Pick yourself up, dust yourself off .. Lessons and analysis here

[HamdenRice]

Dear DUers,

The election was clearly a defeat, but it was in no way whatsoever a catastrophe or a realignment. Let's put this in historical perspective. No US president has ever been defeated during wartime, and there are simply many, many Americans, smart, dumb, religious, secular, who believe that they must "support" the president and the troops during an ongoing conflict. Kerry was up against a massive historical and psychological barrier, and he did remarkably well under the circumstances.

For those of you who are dismayed by the map of red states and blue states, please keep in mind that in the popular vote, the election was reasonable close and most of the red states are big, rural and largely empty.

The parts of the country that contain the majority of the population and produce the overwhelming bulk of economic value, ideas, innovation and culture supported John Kerry: the states of New York California, Massachusetts, Illinois with cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, San Francisco.

We are not yet up against a fascist dictatorship, though the danger is there. Even if we were, so what? The people of South Africa, Argentina, Chile, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Russia have thrown off far more tenacious dictatorships with fewer resources (like elections -- not matter how tampered with or imperfect) than we have.

We have learned some important lessons for the future. The most important and most hopeful -- one that leaves me actually brimming with hope -- is that the era of the anemic, weak Democratic Party, dependent on corporate lobbyists and spouting republican lite policy is over. The internet in general -- and forums like DU and organizations like MoveOn and campaigns like Dr. Dean's in particular -- have shown that the Democratic Party can be based directly on mass participation through the internet. The internet has vastly, dramatically reduced the cost of organizing and fundraising.

Dr. Dean showed the way and Kerry only partly embraced this insight.

The Democratic Party no longer needs to depend on its demographic tactics of the last few decades: splitting the difference in policy between it constituency and the republicans, raising money from corporations, and toning down policies favored by its base.

The election showed that it is simply far more effective to mobilize the unregistered, young, urban and poor to turn out, than to try to steal the few undecideds. Consider this practice for 2006. Kerry made the error, which the Democrats have been making for decades, of trying to "capture" the swing and undecided votes (a few million) rather than mobilize the disenfranchised (tens of millions).

I applaud some of the suggestions of people to get involved in the party organization -- but I would suggest we all go out and start at the bottom: district leader, ward leader level. We need to coordinate at that level with the disenfranchised of the red states and help get the party rooted in the soil of the south, as well as the neighborhoods of the north and west.

[blackcat77]

1. We lost a little in FL, gained a little in OH

But really it was 2000 all over again. The lesson we should take from this is that we can't put ourselves in a position where we have to take every single state which is blue and not even be competititive in states that are red.

The key to victory is places like NC, TN, VA, WV, AZ, NV, CO and the like. We're not going to take the hard red states any more than the Pubs will be competititive in CA or NY. But we've got to have candidates which have more appeal to the Purple states -- yesterday, we lost them all.

[HamdenRice]

3. I agree we need some red states, but ...

we should not look at the red states as a collectivity. In many red states, Kerry did well -- he just did not get a majority. Think of all the red states where black and latino voters are for all intents and purposes disenfranchised. A few million more registered voters across the south, and we can easily make New Mexico, Georgia (black Atlanta) and Florida reasonably reliable Democratic states.

What I'm trying to get across is that it is not the entire population of the red states that rejected the Democrats, it was in some cases a bare majority in those states -- just as many for the republicans in the blue states.

[Expat_Kristen]

2. Nice ideas. . .

It's nice to hear a positive spin on things, but I feel exhausted. At least for now, I feel more disenfranchised than ever. In fact, I feel sick. Hopeless.

Hopefully that will change.