Since 1992, the Democrats have seen a pretty steady decline in their status in the American political system. They lost seats in the house of representatives, the senate, state governorships, and state assemblies.
In 2000 they narrowly lost the white house as well. And since 2000, things have become dramatically worse for the Democrats with them being a minority party in every sense? What the hell happened?
James Carville, a Democratic advisor to Kerry and Clinton put it succinctly on Meet the Press last week. Simpy put, the Democrats need to stop being the party that manages problems and instead be a party that puts forth real world solutions. Identify a problem in society, a specific problem, and look for a way to fix it. Americans are a nation of fixers. We like problem solvers. We don't like whiners. And the Democrats have increasingly become identified as the party of whiners.
As Carville (and Bush ironically) put it, a littany of complaints isn't a plan. Indeed, whether it be the private sector or the public sector, conservatives and thereby Republicans are associated with people who are looking to solve specific problems. You may not agree with their goals but you have to agree that they are trying to solve problems.
Entrepreneurs are over-OVERwhelmingly conservatives. Go to an Entrepreneur of the Year banquet and try to find a Democrat. Good luck. Some people, let's call them..dumb people.. think that Entrepreneurs are Republcans because they are greedy. No. You'll find that most Entrepreneurs were conservative long before they were rich. Just as many Democrats are Democrats regardless of their wealth and status, most Republicans started out conservative as well. The successful entrepreneurs I've met have almost universally been conservative Republican in nature since their youth.
Most successful people have one thing in common: They are DO-ers. They don't just come up with an interesting idea. They take their ideas and try to make them into a reality.
Once upon a time, this was not the exclusive domain of conservative Republicans. The New Deal, hardly a conservative Republican concept, was the fulfillment of a specific plan to solve specific problems. The "Great Society", which has arguably failed, was at least a specific attempt to solve a specific set of problems.
Democrats at the problems of our country and put forth specific solutions. Specific, realistic, solutions.
Kerry put forth few. Anyone with even a basic understanding of the health care industry knew that the "import drugs from Canada" plan was a joke. That's not a solution. That's just pandering. (Americans subsidize Canada's drugs, if we started buying all our drugs from Canada, a nation whose population total is less than that of California you can bet the prices would quickly go way up).
And after the failures of the Great Society, Americans are wary of gigantic, vaguely defined projects that have few metrics for success.
War on Terror. Whether you agree with Bush's strategy for the war on terror, at least it's a specific plan. For the past quarter century militant Islam has been creating terrorists that kill people indiscriminately. There is a corolation between terrorist creation and the oppressiveness of the regimes. The "Neo-Con" solution is straight forward - try to spread democracy and freedom in the middle east. First by getting rid of the Taliban. Next by getting rid of Saddam and then putting pressure on Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Egypt, etc. You may quibble with the execution of that plan (or if you're really arrogant you'll try to tell those of us who are pushing for this plan that we're really out for oil or some other asinine idiocy). But it's a plan trying to solve specific things.
Education? Conservatives think the public schools in the US are pretty awful. Solution? Put federally mandated testing on them to measure their effectiveness. Those that fail get some help but if they keep failing, the kids can go elsewhere. Conservatives also support school vouchers to help kids go to "better" schools. Democrats respond by bitching that the programs aren't funded enough or that there are flaws in the program. Fine, what's your idea? None. The Democrats had 40 years to fix education and they did nothing but throw more money at the flawed system instead of trying to fix it.
Social Security? Democrats demonize everyone who tries to do anything to fix it. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that when the baby boomers retire there will not be enough working people to pay for those who are receiving social security. The Democratic solution? Nothing. Republicans have proposed lots of specific ideas - raise the retirement age dramatically, cut benefits, etc. But they get nailed by Democrats on all those things. The latest specific plan is to try to ween people off of the current social secuirty plan by letting people invest in private savings accounts. Democrats complain that this will be too costly. Complaining isn't a plan. Where is the Democrat's plan?
Health Care. We already talked about the Democrat's sad pandering of "Canadian drug imports". That's not a plan. Moreover, Kerry's other health care plan wasn't a real plan either. It was just warm fuzzy talk. It was far too open ended (first, it assumed wrongly that companies wouldn't just drop coverage as soon as the government started providing health care for the uninsured). Bush's plan is modest. But at least it's a workable plan. Use the IRA system to create health savings accounts. Let people put money in those accounts to use later if they need it.
Fiscal Responsibility. This is the one that really bugs me. Bush's plan is to attempt to control spending and hope that the economy outpaces growth so that the deficit will be reduced/eliminated eventually. I don't agree with this plan at all. On the other hand, I recognize the political expedience of this. We already saw the Pell grant tirade in which a decrease in the rate of increase of spending is considered a "cut". So you can't even slow down the rate of spending increases without liberals going into a frenzy. But still, I would prefer that the government try to have a cross-the-board slow down in spending increases until the deficit is eliminated and start paying down the debt.
But even though I disagree with Bush, I recognize his plan. Democrats, by contrast, don't seem to have a plan at all. It's all based on an ignorance of how our government is funded. Raise taxes (roll-back) on the wealthy? That would barely make a dent in short-term tax revenues and could slow down economic growth. And when you really get into trying to have fiscal sanity, the Democrats start screaming bloody murder if you start to talk about cutting anything at all. If you want to have fiscal responsibility you have to cut spending more than raise taxes (taxes are already about as high as they're going to get before it creates economic disincentives for those who actually make the money).
And Democrats don't want to give an inch anywhere. If merely slowing down the rate of increase that Pell grants get triggers hate-filled articles, you can imagine the response of Democrats if one were to suggest slowing the rate of spending increases for Medicare, the EPA, the Department of Education, and other "entitlement" programs.
Democrats need to come to the table with a specific, reasoned plan on how to achieve these goals.
Ultimately..the Democrats are losing because they are seen as the party of whiners. The party of children who sit back and cry about everything the adults are having to do. They don't like this, they don't like that, action X is unfair, action Y is cruel. And when Republicans get flabbergasted and say "Fine, what do you suggest?" We get "I would do everything different!" -- without specifics.
The Democrats need to quit worrying about managing problems so much and start trying to solve problems. They need to come to the table with a set of plans that are understandable by the majority of Americans. Focus on "little things" if necessary but at least come up with something. Show that you're ready to be serious players at governing and the people make let you back in.