One person I wouldn't blame is John Kerry.

However, we need to finish the fight in Ohio before we can push for this.

The progressives need to take their message to all.  We are back.  Identify and present our plan for the future broadly and in detail.  Create those frames with the assistance and guidance of George Lakoff {sp?).  We must blunt the conservative messages out there.  We need to essentially identify and boycott all conservative and/or republican radio, tv, and businesses that thrive on our business.  Hit them where they understand it, in the pocket book.  It may be hard, but it has been shown during this political season with Sinclair losing more than $100 million and a plummeting stock price due to progressive activities.

We should then give our business and loyalty to those businesses and media that support our progressive ideals and ideas.  We need to be more activist than we have over the past couple years.

We should create our own progressive organizations that lobby congress harder than the existing lobbyists.  We have the intelligence, the integrity, and moral conviction to do so.

--Emit

No doubt about the energize part.

BC

We need Dean or someone just like Dean.  So why not Dean?

What we do NOT need is one iota of continued influence by the DLC types.  The long knives have to come out.  Zero tolerance.

Bye McAwful.  Don't let the door hit ya on the way out.

Dean would be a great chairman.

Or Trippi.

As hard as it may be to understand. Bush's power over people comes from fear. This is how he controls. Democrats have got to tap into this.

The other thing is that the Democrats are going to have to find a way to handle the Christian-right. Many people were discussing this very thing at the Kerry/Edwards party last night here in Knoxville, TN.

According to the media, the Latino vote in FL didn't help matters. I really think those Cuban-Americans need to decide whether or not they live in America or in Cuba with Castro. They are always worried about Castro, sometimes I think they need to go back to Cuba and live with him.

Terry did do one good thing and that's get the DNC organized. The DNC was very much unorganized under Joe Andrews.

So how do we reach people?  Can progressives take on the media?  Four years is too short a time for a massive change in the way journalism is practiced.  Alternative media, which are very energetic to those involved, do not attract the majority of the people.  SO how dowe get our message out?

Another thing is that the progressives in this particular episode have been largely people under 50.  THis is not bad, because that is where most of the energy is, but there has been a lot of disrespect shown towards grandparents and older people, who are the ones who turn out to vote.  Progressives need to realize that they need to talk to old people too.

People of color need to move to the forefront, and progressives need to listen to them carefully.  The vision they articulate isn't the same as the Howard Dean progressives, but it is progressive,and we need to figure out how to integrate that into the progressive movement.

One last thing:  there has not been a true discussion of religiosity vs religious beliefs.  Religious people have been dissed by progrssives also, who have acted as if religious belielfs and religiosity are the same thing.  Not a good thing, since many religious people have the psychic energy to carry a movement forward (the fight against slavery, for instance, was largely carried on by very religious people).

I'm sad about Daschle, but you know what, he was a horrible Senate leader.  As I seem to recall, he gave in to the Medicare prescription drugs while Pelosi fought the GOP tooth and nail.  Chris Dodd would be good--we need pitbulls; I think Harry Reid has the same red-state (although narrow red-state) baggage as Daschle did; Obama was just elected.

Interesting, the last senate leader to be defeated for either party was back in 52.  Then, the Dems chose Lyndon Johnson to be our leader.  Where's our Lyndon Johnsons?

Despite all this, the blogosphere should find solace in the fact that we almost won KY (who would have thunk that?), and won CO.  And the GOP will rue having Tom Coburn in their ranks!

All this talk of the web and young people is a joke.  

We got our asses handed to us in an ABB year.

You all need to have a serious reality check on the role Dean and the internet played in this election.

Republicans have figured out that people DO NOT vote with their intellects, but with their hearts.  They care about moral values, and as long as Republicans (appear) do a better job of meeting that, Democrats will continue to lose.

The trend in this country is AWAY from Enlightenment-era rationalism and towards a Pietist feelings-based perspective.  Media Matters is a great site, and for an Enlightenment-era rationalist such as myself, it is a godsend.  But most people do not think that way.  If they did, then this country would not be losing its edge in science to other nationa--and Democrats would be winners today.

Republicans are no more "moral" than Democrats, and are probably, genuinely, less so (at least according to Jesus's Sermon on the Mount) but people perceive them to be, because Democrats have done little to take the moral high ground (in marketing, particularly).  The average person here in the South thinks that Democrats are godless liberals out to destroy this country's morality.  It is not true, of course (I would argue that it is REPUBLICANS who are doing that), but that is what people feel.

OK, you say, I'm OK with electing them, just not allowing them in positions of leadership.  That's the road to having more Zell Millers, or just having them as one-termers.  

Daschle was a great leader because he could keep the caucus together - keep Paul Wellstone and John Breaux on the same page.  That really is leadership.  I'm sorry he wasn't enough of an ideologue for some people here, but coming from a red state gave him a certain perspective that I find sorely lacking on these boards.  

Go ahead, take Howard Dean, whose attempt at outreach to the South involved invoking hillbilly stereotypes.  What a great idea!

It's just that we disagree on both the means and the ends; but we don't need to condescend to them as if we were all-wise, or that their faith was a silly appendage, getting in the way of the 'real-world'.  We ought, rather, to find a way to find commonground with the, including over social justice issues, while respecting (and even recognizing the validity of) their faith.  

The Clintons claimed they wanted abortion to be "safe, legal, and rare" yet did little to work on the rarity--that would be a common ground effort, for many prolife folks could share in that effort.  Again, on abortion, the consistent rejection of pro-life democrats at the national convention makes a mockery of our claims to openmindedness; we ought not continue that sort of organizational behavior.  

Especially with Catholic voters, there is so much common ground on social justice issues; we need to respect and work with them to bring them back to the fold.

BC

That WILL happen, unless Democrats do something to reach those voters.  That does not mean adopting the underhanded, often racist strategies of Republicans.   Rather, it means making the strong case that Democratic party is the party of moral values and that Republicans might seem to be but are not.  They are wolves in sheep's clothing.

Not only is Dean anathema to most of the existing big donor base (which we will be at great pains to hold onto, given the pressure the GOP will put on them not to donate at all to us) but to a lot of the small donors, like myself, who still admire the guy but resent how his campaign mishandled our donations last winter.

Plus the media has already made him a figure of national ridicule for most Americans, like it or not. Making him chair sends them the message that the Democratic Party is in fact what they are told by the Republicans it is -- angry, arrogant, out of the cultural mainstream.

A much better choice would be someone like Mark Warner of VA who has proven he can speak to the mainstream and run a large organization or better yet, someone like Wesley Clark who brings a bit of star power to a position that will be our most prominent spokesman (since we control no part of the government).