Democrats are starting to get it

Retaking either the House or the Senate in 2004 is highly unlikely, but the Dem leadership appears to be taking steps pushing the party in the right direction.

Still, (DSCC chair) Corzine and (DCCC chair) Matsui remain optimistic. The 2002 elections were a wake-up call, and they say the party needs to reach out to new donors, including the business community, sharpen its message on issues such as the economy, energize its base of women, labor and minorities, and even borrow a few pages from the Republicans' campaign playbook. The two men are certain that more voters agree with the Democrats on issues; the party just need to do a better job articulating and promoting its message. By starting to talk about issues and strategy early in the cycle, both men are hoping to defy the conventional predictions that Republicans will control Congress for some time to come.

Talk of aggressively seeking donations from businesses can be alarming if done in the Lieberman mode (selling out to the accounting industry). However, a persuasive case can be made that Democratic administrations have been far more conducive to business than the economic messes wrought by their good friends on the Right.

Corporate tax cuts are pretty useless if businesses are being driven to bankruptcy. Or if millions of consumers are too unemployed to buy anything.

But the key to this entire article, and something we discussed in great depth here at dKos following the election night debacle last year (like this entry), is this:

Similarly, Matsui says House Democrats must be more proactive and aggressive. "What we're going to have to do is develop our theme and who we stand for and what we stand for as a party," he says.

The first step is the message. The second will be to have every Democrat repeat that message over and over and over again until it seeps into the public's consciousness the same way Bush's b.s. "compassionate conservative" did.

At the end of the day, the GOP understands human psychology far better than Democrats. We need to play from the same handbook.

Posted March 05, 2003 01:37 PM | Comments (37)