IF we lose, watch the blame game tomorrow

It's already starting. Carville was on CNN talking about how the Democrats need to figure out how to win the rural vote. True, but I think I'm hearing "let's go more conservative" in that comment, and that troubles me.

Kerry is not having problems because he's perceived as too liberal. He IS very liberal, but that monicker never stuck. Kerry's biggest negative was being perceived as wishy-washy. While George Bush is conservative as hell, people liked that they knew where he stood on issues (or at least perceived that they knew). This is something I've been arguing since Gore lost in 2000. Namely, that Dems lose not because of what they believe in, but rather, because of the perception that they don't strongly believe in ANYTHING. That's what happened in 2000 with Gore, and I think that's our problem tonight, win or lose. (And note, that the same bs about the party needing to move towards the middle was talked about after we lost in 2000 - again, failing to realize that wasn't the problem.)

And the biggest danger we face as a party is our "leaders" totally misinterpreting the election results. There will be calls to move more to the middle, get more conservative, become more like the Republicans in order to win more votes. But, of course, that shifting of position, trying to portray ourselves as someone other than who we are, will again make us look waffly and weak because we won't be truly standing for our convictions. Rather, we'll be shifting with the wind.

In the end, most of the American people don't care WHAT you believe. Sure, they don't want you to be a communist or a terrorist, but short of being that kind of a wacko, it really doesn't matter if you're conservative or liberal. They want you to be likeable and to believe strongly in something. That's it. Our problem as a party and a movement isn't that we believe in the wrong thing, it's that we don't know what believe in - or rather, we're afraid to believe in anything or to be perceived as believing in anything.

And until this party grows a set of balls and gives as good as it gets, it's going to continue to struggle. The worst thing we can do is to wake up tomorrow and decide that we need to change our message while keeping the same wimpy messengers in charge of the party. It just doesn't matter if you're a liberal-dem waffler or a conservative-dem waffler. If all you change is the message and not the messenger, nothing is going to change.

That's it for now. Tomorrow we'll talk about how, if Bush truly wins, we're going to immortalize Mary Cheney as the biggest gay Benedict Arnold in the history of homosexuality. I hope she's proud of herself. It looks like her and her father's and her president's gay-baiting may have cost us the election.