Why Did The Dems Lose?
Don't believe the "moral values" excuse.

BY JAY SOTO

Is it easy to explain the election? Some have made it too easy. Depending on your instincts and how much time you are given over to thinking, you can say that the electorate has moved to the right ,or that John Kerry flip-flopped his way out of the popular vote, or that Democrats were unable to appeal to the "moral values" of the majority active voters.

Thomas Friedman wrote in the New York Times that President Bush was re-elected by "people who disagree with him on what America should be." His evidence is that "Christian fundamentalists" have used their "religious energy to promote divisions and intolerance at home and abroad." Bla, bla, bla... STOP It!!!

These "excuses", are way off the mark. The nation did not suddenly undergo a rightward shift in 2004 any more than it had when it elected Ronald Reagan in 1980 and then re-elected him in 1984.

It's "party platform"; stupid!. The majority of Americans are "conservatively" stable, a fact that has been confirmed by virtually every voter. Yet political "scholars" would have you believe that it's anything but.

There is no doubt that John Kerry showed great skill at embracing contradictory positions, the "Clinton Tactic", and that fact made him unusually successful. (Remember that Clinton, was successful only after his move to center, and was not only more skillful than Kerry, Clinton was believable which explains his wins.) What was remarkable in this election is that one candidate, President Bush, never changed his delivery of the Republican's party platform. Which included where the majority of Americans really stand today.

People voted for the president for a host of reasons that pollsters have difficulty in

grasping in their own polls. All we seem to know very clearly is where they live. The red (Bush) counties are found not only in the South and the Midwest but in the interiors of California, Oregon and Washington, and in upstate New York and eastern Pennsylvania. The Blue (Kerry) counties are largely the site of big cities. Texas may be Bush country, but its southern counties went for Kerry.

To explain the vote requires us to examine the variety of factors that characterize the voting preferences of the great mass of moderate to conservative people one finds across America. No political scientist has done this and let's doubt that any mere journalist will ever do it either. I've attended lots of "scholarly" meetings where "professors" of our political process try to predict election outcomes with their limited understanding of the voter base. One problem is that they have only some very "narrow measures" on which to work, such as the state of the economy and standings in "polls" that are conducted by their own news outlets and that should be doubted at every turn.

I personally draw few lessons from the election and not very deep ones. One is that the profound liberal bias among many big-city newspapers and most TV stations did not determine the outcome, thou they TRIED. Even great Evan Thomas was wrong when he said that the left media would add 15 points to the Democrats' total, but may have been right when he later scaled down his projection to five points.

What is most impressive about this election has been the extraordinary success Democrats have had in getting "inactive" voters to the polls to vote against a party platform that has lost touch with its constituents.

The results are the Republican wins across America. The Democrats did not do a better job because of their "mixed-messages." Perhaps the media should just continue to assist them as they say that it was the "moral-issues" of their opponents rather than admit that it was a "fundamental" flaw in their delivery of a 60 year old "party-platform."

Keep looking back, at the '90s, as we continue to forge on. Don't change a thing, and we'll thank you for every win. You've got 40 years to work on the denial.