Centerfield

I have some issues with it.

"When the Goldwater Republicans lost in 1964, they didn't try to become Democrats."

This is totally wrong. The main breakthrough of the Goldwater campaign was to win over Southern Democrats. The Republican Party of today is now dominated by the southern, formerly Democrat wing.

This blindness is the result of Democrats thinking that only liberal Democrats are real Democrats. But in the glory days between 1932 and 1968, southern segregationist Democrats were a critical part of the coalition.

Winning over the Dixiecrats doesn't mean that the R's tried to become D's. It means that some D's became R's, not because the R's changed their platform, but because the R's presented better it to a wing of the D's that was ripe for conversion.

WHQ

I don't agree. With Goldwater, and subsequently with Nixon, the GOP made a change in substance, not just presentation, to become the party less supportive of civil rights than it had been in the past. In other words, the Republican Party didn't just accept Democrats in, it was transformed by them. The current religious right so influential in the Republican Party is made up of this constituency.

My point is that I don't think the Democrats can become a majority party again unless it converts some element of the current Republican coalition, and embraces their interests. My candidate for conversion is the business-oriented moderates of the Christie Whitman stripe. But I've spoken to Christie Whitman personally about this, and she won't come into a Democratic Party as its currently constituted.

I see your point, but I still wouldn't say that the quote "When the Goldwater Republicans lost in 1964, they didn't try to become Democrats." is "totally wrong" either. I may have overstated that there was no change in platform, but strictly in presentation. You're right. They did move a bit, but not in a way that I think could be characterized as trying to become Democrats.

I agree completely with you about the current incarnation of the GOP, though I would say that it is something that grew over time and doesn't represent a strategic change meant to address the '64 defeat.

I also agree with you about the Democrats current plight. I think it's going to take some time for them to figure out who they really are or who they should be.

Little point in quibbling over the finer points of the post-Goldwater GOP revolution. Whatever they did worked.

Here's Bradley's most important insight:
There is no clearly identifiable funding base for Democratic policy organizations, and in the frantic campaign rush there is no time for patient, long-term development of new ideas or of new ways to sell old ideas.

IMO, there are precious few good strategies for overcoming this. If the democrats want to model the GOP and establish a broad and reliable funding base to develop long term startegies, how do they do it?

At first, i didn't see anything. I think the long-term trend in diminishment of union power makes them a bad horse to bet on. The various fractious interest groups are the ones that lend themsleves to the inverted pyramid, so I don't expect them to be the answer.

But upon reflection, I think moderate libertarians are the way to go. It'll never happen of course. But the natural counter to the ideologically rabid "culture of life" (which, let's face it, at its most rabid wants to substitute its certain judgement for yours) is the culture of liberty and freedom of individual choice.

I tend to think that he undersold their funding base, just a bit. D's like to say that they can't raise the money that R's can, and to some extent they are correct, but with all of the money George Soros dumped in last year can they still make that argument? Now, whether or not he will continue to do it, that remains to be seen.

Another point about money....money follows power. If the D's were to regain control of the House and come within striking distance of the Senate in 2006, you'd see a switch in corporate donations. Money follows power.

To pick up on a catch phrase Brian sarcastically mentioned..."culture of life." I put that in the category of "lockboxes" and "bridges to the 21st century". First of all, it's been used way to much. Secondly, it's bogus. I'm going to sound like a rabid liberal here for a sec....lol....but if Tom DeLay was feeding the homeless every Saturday, handing out lunches to school children, funding DNA programs to ensure that no one on death row is innocent.....maybe, just maybe, I'd buy into the "culture of life."

As far as slogans go, I kind of see the D's as the stagnant pond, and the religious right of the R's as the bridge to the 17th century. I'm just waiting on Oliver Cromwell to cross the pond.

My point is that I don't think the Democrats can become a majority party again unless it converts some element of the current Republican coalition, and embraces their interests. My candidate for conversion is the business-oriented moderates of the Christie Whitman stripe. But I've spoken to Christie Whitman personally about this, and she won't come into a Democratic Party as its currently constituted.

Hmmm. This is a bit disturbing if I read this correctly. Is it better that a moderate be in the Democratic Party? Are the two parties unwittingly fitting over the few moderates. Isn't it better for centrism to "grow" the number of moderates in each party?

The GOP captured the Southern Dems by shifting....

The Dems chased the Southern Dems out by shifting....

Chicken. Egg.

Egg. Chicken.

Either way, omelet. Both the 1964 and 1968 Civil Rights Acts passed with a higher percentage of GOP votes than Dem votes. The Dems shifted sharply left during the first Nixon admin, the Blue Dawgs jumped ship, and the GOP eventually got title to the Wallace Wing. That was a big darn block of voters. If the Dems want to get back on stage, they're gonna need more stagehands.

Right, Tully. And they are going to need someone else than Bradley to start the process. His editorial was all about style and not about substance.

The first thing that the Dems need is a good idea.

This Congress, unfortunately, has been a show of Dems-against-ideas. Have the Dems given up trying to win the hearts and minds of Americans?

My other point would be that those new stagehands aren't just going to appear out of nowhere. Nor are they going to appear on the left. The only hunting grounds are the middle and the right. In classic marketing terms, they need to change the pitch and/or change the product. Fine-tuning the pitch doesn't seem to have worked very well. That kinda limits the options.

So far they seem to hoping that the competition's product gets bad enough to alienate customers that they can then pick off. Not exactly pro-active. It leaves your "sales" strategy totally in the hands of the competition.