big government is over.” He was right - the world had changed. But the party has not answered the basic question: What comes next?
It’s not the sort of question that gets answered in the heat of a national election. A presidential campaign feels like running full speed across a tightrope. If you’re working on its message, you spend your days sitting around conference tables in poorly lighted rooms, surrounded by spent pizza boxes and buzzing Blackberries, with the clock ticking down on another day and another speech. This is not the place to devise a new thematic direction for the party. What you wind up offering are quips and quibbles, slogans and sound bites, and heaping portions of poll-tested pabulum.
The press also seems to overstate what staff changes can do within a campaign. Much was made of the “who’s in, who’s out” reports about the Kerry team, with reporters devising narratives about a supposed “shift to the middle” or a “lurch to the left.” While new advisers can alter tactics and form new messages, efforts on their part to create a larger vision will fail. That has to happen long before the primaries - and it requires that the party knows where it is going.
Throughout the campaign, voters told reporters and pollsters that they wanted a change, but didn’t “know what John Kerry stands for.” Our response was to churn out more speeches outlining the details of policies that Senator Kerry would then deliver in front of a backdrop that said something like “Rx to Stronger Health Care.” Of course, it turned out that Americans weren’t very interested in Mr. Kerry’s campaign promises - perhaps because they no longer believe politicians will follow through on their commitments. They wanted to know instead how he saw the world. And we never told them.
Misguided as they may be, the Republicans have a clear vision of America’s future. Confronted with their ambitious agenda we have not chosen to match it. Instead, we have adopted Nancy Reagan’s old antidrug motto, “Just Say No.” As in “Stop George Bush’s Assault on the Environment,” “Repeal George Bush’s Tax Cuts for the Wealthy” and “End George Bush’s Policy of Unilateralism.” These are good stands. But they are not enough. And the Republicans ended up defining John Kerry because we did not.
I don’t pretend to know exactly what the party should do now. But I do know that we better start answering some important questions. What is our economic vision in a globalized world? How do we respond to the desire of many Americans to have choices and decision-making power of their own? How can we speak to Americans’ moral and spiritual yearnings? How can our national security vision be broader than just a critique of the Republican’s foreign policy? If we sweep this debate under the rug, four years from now another set of people around another conference table will be struggling with the same issues we did. And America cannot afford the same result.
Long after midnight in November 2000, I stood in the rain in Nashville and listened to the Gore campaign chairman, William Daley, tell us there would be no victory speech. On Wednesday, long after midnight, I stood in the rain in Boston listening to John Edwards tell us the same thing. I’m sick of standing in the rain.
Andrei Cherny, the author of “The Next Deal,” was director of speechwriting and a special policy adviser to John Kerry from February 2003 to last April.
I agree with most, if not all of what the article says. One thing that bothers me is that we’re losing the history that lead to the Democrat’s using government to help solve problems. And I don’t think people today really see that the Republicans are not really forfulling some of the goals the article associates with Republican philosophy.
For the Democrats to have new ideas, I think we need to be “liberal/progressive” by definition, and those are bad words these days. I’m very pessimisstic that whomever we get it, with whatever message, it won’t matter because of the organized onslaught against Democrats/liberals. I think Democrats are always going to support gay rights, pro choice, pro labor, etc. issues, for example, even if those aren’t the main issues facing an election (I thought it was supposed to be the economy & the war but it ended up not being that). The right will always be able to attack us on these issues & make us look evil.
I’m very cynical because I don’t think the Republicans ever want another Democratic President elected & they’ll do anything they can to stop that. The people have got to decide, by this issue alone, alone whether it’s good for our country to be like it is right now, with one party in power, and to put all their trust in the Republicans.
And right now the people have decided to do just that. It’s ironic to me, because they’re empowered the party that isn’t going to protect them in the end IMO.
For the Democrats to have new ideas, I think we need to be "liberal/progressive" by definition, and those are bad words these days.
Liberal by which definition? I'm a Liberal by Jefferson's definition. I think you are talking about Liberal-ism of FDR and JFK. This is what I've been trying to point out... that what you understand as Liberalism isn't what the Democrats have been displaying as Liberalism. Not to me, anyway - and I THINK I've been paying attention.
I'm very cynical because I don't think the Republicans ever want another Democratic President elected & they'll do anything they can to stop that.
