Breaking: There is no stregth in playing to the swing vote

[Rose Siding]

I'm not saying their hearts should be roasted and eaten whole, but Arianna hits the nail on the head:

But it wasn't gay marriage that did the Democrats in; it was the fatal decision to make the pursuit of undecided voters the overarching strategy of the Kerry campaign.

This meant that at every turn the campaign chose caution over boldness so as not to offend the undecideds who, as a group, long to be soothed and reassured rather than challenged and inspired.

The fixation on undecided voters turned a campaign that should have been about big ideas, big decisions, and the very, very big differences between the worldviews of John Kerry and George Bush — both on national security and domestic priorities — into a narrow trench war fought over ludicrous non-issues like whether Kerry had bled enough to warrant a Purple Heart.

This timid, spineless, walking-on-eggshells strategy — with no central theme or moral vision — played right into the hands of the Bush-Cheney team's portrayal of Kerry as an unprincipled, equivocating flip-flopper who, in a time of war and national unease, stood for nothing other than his desire to become president.

The Republicans spent a hundred million dollars selling this image of Kerry to the public. But the public would not have bought it if the Kerry campaign had run a bold, visionary race that at every moment and every corner contradicted the caricature.

http://www.ariannaonline.com/columns/column.php?id=742

[The Chronicler]

1. I disagree

I think going harder to the liberal left would have been even worse. If anything, this election has shown us that there are way more conservative voters than liberal voters in the US. The Democratic Party needs to get back to its roots IMO. It needs to get back to the Jeffersonian ideal of the party. Rural, farming, union, family.

[davepc]

2. I think more people would be happy with the FDR version of that

Jeffersonians are libertarians :)

[Rose Siding]

3. Like Daschle?

He lost.

[The Chronicler]

4. The gun issue doesn't help us much either.

And we aren't breaking throught with unions and farmers like we used to. We've become too urbanized.

[davepc]

6. He lost because his voting record in Washington

didn't jive with the message he was trying to portray.

You cant say you're with the president and vote against him.


'I may not be with the president, but I'm certainly with YOU' would of been a better one.

The fact he kept Kerry out of his campaign speaks volumes to the disconnect between our candidates and the voters there.

[The Chronicler]

8. Absolutely agree.

Our party is in trouble nationally. The fact that we can't have our national candidate campaign everywhere is RIDICULOUS.

[Rose Siding]

9. So the solution is to actually BE with the president?

That would be like the French Revolutionary who saw the mobs rushing past and said "There go my people. I must find out where they are going so I can lead them."

[The Chronicler]

10. I'm saying the party needs a paradigm shift

It doesn't need to 'become republican,' but it does need to get back to its William Jennings Bryan-esque roots. Farmers, unions, family etc. We've become too urbanized.

[Rose Siding]

12. All those factions are changing

What does the American family look like in 2004? The profitable farms are corporations and the comer union is SEIU, with a bottom up organization.

When you say "urbanized" do you mean reverence for education and culture? Civilization depends on that. Or do you mean minorities and the poor and homeless? Those groups are growing at rates that far exceed union members and farmers and the myth of the Rockwellian family.

[unfrigginreal]

5. Is it going to the left to make the case to underprivileged

whites that the GOP is screwing them over? Is it going to the left to make the case that frivolous Constitutional Amendments weakens democracy and does not enhance it?

[Bush was AWOL]

7. I agree

Going to the left will add up to more embarrassing losses in Congress and more Republican presidents.

[sampsonblk]

14. You missed an important point

Its not about going harder left or right, its about going harder, period. Its about knowing what you believe in, sticking with it, and taking that to the voters. This whole tip-toeing thing to get swing voters...bad bad bad deal all the way. Kerry looked weak to a lot of people.

What we should get back to is telling the people what we really stand for, and forcefully arguing that we are right and the Repugs are wrong.

[Bread and Circus]

11. She makes some strong points.

We need leadership in the party, not focus-group slaves

[Malva Zebrina]

13. well it is certainly sort of right in hindsight

I agree, but neither I nor Arianna have ever run for president against cannonball shooting fascists .

I can forgive her because everybody is down in the dumps and perhaps she is also.

[TheDonkey]

15. Nope it was gay marriage

unless he came out and said "Constitutional Ban" and meant it the red states wouldn't care if he was timid. If he said "Gays should marry, period" he'd have lost 60-40

[info being]

16. Let's get real. Arianna lost to Arnold.

I'm tired of advice from political losers.

[Doomsayer13]

17. Our people DID vote

Moore said to reach out to new voters, and we DID - we won a majority of the new voters. We won the anti-war, anti-Bush votes by and OVERWHELMING margin, and we still lost! We need to come to terms with the fact that we just aren't a majority party and we have to find a way to make ourselves just that.