This is some of the most inept analysis I have seen in weeks.
Trippi is basically saying that the democrat party must be more like Howard Dean - pandering to hate America leftists, brainwashed and drugged out college kids, radical street level activists, and out of touch Northeastern liberals.
Well, I can tell you that if you thought Kerry got creamed, Howard Dean would have been a total massacre. It was not an act when the GOP were salivating over the possibility that Dean might have won. Dean was the guy who openly championed gay marraige and made the primary veer hard left.
Kerry did pander to his base and pretty had it locked up. They do go out and vote. What the democrats lost is jsut about any swing vote out there. It allied itself with Micheal Moore and the hate-America rich in Hollywood. It allied itself with social radicals pushing bad values that America rejected. It offered surrender and appeasement instead of hope, leadership, and strength.
I could go on and on, but the democrats lost because their base is out of touch with America and they ran on it. I hope they take his advice. Many of my GOP associates/friends say they are not sure the democrats would learn after this election. After reading this, I am pretty sure of that.
I have never agreed with this idea. Both Gore and Kerry were, and are, awkward, unattractive, spoiled, lefty, loons, the endless fraudulent puffery both received from the ratmedia notwithstanding. I have a theory that, at least on the Democratic side, it matters less who the Presidential candidate actually is. The Democratic turnout machine will "switch on" for anyone as long as the requisite pile of money is available.
Furthermore, I think that base Democratic voters simply don't care as much as Republicans who is representing their Party. So much of the appeal is grounded in a hatred and distrust of Republicans that it just doesn't matter anymore. It's almost as if Democrats are practicing parliamentary government, where you vote for the party and not the man.
So Democrats will accept poor campaigning, poor communication, lies, randy sexual behavior (Bill Clinton) and even outright illegal activities (Bill Clinton) that would sink a Republican with his base.
'You Must Admit You Are a Victim'
This item is a bit old--posted Nov. 7, the Sunday after the election--but it's just come to our attention, and it's so zany it seemed worthy of our attention. It appears on the blog of Mathew Gross, who worked as director of Internet communications for Howard Dean's campaign, but it's written by one Mel Gilles, "who has worked for many years as an advocate for victims of domestic abuse," and who "draws some parallels between her work and the reaction of many Democrats to the election":
Watch Dan Rather apologize for not getting his facts straight, humiliated before the eyes of America, voluntarily undermining his credibility and career of over thirty years. Observe Donna Brazille [sic] squirm as she is ridiculed by Bay Buchanan, and pronounced irrelevant and nearly non-existent. Listen as Donna and Nancy Pelosi and Senator Charles Schumer take to the airwaves saying that they have to go back to the drawing board and learn from their mistakes and try to be better, more likable, more appealing, have a stronger message, speak to morality. Watch them awkwardly quote the bible, trying to speak the new language of America. Surf the blogs, and read the comments of dismayed, discombobulated, confused individuals trying to figure out what they did wrong. Hear the cacophony of voices, crying out, "Why did they beat me?"
And then ask anyone who has ever worked in a domestic violence shelter if they have heard this before.
They will tell you, every single day.
The answer is quite simple. They beat us because they are abusers. We can call it hate. We can call it fear. We can say it is unfair. But we are looped into the cycle of violence, and we need to start calling the dominating side what they are: abusive. And we need to recognize that we are the victims of verbal, mental, and even, in the case of Iraq, physical violence.
Democratic politicians and operatives (in whose ranks Gilles tellingly includes Dan Rather) are a battered wife, so presumably their Republican counterparts are her abusive husband. Putting aside the self-righteousness and self-pity, pretty standard fare for Democrats after this election, this analogy is simply bizarre. After all, competing political parties, unlike married couples, are supposed to have an adversarial relationship; the goal in an election is to beat the other side.
Gilles offers this advice to Dems on "how to break free":
First, you must admit you are a victim. Then, you must declare the state of affairs unacceptable. Next, you must promise to protect yourself and everyone around you that is being victimized. You don't do this by responding to their demands, or becoming more like them, or engaging in logical conversation, or trying to persuade them that you are right. You also don't do this by going catatonic and resigned, by closing up your ears and eyes and covering your head and submitting to the blows, figuring its [sic] over faster and hurts less is [sic] you don't resist and fight back.
Instead, you walk away. You find other folks like yourself, 56 million of them, who are hurting, broken, and beating themselves up. You tell them what you've learned, and that you aren't going to take it anymore. You stand tall, with 56 million people at your side and behind you, and you look right into the eyes of the abuser and you tell him to go to hell. Then you walk out the door, taking the kids and gays and minorities with you, and you start a new life. The new life is hard. But it's better than the abuse.
"Walk out the door" and "start a new life" may be good advice for a woman in a bad marriage that has become intolerable, but as a political program it's simply incomprehensible. Presumably the Democrats would like to start winning elections again, and we're not sure we have any better ideas as to how they can do so. But adopting a pose of perpetual grievance does not strike us as a winning strategy.
-- BEST OF THE WEB TODAY, Dec. 1, 2004
So Joe Trippi announces his candidacy for head of the DNC. Not a bad choice, really.