Of course the Republicans want to keep and hold power. You say that as if Democrats don't want to kick their Republican asses out for keeps - which they do. Don't feel bad... the Republicans and Democrats both will do all they can to ever prevent a third party such as the Libertarians from becoming viable. Witness what the DEMOCRATS did to Nader this past election.
Liberal by which definition? I'm a Liberal by Jefferson's definition. I think you are talking about Liberal-ism of FDR and JFK. This is what I've been trying to point out... that what you understand as Liberalism isn't what the Democrats have been displaying as Liberalism. Not to me, anyway - and I THINK I've been paying attention.
I'm very cynical because I don't think the Republicans ever want another Democratic President elected & they'll do anything they can to stop that.
Of course the Republicans want to keep and hold power. You say that as if Democrats don't want to kick their Republican asses out for keeps - which they do. Don't feel bad... the Republicans and Democrats both will do all they can to ever prevent a third party such as the Libertarians from becoming viable. Witness what the DEMOCRATS did to Nader this past election.
Liberal by which definition? I'm a Liberal by Jefferson's definition. I think you are talking about Liberal-ism of FDR and JFK.
I mean more by the "classic" definition. No - I don't think we can go back to the solutions that FDR & JFK used, i.e., big government everytime, but I still think we need to come up with solutions to provide people with health care, for example.
As for Nader, I like Ralph but he cost us the 2000 election & then basically tried to run the same campaign this time - even though he was politely asked by many not to run. The Greens didn't treat him very well either did they? I think Nader should have offered to come & help the Democrats this time. People would have loved & respected him for it. I sure would have.
Maybe I'm naive but I don't recall Democrats ever doing what the Republican/right-wing conspirators have done to us, at least to the extent of never allowing a Republican to gain high office.
I mean more by the "classic" definition. No - I don't think we can go back to the solutions that FDR & JFK used, i.e., big government everytime, but I still think we need to come up with solutions to provide people with health care, for example.
As for Nader, I like Ralph but he cost us the 2000 election & then basically tried to run the same campaign this time - even though he was politely asked by many not to run. The Greens didn't treat him very well either did they? I think Nader should have offered to come & help the Democrats this time. People would have loved & respected him for it. I sure would have.
Maybe I'm naive but I don't recall Democrats ever doing what the Republican/right-wing conspirators have done to us, at least to the extent of never allowing a Republican to gain high office.
| Quote (MidnightToker @ Nov. 06 2004,23:47) |
| I still think we need to come up with solutions to provide people with health care, for example. |
I'm seeing a trend here. Government run healthcare.
| Quote (MidnightToker @ Nov. 06 2004,23:47) |
| Liberal by which definition? I'm a Liberal by Jefferson's definition. I think you are talking about Liberal-ism of FDR and JFK. |
I mean more by the "classic" definition. No - I don't think we can go back to the solutions that FDR & JFK used, i.e., big government everytime, but I still think we need to come up with solutions to provide people with health care, for example.
To describe Kennedy and FDR as advocates of big government distorts in a very fundamental way what they did and why they did it. Actually, I think FDR is the important one here. His policies had nothing whatsoever to do with the size of government. He was a pragmatist, as were a huge number of people who worked for him, many actually studied under Dewey at Columbia law school. The belief there is that what works is what is right, and that ideological straightjackets are anathema to progress. What matters is progress and what gets us there, not the intellectual heritage of an idea. What FDR did was a reasonable response to the crises of the time. Solutions offered then are not necessarily, or even probably, solutions to today's problems.
You see the danger here - we tend to think in terms of ideologies, and not in terms of problems and solutions. Here are two good examples of people in the FDR tradition: Ross Perot (who I'd have to say mostly had the wrong solutions, but no one can say that he was a politician about things - he pointed out what he thought were problems and offered solutions); and Howard Dean (who I think has had it right nearly all of the time so far).
Anyway, by characterizing FDR and Kennedy as "big government" democrats you have bought into the republican discourse. Needless to say, that language distorts reality.
Needless to say, that language distorts reality.
And what language doesn't distort reality? What perception doesn't distort reality? What linguistic system doesn't affect our thought process?
