Posted on 12/10/2004 5:41:19 PM PST by anniegetyourgun
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - Lose the brainy Washington-speak. Expand the playing field to states President Bush captured. Baby-sit for moms who want to get involved in politics. Democratic activists, gathering for the first time after last month's election losses, offered plenty of ideas for how the party can get back to its winning ways.
Discouraged after two defeats in the presidential election and losses in high-profile Senate races, state party chairmen and other Democratic leaders who gathered here Friday largely agreed that they failed to reach the hearts and minds of Americans.
There was no shortage of advice on how to win them over.
Nancy Jane Woodside, vice chairwoman of the Utah Democratic Party, said Democrats have to change their habit of "laundry listing" the country's problems and come up with solutions that can be easily explained.
Woodside noted that Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry was always telling people to visit his Web site to read about his plans, something only the intellectual elite will do, not voters glued to the television waiting to hear answers.
"I'm sick of it," she said. "Tell me what you are going to do. Democratic Party, what are you going to do? I don't want the laundry hung out any more."
That criticism came from an activist who has known Kerry since the days when they both opposed the Vietnam War. Woodside also said she wished Kerry would have campaigned a little in her home state of Utah where she likely would have pulled him aside.
"I would have been able to teach him how to talk to people outside of that Beltway language he's used to," she said of the four-term Massachusetts senator.
That was one of the general complaints from many of the Democrats in attendance. The majority were from states that weren't even a factor in the presidential race as most of the party's resources were funneled into fewer than 20 states where Kerry thought he had the best chance of winning.
"The party has to be broader than the East Coast, the West Coast and around the Great Lakes," said former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, one of at least seven candidates considering a bid for party chairman.
Webb's home state of Colorado has voted Republican in recent elections and went for Bush again this year despite a push by Kerry. But Democrats won a Senate seat, a congressional seat and regained control of both houses in the state legislature and need to keep reaching for victory there, Webb said.
Mark Brewer, chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party, noted that many governors were elected in states where Bush won re-election. But he argued that the party is driven by Washington and outside voices are not heard.
"Clearly Democrats know how to win red states," Brewer said. "We need to learn how to win from them."
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a 38-year-old who was just elected to Congress from southern Florida, said plenty of young women would get into politics, but the party needs to be more welcoming. She suggested that the party pay for baby-sitting at meetings so more moms would come.
"You all know young people in your community and you all know that you aren't doing enough to replace yourself when you are too old and tired to keep going," she told a meeting of the DNC's executive committee.
On Saturday, potential candidates for DNC chairman will introduce themselves to the state party chairs - the largest bloc of voters that will choose a new leader in February.
Potential candidates are Webb; former presidential candidate Howard Dean; former Michigan Gov. Jim Blanchard; defeated Rep. Martin Frost of Texas; political strategist Donnie Fowler; Simon Rosenberg, founder and president of the centrist New Democrat Network; and former Clinton adviser Harold Ickes.
New York businessman Leo Hindery Jr., withdrew from the race Friday.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, who is not seeking another term, said the party could have done a better job of reaching out to specific voters. Republicans were far more effective, he said.
While Kerry and the Democrats were trying to reach swing voters with broad messages about the economy, for example, Bush's team was reaching swing voters and traditional Democratic voters with more tailored messages.
Fliers distributed to black churchgoers said Kerry wanted to give gay couples the same rights as married couples. Mailings to middle-aged women argued that Bush would protect their families against terrorism. Older Hispanics heard about Kerry's opposition to a ban on late-term abortions, and male union members heard about Bush's support of gun rights.
These are techniques that the Democrats will use over the next four years, McAuliffe said, as they try to recapture voters who live in rural areas and the South as well as churchgoers.
"But for a shift of 60,000 votes in the state of Ohio, John Kerry would be inaugurated on January 20," he added.
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Now, that's a laugh. I think we've all heard his Thurston Howell voice from the early seventies, when she knew him, and he's never known how to speak like a real person.
No, just kidding. The way for the Dems to start winning is run Republican candidates:)
Clueless
They are so lost into their subculture of fantasy and subterfuge that they just know if they could take the rest of us by the hand and explain their ideas very slowly and carefully we would see the light and give up our vote to them. I really think we're seeing the extinction of a major party!! Better that than the decline of this great country.
Yeah, but with that ass and thighs of hers, she could probably kick-start that 767.............FRegards
Im still not convinced 'ol Nedra isnt some kind of generic byline. Last summer, it seemed that every single AP article I read had that name on it. Whatever she/he/it is, the kneepads moniker is spot on..
That's why the Democrats lost. They didn't pay for enough baby-sitters.
Hillary's on to that one.
Yeah, but it could never fly if she hung on! How you doing, gonxo? Dear God, it's good to see an Aldheimers oldtimer around here.:D
What talent!
I thought this was Democratic's expertise? Tailoring messages to gays, blacks, feminists, atheists, and elitists?
They can't run to the center because their entire ideology is hard-left. I think that if Bush's second term is successful economically and in the WOT, more whites, hispanics, and even Asians will abandon the RATS in the blue states.
They just can't accept the fact that the majority of Americans aren't buying what they are selling.
LOL!
Ahh, the Howard Dean agenda: Pro abortion. Too dumb to reproduce. Metro-sexual? Gay?
Their problem is serious.
If they really want to win, perhaps they should consider becoming Republicans.
They can't answer those questions honestly.
"So the Dems plan for the future is to scream louder?"
It always comes to that regardless of their tactical plans.
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