IT HAS now been a week since the debacle that was Election Day. As Democrats sit back and try to figure out just what went wrong and where to go from here, many have begun saying it's time for a "blood bath" within the Democratic Party. Others are saying it's time for the party to move farther to the right so it can swallow up more supporters. Yet others say the party needs to move to the left to distinguish itself more from the Republicans, and make the party base more likely to vote. While it is true that the Democratic Party needs to make some major changes if it's going to survive, these necessary changes should not be policy-based, but rather based on strategy.
In 2002, the Democrats learned the danger of being indistinguishable from the Republican Party. Scared of alienating voters still in a Sept. 11 mindset, the Democrats kept rolling over for Republican idea after Republican idea. The shining example of this was when many Democrats who had voted against the resolution for the first Gulf War wound up voting for the resolution authorizing the second, even though this one was much more controversial among the people. In the 2002 election, voters were faced with a choice between the "wannabe" Republicans and the real Republicans. Not surprisingly, they chose the real Republicans.
Yet, contrary to what many believe, the Democrats did, in fact, fix themselves after that defeat. They replaced a moderate-to-socially conservative Dick Gephardt with the San Francisco liberal Nancy Pelosi as their party leader in the House. Over the following two years, congressional Democrats became more unified than ever, and it was around a liberal agenda very powerfully opposed to George W. Bush. The Democrats did learn to distinguish themselves, so why didn't it work?
The problem for the Democrats today is not their stance on policy. They have the right platform to win, and in many regards, the right leaders to lead them to victory (although many arguments can be made about John Kerry as a horrible nominee for president). The problem today is that Democrats simply don't understand how to campaign. If the Democrats are to win in the future and not slowly fade into oblivion, there are two major fundamental changes they must make to the way they campaign.
First, the Democrats in Congress and all future Democratic presidential candidates must have a "war room" along the style of Bill Clinton's from 1992. The biggest problem dogging Democrats this entire race was their responses to Republican attacks. The Democrats gave Republicans plenty of time to getout messages like "flip-flopper" and "most liberal voting record in the Senate" before finally, months later, they began to respond to the attacks. The fact is, Democrats must be ready for all attacks, and must respond not months later, not even weeks or days later, but must respond within hours.
The other fundamental change the Democrats need to make is probably the more important one. The Democrats must take back the values debate. Gay marriage amendments across the country, as well as other values-based arguments, played a major role in not only getting out the Republican vote, but getting the votes of many Christians who, outside of these specific moral issues, tend to be socially liberal.
The so-called "Religious Left" used to be a powerful force in Democratic Politics. Now it's all but disappeared. If the Democratic Party is to change this, they must be ready to argue their points in moral terms, no matter how uncomfortable it may make them.
It is morally unconscionable that millions of Americans go without health care; it is morally unconscionable that the Republicans would rather give a tax break to the man who inherited millions of dollars than the man who works two jobs just to get food on the table for his family; it is morally unconscionable that loose corporate oversight allows CEOs to enrich themselves illegally; it is morally unconscionable to send our troops into harm's way without proper equipment. Never once did the Democrats argue, on moral terms, any of those things. Yet how hard can it be to argue that all of those moral points are more important than whether or not two people in love, who have no effect on you, are allowed to get married?
Finally, as much as it may hurt for a party to depart from its greatest winner, if the Democrats are to take back the values debate, the party must distance itself from Bill Clinton. Clinton is a great speech-giver, had an extraordinary presidency and yes, he knows how to rally the base. But at the same time, the man is an adulterer, and as long as the Democrats continue to let Clinton lead, the party has no hope of ever reclaiming the values debate.
Election Day 2004 was not a defeat of Democratic ideals and vision. It was a defeat of a poor campaign by a brilliantly-run campaign. Despite all that, the Democrats still only lost by 3 percentage points. With a few changes to their campaign mechanisms, the Democrats will rise again.
Sam Leven's column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at sleven@cavalierdaily.com.
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