Well, they can't blame Ralph Nader this time.
On Tuesday the Democratic Party miserably failed its truest
believers for the third consecutive election. It's the second
consecutive Presidential election where the party had a gift-wrapped
opportunity to defeat an inferior Republican candidate ...
and couldn't do it.
Let's put the blame where it belongs. There's plenty to choose
among: weathervane party Chairman Terry McAuliffe. The legions
of soulless and grossly incompetent Democratic pollsters. The
free-spending, formulaic and uninspired communications of wealthy
media consultant (and perennial loser) Bob Shrum & Co.
The runup to last week's election reminded me of nothing so
much as Paul Wellstone's 1990 upset victory in Minnesota. Not
since then had I experienced so many citizens so absolutely
determined to do whatever they could to effect change.
Democrats, ask yourselves this:
Where would the Kerry campaign and the Democratic Party have
been without the energizing influence of Howard Dean, his campaign
manager and Internet guru Joe Trippi, and their respective
organizations, Democracy for America and Change for America?
Where would the Kerry campaign and the Democratic Party have
been without the imaginative and truly exceptional efforts
of Wes Boyd, Eli Pariser and MoveOn.org?
Where would they have been without Michael Moore and George
Soros and Bruce Springsteen and Al Franken and Michael Stipe?
Where would they have been without Rock the Vote, Vote or Die,
Declare Yourself, and provocateurs like Chuck D., Russell Simmons
and, yes, even P. Diddy?
Where would they have been without Air America Radio and the
bloggers and grassroots groups like Operation Truth, Billionaires
for Bush and PunkVoter?
And where would they have been without the nearly $130 million
overall spending advantage the Democratic Party and Democratic-leaning
groups had over their Republican counterparts?
These groups, and many others -- not to mention countless individual
citizens -- did everything within their power to defeat George
W. Bush. They contributed their time, their money, their energy
and their talents. And yet, the Kerry campaign and the Democratic
Party simply didn't get the job done.
Look at the numbers: George W. Bush won a majority of the popular
vote on Tuesday by increasing his vote total in the 2000 election
by some 8 million. That's a tidy 17 percent increase in "market
share," if you will. John Kerry and the Democrats got
barely 1.5 million more votes than the combined Al Gore and
Ralph Nader (nearly all of whose 2000 supporters voted for
Kerry this year) vote total from 2000. After four years of
planning and unlimited funding, that's a puny "market
share" increase of not even 3 percent.
Karl Rove, Matthew
Dowd and Ralph Reed got their additional 4 to 5 million targeted
voters out. Why didn't the Democrats and their much-ballyhooed,
exceptionally well-funded America Coming Together organization
at least match that?
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth made themselves effective with
a scrawny initial $550,000 media buy. Why couldn't the
extremely well-capitalized Media Fund make a dime's worth
of difference
with nearly $50 million worth of their ads?
I'm nowhere near rich enough to pretend to know how rich
people think. Maybe dropping $26 million on an election
is no more
distressing to George Soros than losing a $20 bill.
But the Democratic Party has been getting away with this
for far too long. There is a lack of accountability
-- to funders,
to volunteers and, most of all, to their voters --
that is breathtakingly irresponsible.
The bottom line for this election is simple: Individual
citizens and independent groups, taking the burden
upon themselves,
did a superlative job of cultivating national dissatisfaction
with the president and his policies. But the Kerry
campaign and the Democratic Party could not provide
an acceptable
enough alternative. They could not close the deal
with America's swing
voters.
There are no more excuses for this Democratic Party.
It must change -- and change radically -- or it
should die.
Bill Hillsman is the author of " Run the Other Way: Fixing
the Two-Party System, One Campaign at a Time ." He
is the president and chief creative officer of
North Woods Advertising
in Minneapolis.
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