Make ideas matter most. Even as we celebrate and expand the important gains Democrats made this year through the Internet and stronger organization, we should recognize their limits. The fortune we spend on campaign ads is only as good as what we have to say. The best ground game in the world can't win ground that's off-limits to our message. If we want to take back the majority, we need to mount just as massive an effort at pioneering new ideas.
This election was mostly about Bush. The 2008 election will be a fair fight about the future, where ideas will matter more than opposition. This was a turnout election. The next one will have to be a persuasion election as well. The best thing we can do is come up with new, innovative, bold ideas to tackle the big challenges facing our country. If we give voters a compelling reason to vote for us, campaign tactics will take care of themselves.
The Post's opinion and commentary section runs every Sunday.
• Outlook Section
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_____What's Next?_____
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And the Winner Is . . . (The Washington Post, Nov 7, 2004)
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We Have To Talk (The Washington Post, Nov 7, 2004)
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A Cheer For Ugly (The Washington Post, Nov 7, 2004)
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A Coalition of Conviction (The Washington Post, Nov 7, 2004)
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Why the Scales Won't Tip (The Washington Post, Nov 7, 2004)
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Surprise people. Why did Bush become a divider, not a uniter? Because he and Karl Rove understood that a polarized nation works to their advantage. When both parties play to their respective stereotypes, Republicans win.
A minority party that wants to become a majority party has to surprise people so they realize it's better than they thought. Clinton geared his entire 1992 campaign to proving he was a different kind of Democrat from those they'd been voting against for years. He proposed cutting bureaucracy, linking college aid to national service, putting more police on the street and ending welfare as we know it.
The last two campaigns have been short on such shock therapy. Next time, we have to surprise people by becoming an insurgent reform party again. Indeed, the one silver lining in defeat is that we're finally free to reform a status quo we neither condone nor control.
If we don't have at least one position that forces skeptics to take a whole new look at the Democratic Party, they won't. But if a new Democratic insurgency can earn our party a second look, it's only a matter of time before Republicans will be the ones feeling our pain again. Freedom's just another word for everything left to win.
Author's e-mail: breed@dlcppi.org
Bruce Reed, a former domestic policy adviser to President Bill Clinton, is president of the Democratic Leadership Council.
