Liberals and true Conservatives everywhere, take heart: the turnout was still less than 60% of eligible voters. Even with a bare majority of 51.1%, only about 30% of all eligible voters chose Bush.
I can well believe that 30% of the American electorate is homophobic, in favor of school prayer, etc. That certainly doesn’t mean that the rest of us have to pander to them.
There’s no question that with their high-profile Gay Marriage referendums, the Republicans did a better job than the Dems of mobilizing their constituency. If state and local Dems had done the same around pocketbook issues, for example, perhaps that would have energized their base.
What we did learn from this election is that the old formula – tons of money, a war hero candidate, and lots of grass-roots volunteers – didn’t work for the Dems this time: close, but no cigar.
Reforming the primaries would be a good start for the Dems. They have GOT to recruit a new core, as the Republicans have been building over the last 20 years. The Reps found a ready constituency in the Evangelicals. The Dems should use their creativity to do the same.
Perhaps there’s lessons to be learned for the midterms, which I predict will be the Dems to lose once the voters wake up to the reality of Bush’s deficit and its impact on interest rates and “entitlements” like Social Security.
And who knows, maybe we’ll even be able to elect a Libertarian or two along the way.
Footnote: isn’t it interesting that the two states which suffered the most in terms of loss of life on 9/11 – New York and New Jersey – went for Kerry.