Face The Music

Yes, it is possible to see some silver lining in the Democratic Party debacle of Nov. 2. Young people increased turnout and African Americans remained a solid voting bloc – and of course the election was very close. But any pep talks about near success and future potential must share the stage with a very sobering reality, including a painful acceptance of what happened and why on Nov. 2 — and how we came to lose so crushingly.

Some people are already deep in that process of accepting the reality, while others are pretending and desperately cheerleading, as if it doesn't hurt deeply, as if it isn't truly frightening how impotent we feel in the face of the rejection of everything we believe, as if with a few tweaks we could have won, in this winner-take-all society.

For many, the experience is this: We did all we could, we had it all lined up, we had what we needed and still we lost. That is a shock to the system. We all need to take time to digest and not deny, for denial — or "wishful progressive politics" — is one of the fundamentals we have to examine as we move forward.

You've probably been inundated with e-mails and read a number of articles by smart, caring people. Some of them argue many theories of the "if only" variety — if only the candidate were more progressive, if only there weren't touch-screen voting machines, if only we could talk better to religious people, if only we had started earlier than we did.

But others, perhaps more savvy or realistic, know how difficult the challenge is, and aren't playing the "if only" game, aren't offering easy solutions, but rather are preparing us for the hard work ahead, knowing that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way we do politics. Tweaking the message, or a dose of election reform, or a candidate that is tougher on security or more populist on trade is not going to do it.

Success will come in the future only if we understand there is not one solution, but many, and one of those solutions is to stop thinking that if we just do exactly what we do — but more and better — then next time we'll win. We need to stop thinking that our ideas are superior, that facts will win elections, and that voters are rational in the way we want them to be. As clichéd as it sounds to say this, the world has changed, and in some cases, because of our privilege, we haven't had to. But finally, perhaps the rude reality may have sunk in.

It has been an article of faith for decades that under the right circumstances, i.e., with smart organizing and enough resources, the sleeping giant of non-voters — especially minority members — can be roused and mobilized to vote for Democratic candidates. The Republicans have far fewer voters to draw from in this deep reservoir. This was the theory in 1984, when there was a huge effort to reach minority voters, mostly funded by foundations, to expand the electorate and indirectly to stop Ronald Reagan from being re-elected. It backfired, as Republicans took the threat seriously, invested superior resources and actually registered more voters.

Pulling enough new and inactive voters was still the theory in 2004, when we heard impressive PowerPoint presentations about the number of voter contacts in targeted areas in Ohio that would make it easy to win the state. Wrong. The impressive effort of huge numbers of volunteers, voter registrations, hundreds of millions of dollars and, by American standards, high turnout led to great Democratic optimism. However, like in 1984, the Republicans got more voters to the polls – not that many more, but enough. They seem to be able to get enough.

Republican voters were motivated, in part, by state referenda seeking to ban gay marriages, by the abortion issue, by fear, and by the idea of being in a "war." It may be true that the Republicans are willing to make wars just to make sure they win elections. That tells me that unless progressives find ways to reach across and attract some of the Bush voters, instead of thinking we already have enough voters, the D's can look forward to losing again and again in national elections