Looking at that map made John feel a lot less isolated and despairing about the future. We both looked at that, and compared it to the map of Clinton's reelection in 1996, and realized it wouldn't take that much to turn the purple areas blue. It just takes the right candidate, with the right message - clear ideas, clearly communicated.
Another thing that made us both feel better was the cover of the Stranger:
http://seattleceltic.net/14.09_Cover.pdf
There's plenty of Monday-morning quarterbacking going on now about the mistakes the Kerry campaign made. Overall, the campaign was much better run than Gore's in 2000 (although I, personally, actually preferred Gore as a candidate). My analysis of the biggest mistakes? One: the selection of John Edwards as vice president. John Edwards is a great guy and brought some needed optimism and charisma to the ticket, but not enough. There was never really any strong hope he could carry North Carolina; he wasn't even likely to regain his Senate seat, had he run for it again. The one who should have been the VP candidate is General Wesley Clark. Clark would have brought a great deal to the ticket, principally his unassailable strength in defense and foreign policy matters. For the non-evangelical Bush voters, the fear of terrorism and the need for national security was the top priority. Those are the Bush voters who could have been swayed by Clark's presence on the ticket. I also think Clark had a much better chance of carrying Arkansas than Edwards did of carrying North Carolina.
The second big mistake? The campaign let too many of the Swift Boat attacks go unanswered. You'll still find people who claim that Kerry a) never released all his medical records, b) was secretly dishonorably discharged, and c) didn't earn any of his medals. All that is patently false, but the campaign forced too many people to do their own research to disprove those lies. They should have been trumpeting their responses to the skies, and responding with their own very valid attacks on the credibility of the Swift Boat liars.
And the third, and perhaps the most devastating of the mistakes - Kerry's message wasn't kept simple enough. Over and over again, I heard the claim that Kerry didn't have "plans" to do the things he said he'd do. He did, but again, voters were left to do their own research to find and read the planning documents. This approach doesn't work, not with the short attention spans most voters have these days. The plan documents should be out there for those who will actually read them, but the message itself needs to be kept short enough to be expressed in soundbites. Again and again, people complained they didn't understand how Kerry would be able to pay for anything he said he'd do as President. This is one of the areas where the Republicans excel - they keep the message short, simple, clear, and uniform.
Overall, the worst thing we've done for the last 20 years is to allow the Republicans to frame the debate. Again and again, they bring the topic back to hot-button issues that polarize the electorate, instead of the issues that truly affect all Americans. Again and again, they succeed in forcing us onto the defensive on choice, human rights, gun rights. We did a better job this time not allowing ourselves to be painted as gun-grabbers - that got taken mostly off the table - but they still managed to energize their evangelical base by painting us as baby-killers who'd teach their children homosexuality in schools (how DOES one teach sexual orientation, anyway?). We should never permit that, not for a second. The minute they start talking abortion, we should reframe the debate as pregnancy PREVENTION, not termination - and you don't prevent pregnancies by outlawing contraception and by teaching abstinence-only, as so many of the far-right would like to do. While most people are, rightly, very uncomfortable with the idea of abortion, most people believe safe contraception should be legal, and all but the extreme zealots believe adolescents should have some understanding of basic biology and contraception.
The minute the Republicans try to frame the debate in terms of gay marriage and the "sanctity" of heterosexual marriage, we should immediately ask why the state is involved in marriage at all, and change the topic to civil unions for everyone, with people free to marry or not in the religious ceremony of their choice. No one should get a "marriage" license from the government.
We need to stop coming at every issue from all 5,000,000 diverse points represented within the Democratic party and learn to have a consistent, uniform message to present to the voting populace. Fractured messages just give the impression of a party at war within itself. We need to learn to not air our own dirty laundry in public, but to work out our internal differences of opinion before we present our platforms and public statements. We've had a regrettable habit of being overly inclusive of every constituency's pet issues, including those of the lunatic fringe. We cannot make everyone happy, and we cannot win by trying to do so. We need to identify some core principles - fairness for all, economic opportunity for all, assistance for those in need, justice for all - and stick to those without allowing ourselves to be distracted by every new fad or every single-issue-voter's personal hot button.
We cannot win over the evangelicals. They are lost to us, unless they see the error of their unChristian ways. We must return to core Democratic values that support the rights and needs of working people. We must divorce ourselves from corporate interests. We have to find ways to appeal once more to those in the heartland - it is suicide for us to be perceived as the party of the urban coast dwellers. That may be where most of the population and wealth is, but it is not where the electoral votes are to be found.
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