Belisarius: The Democrats Didn’t Lose in this Election, They Won

[regnaD kciN]

An important article, which deserves consideration from the doom'n'gloomers.

No, it’s not just that Dems came within 3% of winning a very tough election. That alone is a very real and important accomplishment, but it’s not the key.

The real point is that if the Democrats are serious about the long-tem goal of building a broad and enduring democratic majority then getting 51% of the vote is not always the right test of a particular campaign’s success. Sometimes you have to lose an election to build the foundation for later victory.

Just ask the Conservative Republicans. They can recite you this lesson by heart. In every glowing account they write of their gradual rise to power they always point to Barry Goldwater’s unsuccessful 1964 campaign and Ronald Reagan’s 1976 bid for the Presidency (which did not get beyond the Republican primaries) as the pivotal campaigns that laid the foundations for all their subsequent victories.

And when you look at it from this point of view, the true scope, the genuinely impressive magnitude of the Democrats’ success this year can be expressed in a single sentence: In 2004 the Dems accomplished in 8 months what it took the Goldwater-Reagan conservative movement over a decade to achieve.

http://www.emergingdemocraticmajorityweblog.com/donkeyrising/archives/000926.php

[dorktv]

1. yep...and now we just need to refine the message and

repeat the moblilization.

[Born Free]

3. 1st priority is the eecltion processs itself

We need to assure the process is fair and open and has proper methods for verifying the vote count.

[bullimiami]

2. every opinion is flawed

in the light of the overwhelming fraud of this election. maybe it wasnt just the presidential race stolen. maybe a lot of these house, senate whatever races were corrupt too.

[Stew225]

4. bullimiami, you nailed it! In our effort to

glean the positives from this debacle, I'm afraid we will again be lulled into accepting the blatant perpetration of a robbery. Frankly, I admit that I don't know what to do about it. But I applaud your insight and hope that more people realize it.

[JaySherman]

5. "Sometimes you have to lose an election...

...to build the foundation for later victory."

Great. This makes 3 in a row we've lost ('00, '02, '04). How many more do we have to lose before the "foundation" is laid?!

:shrug:

[Gin]

6. by 2008 EVERYEBODY will want to be a Democrat...mark my words.

g