Thanks for saving me some typing.
But I want to address 1) Bush is not an idiot. Yes, Bush is an idiot. At least, he is simple-minded. The reason he won both elections is Karl Rove and a nation full of simple minded people who were misinformed and continue to be willingly misinformed.
I don’t know anything about the Observer, but Durkin (the author) is a columnist for the National Journal, FTR.
“Bush is not an idiot” should in fact read “Don’t assume the bulk of America is ready to acknowledge that Bush is an idiot”. Many talking heads during this past election season liked to speculate that The 11th of September was not a big factor in this election. In fact, it was the only factor. We have never been so horribly attacked on our own soil in lifetime of any American now living. We needed to be able to look up to one person who would make decisions. Bush, who came into office with every intention of being a late-19th-century-style caretaker president who could use the good feeling within the country to quietly push his own agenda.
9/11/2004 pushed him into the role of decisive leader, one he is obviously not well-suited for. The truth will out, and
Bush’s historical approval ratings reflect the public’s growing acknowledgement of this. A steady decline, punctuated by the occasional bump when he sporadically does something right. But middle America, sitting up at night with the shotgun at hand, watching well-worn VHS copies of “Red Dawn”, were still in favor of him, if only becuase he was the one sitting the place where the man in charge is supposed to sit. If the election were next May instead of this November, Bush would have lost.
“Kofi Anan is not an oracle”. Who said he was? And today’s news out of Fallujah regarding the shooting of a wounded, unarmed man by a marine just accentuates the fact that it’s too soon to tell if the siege was a good idea or not. ANY hindsight opinion of the Fallujah action while it is not over yet is premature-ejeculative nonsense.
“Michael Moore is not Everyman”. See “Don’t assume the bulk of America is ready to acknowledge that Bush is an idiot”, above.
“Women are not ovaries with feet”. No, but the ones with brains voted for Kerry. 
As mentioned before, Kerry did not lose a single conservative female vote. Politicians who are for abortion rights are good for women, but the women are under no obligation to acknowledge that or place it high in their priorities.
What the dems really need to realize in terms of conservatives of either gender is that cons already HAVE a party to vote for. The very middle of the road ones might occasionally hop over the fence if it’s a year when they are particularly dissatisfied with their own party’s choice, but that’s all the gain their ever going to get.
The Dems mistook Clinton’s popularity for a general need to shift to the right. Clinton was the Democrat version of Reagan: a highly charismatic figure who oversaw a temporary bout of prosperity and good feeling about the country, one whose popularity is more or less inexplicable when his specific policies and achievements are viewed in hindsight. Meanwhile, congressional Dems have moved to the right, and have done nothing but lose ground for the last ten years. The Dems didn’t need conservative women to want to vote for them, they needed the left (who has reciprocally abandoned the party) to come out to the polls, which didn’t happen.
“To be an American is not an embarassment”. Not in general, but to be mistaken abroad for a Bush supporter BECAUSE one is American is deply humiliating. To be an American at one of America’s most embarassing moment’s in history leaves one with a queasy feeling, and to have a majority of the voting populace fail to realize it as such makes one ashamed.
We hold this truth to be self-evident: that government derives its powers from the consent of the people. You can consent actively or passively, and the majority decided to consent one way or the other to four more years of a demented, greedy, evil, half-wit parody of a president. As a result, we are all accountable for it in the end, and that is very embarassing.
The Dems, again, needed to realize the fear in this country and show themselves the solution to it, meriting a change of horses mid-stream. A tough task, and the razor-thin margin in this election shows that they did a very good job. Just not quite good enough this time around.
The real lesson? Give up on the less moderate conservatives, re-discover the left, and be, you know, an OPPOSITION party finally.
Here’s my take on the five things the Democrats need to do:
Fight back - Bill Clinton won two elections because he understood you cannot stand above the fray when you’re the subject of an attack. Too many other Democrats have tried to ignore negative attacks or just focused on refuting the attack rather than the attacker.
Go after the stupid vote - They’re are a lot of dumb people out there and many of them vote. The Democrats try to hard to convince these people with well though out explanations of why it would be to their advantage to vote for them. Conservatives meanwhile just write a catchy slogan.
Get your act together - The right is disciplined. The various factions may compete but once a candidate has been put forward, they all unite and support him. The left meanwhile wanders around after various people, pining for candidates who dropped out or never had a chance, and losing interest in the election.
Stop trying to win every vote - The Republicans realize that 51% is all it takes to make a overwhelming popular mandate and you can tell other 49% to kiss your ass. The Democrats need to focus on getting a majority even if they have to alienate other voters to do it.
