Buck Up

I can't take it anymore. The hand wringing, crying and sadness are misplaced and unproductive. I am full of pride and hope for the future.

The Outcome

Bush only won by 3.5M votes against the most liberal Senator from New England, in the middle of a war, both military and cultural, and with certain economic indicators stabilizing. Furthermore, if you look at the state margins, an interesting pattern emerges. That's a powerful indictment against the strength of Bush's incumbency and mandate. This was NOT a Johnson/Goldwater defeat. For bottom liners, this may not mean much; but as members of the opposition, this should be heartening.

What really gets me angry is when pundits say that this proves that liberals are out of touch with what people in the Midwest think. Last I checked, we got 49% of the vote against an incumbent, and this includes 3-to-1 votes against gays, with the support of security moms and the soldiers. You could just as easily say that the Midwest is out of touch with what people on the Coasts think. The 3.5M vote gain was made up, in large part, of conservative increases in coastal, blue state suburbs. The margins in many of the red states actually tightened since 2000, which means that the Democrats made enormous inroads in the red states. With a little extra turnout and mobilization, New England may act glib in 2008.

The Mandates

Bush has an enormously difficult mandate as a member of the GOP. He has to ensure Republican succession, which means stabilizing Iraq, getting jobs, repairing diplomatic relations, privatizing social security, ensuring we are not attacked again, stopping a meltdown of the real estate market, keeping interest rates low, lowering the price of gas, strengthening the dollar, all while healing partisan divisions. This may be hard, to say the least, especially for a man of Bush’s character who doesn’t do subtlety, press conferences or transparency.

But more importantly, the Democratic Party also has a mandate. We must balance grace and ferocious determination. We must support the troops and hold the President accountable for massive strategic failures. We must spotlight economic folly and uphold our ideals in the face of a virtually identical but undeniable majority.

The Next Four Years

The Republicans have to find a successor. That is not going to be easy. Jeb Bush? Senators make bad candidates (McCain, Kerry). Will they resort to another Manchurian candidate? Mitch Daniels? Matt Blunt? Despite the 11-state sweep, gay marriage is likely to be a hot button issue in 2 years when MA rejects a constitutional amendment, and may only work more in the Republicans’ favor when CA, NY, NJ and OR add some sort of recognition to their books. It will be interesting to see how Democratic strategy adjusts to this.

Of a few things, I am certain: the Democratic candidate in 2008 MUST NOT BE a wealthy, liberal Senator from New England (Hilary included). We have shown that we can hold on to the Blue States even in the face of Karl Rove and his thugs, but, what we have not been able to do is turn some of those small Republican victories in the heartland into small Democratic victories. We need to find a candidate who can stand up to the neo-Cons on war and the economy, but more importantly on morality, in an effort to bring 3.5M voters over to the Democrats. A general repositioning of the Democratic Party as a party of faith might do it, and this includes faith-based ideals such as charity, equity and tolerance. This doesn’t mean pandering to Evangelicals. But it does mean highlighting Democratic relationships with the faithful, such as the eloquent and brilliant Obama. Read his acceptance speech to see what I mean.

We have four years to organize, fund raise, protest and mobilize; and more importantly, to pick a better candidate and run a stronger campaign. We can do it. We will do it. (NO NADER!!)