According to Sidney Blumenthal, President Bill Clinton's adviser, “After every defeat in a presidential election, Democrats form a circular firing squad in which they blame this or that consultant or handler for their defeat.” If Democrats hope to rise from the ashes of 2004, the party must avoid fratricide and think strategically about how to inspire the electorate and deploy resources with the biggest bang for the buck.
*Don't Worry About the Presidential Election of 2008. Fortunately for Democrats, presidential elections are up for grabs every four years according to the performance of the party in power. As explained in my book The Keys to the White House, presidential elections are primarily referenda up or down on the incumbent administration, with little or nothing that the challenging party can do to change the outcome. If the Bush administration fails to meet the domestic and foreign policy challenges of the next four years, Democrats will regain the presidency in 2008, as they did after landslide defeats by incumbent presidents in 1956 and 1972. According to the keys system, which correctly predicted the popular vote results of the last six presidential elections, shifts in the structure of politics will also favor the Democrats in 2008, as Republicans won't be fielding a sitting president and will likely battle to replace George W. Bush at the top of the ticket. So focus elsewhere.
*Return to the Grassroots. The presidential election was not a defeat for liberalism, one of the two enduring American political traditions. The wipeout of conservative Democratic candidates for Senate this year showed that “me too” conservatism will not work for the Democrats any better than “me too” liberalism worked for the Republicans during the middle decades of the 20th20th century. But Democrats have to redefine the liberalism of Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson for the 21st21st century and refine it into a simple, compelling message. Forget the consultants, admen, and pollsters who remain mired in the manipulative tactics of campaigns. New thinking will come from the bottom up, not from the top down.
The party should follow the model of the U.S. Commission onon Civil Rights during the 1960s, when it built a consensus against racial discrimination by holding hearings that tapped into the hopes and dreams of ordinary Americans. The Democratic Party should hold similar hearings across the nation, organized and run by local leaders ---- governors, mayors, county executives, state legislators, and independent activists ---- not by the crowd in Washington.
*Take Back the Moral High Ground. History shows that whichever party holds the moral high ground dominates politics in the United States. From the outbreak of World War II through Pearl Harbor, for example, the Democrats held the moral advantage as the defenders of free peoples worldwide; Republicans insisted that Americans learn to live isolated within a Western Hemisphere protected by the wide oceans. In a remarkable reversal of history, George W. Bush in 2004 proclaimed himself the prime mover of liberty and democracy, while John Kerry carped on the details of American policies. Democrats must relearn how to frame their principles in terms of right and wrong, beginning with a quietly organized retreat that includes the nation's foremost thinkers on morals and rhetoric.
*Fight for House and Senate Seats. Democrats should begin now to target states and congressional districts, recruit dynamic candidates, and get its donors to put troops on the ground for 2006, when setbacks in Iraq and the economy could turn voters against the party in power. Like the GOP in 1994, Democrats should develop national themes and not assume that midterm elections are 470 separate contests. Long term, to stay competitive in the Senate, Democrats need to expand their political base beyond the current 18 to 20 states. The Democrats should target 10 small states, rebuilding party organizations and pressuring Republican senators. The model to follow is the Democratic National Committee of the Herbert Hoover years, which inaugurated the perpetual campaign with a daily propaganda barrage that forced the administration to the defensive.
*Win Back State Legislatures. After the 2000 census, Republicans used their control over state legislatures to gerrymander congressional districts. In Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida, for example, Bush and Kerry received nearly equal support, but Republicans won two-thirds of the congressional seats. In Texas, Republicans poured resources into gaining unified control of the state legislature in 2002 and then redrew district lines to snuff out six Democratic members of Congress. Democrats must beat Republicans at their own game with nationally directed, well-funded state legislative campaigns to ensure that district lines drawn after the 2010 census give Democrats a fair chance to compete for congressional seats.
Allan J. Lichtman is a history professor at American University and the author of The Keys to the White House.
