Where do the Democrats go from here?

By MIKE KOTLARCZYK

The 2004 election was an unquestioned victory for the Republican Party. They picked up seats in the House of Representatives, the Senate, and President Bush became the first candidate in 16 years to win a majority of the popular vote. To all of you liberals and progressives out there, please…take your head out of that oven and try to stay calm. We can make it through this.

Or can we? The most serious question that we now have before us is this: was this election unique, with Democrats running a poor candidate against a brilliant campaigner? Or is this election symptomatic of a realignment in this country, the emergence of a Republican majority that will be as permanent as the forty-year long Democratic majority of the past?

There seems to be some evidence that the problems we Democrats had were unique to this election, or maybe just a matter of better party organization by the Republicans. John Kerry did a poor job explaining his position until the last month of the campaign and allowed groups like Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to control the tone of the campaign for too long. And do not forget that in every presidential election since 1960, the candidate with more charisma on television has won. Additionally, the Republicans have finally matched the Democrats in terms of get-out-the-vote efforts; it is no longer just labor turning out in droves on election day. If these sorts of things are in fact the problem, Democrats have an accessible solution: fix your message and make it speak to people’s values, focus the debate back on economic issues, and tell us what it is exactly that Democrats stand for. This won’t be easy to do—and there’s a good chance that the Dems will still fail to do it—but it is at least something that the party can address.

If, on the other hand, we are witnessing a fundamental realignment in this country, it is difficult to say what exactly the Democrats can do. And unfortunately, there is a lot of evidence that that is what is happening. Republicans have really been successful at two things in recent years, and especially this year turning out evangelical Christians who historically do not vote and focusing the entire country on cultural issues. Karl Rove has been saying for four years that the only reason the 2000 election was as close as it was was because three and a half million evangelical Christians stayed home. And President Bush’s margin of victory in the popular vote this year? About three and a half million, many drawn to the polls to vote against same sex marriage initiatives being proposed in various states.

The Republicans have also been extremely successful at talking about cultural issues in the past few elections. And the simple fact is that Americans are, generally speaking, cultural conservatives. At the very least, the people who most consistently vote—middle-class white America—are culturally conservative, so any focus on cultural issues will benefit the conservative party at the polls.

Can the Democrats do anything to combat these trends? Yes, but it is a tough road to till. First of all, Democrats need to put the focus back on economic issues and off of cultural issues. Many of these cultural conservatives will vote for the candidate who is harming their job security and sending their sons off to war so long as they aren’t thinking about those things and are instead thinking about gay marriage or abortion. The Democrats have allowed the Republicans to make the debate in the country about values instead of what directly effects people’s everyday lives.

Similarly, the Democrats need to find a strong statement of who they are and what they stand for. I know that makes it sound like we got a lot of work to do, but we really aren’t too far from that now. Bill Clinton was able to do it; he could phrase liberal values in a way that people could identify with their own values. We need leadership that can do that again.

Liberals hands are all wrung out and the tear ducts are empty. The time has come to wipe the slate clean and begin building our party anew. We need to remember the things that we stand for as a party, the things that a majority of Americans can agree with: equal opportunity for everyone, fair business practices, fiscal responsibility, and individual rights. The late Senator Paul Wellstone from Minnesota had a saying: “They’re for the Rockefellers. We’re for the little fellers.” We need to start remembering things like that and recover our soul as a party.