Sell out to big business - Corporations control what most people see, hear, and think in this country. But they have no ideology except self-interest. Big business currently backs the right because the right is giving it what it wants. But big business would be just as happy to support the left if they thought that they could get a bteer deal there.
It must be some silly new Republican value to say that a private citizen like Michael Moore can be “dumped” from a political party.
rjung:
Of course not, but he could be repudiated by one. Remember how much good Bill Clinton did himself by dissing Sister Souljah and, by extension, Jesse Jackson in 1992? They were just private citizens too.
Does that mean I can call all Democrats LaRouche supporters? After all, LaRouche calls himself a Democrat.
You know better than this, rjung.
Howabout “stop giving him seats of honor next to ex-presidents on prime-time national TV?”
So was John O’Neill, but I don’t recall seeing Bush dissing him during the “Swift Bullshitters” flap.
Considering that Moore was invited to sit there by that ex-president, I’m not sure what you’re advocating here. “Sorry, Mr. President, but we can’t let you invite these friends of yours; they’re not good for our image.”
And really, if we’re going to be talking about Presidential guests, you might want to start with this guy.
Peroutka. You honestly think he’d vote for Bush?
(Although a lot of his customers probably did).
Really? No shit? Ah, well, there’s still “Anne of Green Goebbels” Coulter.
How about: “Jimmy, you’re getting on in years. And remember, you were an incumbent President who didn’t get re-elected. You build a mean house, but let us take care of the PR aspects of the DNC.”
That might work for the tightly-scripted, loyalty-oath, media-obsessed, propaganda-driven, pledge-feality-to-pere-Bush Republican Party, but I’d like to believe that the Dems still have enough belief in individual freedoms to let a former POTUS invite whoever the hell he wants.
Just a suggestion, but you Democrats might want to have your preeminent national event more tightly scripted.
This would avoid disasters like Teresa Heinz’s speech, and really present an opportunity to sell your candidate.
Most observers regard the Democratic National Convention this year as a missed opportunity. Do you want to miss more of these in the future?
Next time we’re going to schedule the convention actually during popular Olympics events, then when nobody watches we can talk about how great the convention was.
The convention went fine, the election produced more votes for their candidate than in any previous election in history, and the Democratic senators got more aggregate votes than the GOP senators did. Besides, the PIPA study proves how stupid Bush voters are. Only a madman would be trying to change the current Democratic strategy. It’s just about to work!
If that particular former president wants to put his personal desire to sit next to a celebrity higher on his priority list than getting a Dem elected president, then I suppose that’s his choice. Don’t be surprised if some people don’t understand how he sets his priorities, though.
And just how many votes do you think that cost Kerry? I can’t imagine someone standing in the voting booth, thinking “Boy, I sure hate the war and I can’t stand Bush… but doggone it I can’t get that image of Jimmy Carter sitting next to Michael Moore out of my head. Guess I gotta vote for Bush.”
I’m thinking not many. Darned few people watch conventions. Darned few of those even notice who might be sitting next to a former president. Darned few of those give a rip.
Dude! Poker face! Poker face!
Of course it’s impossible to calculate that. But it’s not just the convention itself, it’s the news coverage afterwards. How many times did we hear the MM sitting next to Carter line?
And if conventions don’t mean much, why was there such a bounce in the polls for both parties after their respecitive conventions?
The presidential race is much more of a personality contest than a senatorial race. All those little things add up. It’s hard to point to just one thing and say: “Well, that’s what cost him the election.” So the wise thing to do is to avoid those things that might contribute to a loss, especially if they’re as frivolous as who sits next to whom at the convention.
YMMV.
I watched both conventions and during the DNC when I noticed Michael Moore my first thought was, “Holy shit, they let him in. Very cool.”
Face it, the Democratic party is special because they don’t all toe the party line and spout the same tired talking points.
Michael Moore may not appeal to you, but he does appeal to large number of America’s younger generation and if someone was going to withhold their vote from the Democratic party because they disagree with a liberal filmmaker, I highly doubt that we really had their vote in the first place.
The idea that Michael Moore lost more votes than he gained is ridiculous. Moderates know that there’s always a couple of nutjobs associated with any Party and true left-wingers appreciate Moores sometimes flawed but genuinely well-intentioned politics.
I’d say what the Dem’s need to do next is legislate mandatory papertrails for electronic voter machines, stick to their liberal/progressive roots and realize that this too shall pass.