What is to be done?

3 November 2004

“The fact that today we know more than yesterday is good news about today, not bad news about yesterday.” —Ilja Preuss

Both the Democrats and Republicans had strategies for winning the 2004 Presidential election. Yesterday, we did not know which strategy would be more effective. Today, we know.

If you, in the past couple of years, have donated your time or money to a Democratic organization (a primary campaign, the DNC, MoveOn, whatever), you were part of the Democratic strategy. Now is the time for us to figure out what we did wrong, and how to do better for the 2006 midterm elections and the 2008 Presidential campaign.

I have a few ideas along those lines, but for now I’ll just point to…

• bellatrys looking at the NH returns, township by township
• Alan Abramowitz reflecting on Kerry’s defeat in the South
• Mark Schmitt on how this election may contain “the seeds of a bigger long-term change”
• Todd Gitlin and Joshua Micah Marshall on “it’s the infrastructure, stupid”

• Later: My party is full of wimps
• Earlier: What we are up against