When the Democrats lose presidential elections they usually blame their candidate for not getting the message out. They also blame bovine voters too stupid to appreciate all that liberals have to offer. They certainly blame the eeevil Republican Machine for distorting the truth about Democrat policies. But they never admit they lost because their policies are too liberal.
Here is a sampling of the liberal post-mortem commentary after Kerry’s loss in 2004.
Salon sniffs.
Democrats Lost The Battle, Not The War – Only people suffering from historical amnesia could believe this election proves that liberalism is dead.
Slate’s arrogantly slams the idiot voters.
The Unteachable Ignorance of the Red States.
The election results reflect the decision of the right wing to cultivate and exploit ignorance in the citizenry. I suppose the good news is that 55 million Americans have evaded the ignorance-inducing machine. But 58 million have not.
And from those patriots at the Democratic Socialists of America.
Yes, the Democrats lost this election, but they did not lose it because they ran too far to the left.
~~~In the face of the 2004 results we find among Democratic Party leaders the same impulse to “move to the center” that permeated official reactions to the results in 2002.
Peter A. Brown, of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, specializes in polling of electoral battleground states. He contends that this year the Democrats face the acid test of liberalism in the person of Barack Obama.
Since Republican Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980, the only Democrat to win the White House has been Bill Clinton. But he was the rare Democratic nominee, and not just because he was victorious.
Mr. Clinton’s southern roots and willingness to challenge his own party’s philosophical orthodoxy may have made the difference on Election Day in 1992 and 1996. In any case, he followed a fundamentally different path than other Democratic nominees since 1980.
After the 1980, 1984, 1988, 2000 and 2004 elections, Democratic leaders argued that the American people had not rejected their ideas or governing philosophy. Instead, they said, their nominee had not effectively communicated the party’s core message. It wasn’t the American people rejecting those views and values, they contended.
The liberals have put their credibility and their future in the hands of the golden boy. If he can’t carry the day, they are screwed.
Nevertheless, it’s clear that if Sen. Barack Obama loses this November, Democrats will have to conclude that yes, in fact, their defeats are linked to their brand of politics, not their salesman’s communication skills.
Not only is the political playing field stacked in the Democrats’ favor — an unpopular war, an even less popular Republican president, and a slow and perhaps shrinking economy–but also their White House candidate is the extraordinary communicator in this race. Sen. Obama is clearly the most charismatic candidate and the best public speaker that the Democrats have offered in many decades. Some might say since John F. Kennedy; others might go further back.
~~~If Sen. Obama, in such a favorable political climate, can’t sell the party’s philosophical view of what government should do, it is very difficult to see how anyone else could succeed at the task.
Brown is spot on in everything but this conclusion.
Democrats will have to conclude that yes, in fact, their defeats are linked to their brand of politics, not their salesman’s communication skills.
No. It is a lead-pipe cinch that if the Democrats lose, they will not blame their anti-American policies, they will blame it on one thing, racism. You see, Barack Obama couldn’t possibly lose on substance. And if he can’t lose on substance, then it must be something entirely unrelated to his politics, and the only thing left is his race.
So on November 5, 2008 after Obama loses, Slate can simply revise its 2004 article: “The Unteachable Ignorance [and Racism] of the Red States.
Also find Bill Dupray at The Patriot Room