You have to start somewhere. As I pointed out here a very long time ago, we remain here arguing with people who may or may not even exist over situations few if any of us have any direct knowledge of. All we have to go on is what history has recorded, what our parents might remember of THEIR perceptions, what the media chooses to tell us, and all of that filtered through our own beliefs, prejudices and experience.
This is your realm, Tom - the Kingdom of Nothing is Real.
And what language doesn't distort reality? What perception doesn't distort reality? What linguistic system doesn't affect our thought process?
You have to start somewhere. As I pointed out here a very long time ago, we remain here arguing with people who may or may not even exist over situations few if any of us have any direct knowledge of. All we have to go on is what history has recorded, what our parents might remember of THEIR perceptions, what the media chooses to tell us, and all of that filtered through our own beliefs, prejudices and experience.
This is your realm, Tom - the Kingdom of Nothing is Real.
Hey, wait a minute, I’m a realist, and a pretty vulgar, unreconstructed one to boot! As to langauge, I think it mostly works…
Fergot yer smilie again, man.
Oops, sorry!
From a CA Democrat’s newsletter that I get:
<!–QuoteBegin>
| Quote |
| I am sure you have all heard the spin in the last few weeks about what exactly went wrong in the rest of the country on November 2. Various factors have been blamed for the Kerry loss. For example, the gay marriage issue has been blamed for increasing voter turnout among Evangelical voters nationwide and in the 11 states where various versions of gay marriage bans were on the ballots. Let’s look at the facts: in the 2000 election, nine of the eleven mentioned above voted for Bush and two (Oregon and Michigan) voted for Gore. In 2004, these same nine states again voted for Bush and the same two voted for Kerry. It should also be noted that Bush did not gain ground in these states from 2000. “As Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center points out, there was no disproportionate surge in the evangelical vote this year. Evangelicals made up the same share of the electorate this year as they did in 2000. There was no increase in the percentage of voters who are pro-life. Sixteen percent of voters said abortions should be illegal in all circumstances. There was no increase in the percentage of voters who say they pray daily.” (“The Values Vote Myth,” David Brooks, NY Times 11/6/04) In addition, another theory we hear in the post election “explanations” is that Bush was re-elected because 25 percent of people interviewed agreed with his “moral values.” As David Brooks points out, "much of the misinterpretation of this election comes from a poorly worded question in the exit polls. When asked about the issue that most influenced their vote, voters were given the option of saying ‘moral values.’ But that phrase can mean anything - or nothing. Who doesn’t vote on moral values? If you ask an inept question, you get a misleading result." In short, I believe that historically an incumbent president at war is always difficult to defeat. The main factor in this campaign was terrorism and Iraq. On both counts, Bush prevailed, especially among married women - the so-called “security moms.” |
| Quote (MidnightToker @ Nov. 18 2004,11:09) |
| From a CA Democrat's newsletter that I get: In short, I believe that historically an incumbent president at war is always difficult to defeat. The main factor in this campaign was terrorism and Iraq. On both counts, Bush prevailed, especially among married women - the so-called "security moms." |
I would have thought these 'security moms' would be more inclined to be anti-war, in that they can sympathise with the Iraqi mothers whose children and husbands are being shot at by Marines. Not forgetting the bombs falling on their houses.
Trouble is, Iraq was bundled into the big monster called 'terror' by the Bush campaign.
Yup - you’d think that but they were not.
Iraq is the main part of Bush’s war on terror.
| Quote (jhonan @ Nov. 18 2004,11:33) |
| I would have thought these 'security moms' would be more inclined to be anti-war, in that they can sympathise with the Iraqi mothers whose children and husbands are being shot at by Marines. Not forgetting the bombs falling on their houses. Trouble is, Iraq was bundled into the big monster called 'terror' by the Bush campaign. |
It's statements like this that clearly explain why democrats don't get it. Women in general want a man that will protect her, not one that will run and hide when the bad guys come. She wants someone that will go get them and kick their ass. It's really a pretty simple concept. Try not to overthink the issue.
Don’t be sexist, Truth Seeker. That is just such hogwash.
Kerry won, I tell you. Read this analysis.
http://ucdata.berkeley.edu/
Find the link “The Effect of Electronic Voting Machines on Change in Support for Bush in the 2004 Florida Elections”
Repubs stole the vote. It’s the story of the year.
Lies I tell you, All Lies! 