In The Nation's current profile of "The Beat Bush Brigades," you sense the visionary agenda from the start: restoring protectionist tariffs so laid-off U.S. steelworkers can get their jobs back.

The informative piece goes on to discuss the Democratic Party's "withered apparatus" and consequent emergence of a "shadow party" of (Section 527) "independent" political groups funded by environmentalists, trial lawyers, labor, abortion advocates, and the NAACP (among others).

Meanwhile, less overtly political non-profit and community groups are organizing voter registration and education drives to boost turnout for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry and down-ticket Ds. For instance, Women's Action for New Directions is reaching out to local organizations that pushed symbolic "Cities For Peace" anti-Iraq War resolutions on local governments.

Why not also target the principled activists who got the Seattle City Council to pass a resolution against a nuclear submarine from a nearby Navy base participating in our annual Seafair flotilla? Or the sages who almost got our council to ban circuses with elephants from city-owned venues because of alleged cruelty to the critters by their trainers?

The whole approach is just brilliant. Utterly brilliant. Bring together all the overwrought doomsayers and trivial nibblers. All those who react and oppose; who complain, blame, fret and fear. Those whose rallying cries now run the full gamut, from "Anyone But Bush" clear over to "Impeach Bush" and "Bush Sucks."

No wonder Democrats have lost mindshare across a huge swath of the country.

The 2002 election results were a wake-up call for progressives. It was no surprise that Democrats had been outspent, but what was surprising was the level of coordination between Republican media and grassroots initiatives and the strength of the GOP's get-out-the-vote push....Those 2000 maps that showed so many states colored red for Bush were starting to look less like anomalies and more like a fate Democrats would have to resign themselves to.

The party apparatus has withered in much of the nation. Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic National Committee chair, promised a "rural initiative" to move resources and staff into states such as North Dakota and Montana, but the money never really flowed. You can now drive for hundreds of miles across the Western United States without touching a county where the party has a viable local organization.

...One of the biggest challenges involves the delivery of a coherent message. "During the primaries, the issue for a lot of Democrats was 'Who can beat Bush?' Now, the message has to evolve," explains former Congressman Jim Jontz, who runs the "Regime Change" campaign of Americans for Democratic Action....And there remains the very serious question of whether the infrastructure is in place to turn passion into practical politicking....

Other strategists fret about whether too much money is going to television and too little to the grassroots, and about whether outreach to young nonvoters and other traditionally disengaged groups is striking the right chords.

Give The Nation some credit for laying it out. Bush and Republicans stand for unified core values. (Examples I'd give include an agressive national defense and foreign policy; economic stimuli; and high expectations in public schools). And the GOP has built a muscular national grassroots network. Meanwhile, the potential Democratic base remains fragmented and badly out-of-tune with flyover country.

Maybe that will change by November, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at April 23, 2004 10:24 AM

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