COLLECTIVE SOUL SEARCH

It's been too long.

Now that the dust has begun to clear, let's explore a few of the reasons why having won all three debates, and even with record deficits and a controversial Republican owned war, the Democrats had their asses handed to them in this election.

The Democrats have lost touch with America, but not for the reasons the conservative sheep bleat, e.g. "they've moved too far to the left", "they have no morals", "they want socialism", that drivel is ultrasimplistic stupidity.


1) the Democrats have too long labored under the misapprehension that the "game" is played a certain way. They've continued to do things in the way they've been done since WWII. While they've been doing that the GOP have redefined the game. There is no longer any honor among thieves (politicians) and the Dems need to dump the altruism and go for the juggular like the Rove Spin Machine. Bye Terry McCauliffe, bye Tom Daschle.

2) The Dems need to start calling both the Press and the GOP on their BS.

The press has fallen so far into the morass in the last four years that they just let people on both sides spout their opinions under the guise of "equal time". That is not the job of journalists, their job is to *challenge* both sides not to give them a soapbox. There used to be a rule that you wouldn't publish (air) a story unless you had reliable confirmation by two sources. Now you don't even need one -so long as you give the other side a chance to rebut. Horsesh*t.

Take the Smearboat Vets as an example: They were allowed to say whatever they wanted in most mainstream media outlets, and despite the fact that their stories had more holes than swiss cheese the "press" rather than challenge the SBV themselves ("oh my, we might lose our cushy jobs!") would defer to the other side to say "how do you answer that?" Pussies.

A more recent example: On NPR this morning John Thune was asked why he thought the voters of SD voted for him rather than for Daschle. He replied that he thought they wanted a Senator who would not be responsible to the national party, and then went on to tick off all of the GOP talking points -complete with telltale catch-phrases like "grow the economy", and the best the interviewer could say was "thank you". NPR has corporate sponsors now too.

The Democrats need to start pointing out things like these out to both the press and the GOP everytime they happen, again and again and never tire. Stop hoping for them to do the right thing. Here's someone who has been doing this for a while already -maybe they can follow his example.

3) The Democrats have let the GOP define what morality is. To combat this they need to take morals back from the right to the center. They can begin by reviewing the impetus for the successful programs of FDR and the Great Society. That impetus came from the Judeo-Christian values not of "personal responsibility" (i.e. you're on your own and if you have problems, tough. It's probably your own fault anyway) but of responsibility to our neighbors, local, national and global, as beautifully expressed in Matthew 25:35-40.

Finally, the Democrats have fallen pray to their own myopic memory. The current conservative utopia didn't just happen, it began after Watergate, when the GOP, having plunged as low as it could go, vowed never to be caught with its pants down again. This has been planned for years folks. It has taken a generation (and they had a few lucky breaks along the way -Reagan for example) but they're the same people.

Democrats will need to be patient. To paraphrase -Rome neither rose nor fell in a single election cycle. They should be vigilant scribes of every word from the GOP, so that when the soldiers finally begin coming home from Iraq, they and we can be reminded of what the GOP said when the soldiers were sent abroad.

Hey, maybe it'll be consistent. Then again, there's a bridge in Brooklyn I'll sell you for cheap.