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Mark Shields is a nationally known columnist and commentator. |
Democrats' melancholy trip
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 VIDEO |
 CNN's Bill Schneider on the perils of many second terms.
 CNN's Ed Henry on Republican House and Senate gains.
 CNN's Howard Kurtz on the political ad wars of 2004.
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WASHINGTON (Creators Syndicate) -- As you might have noticed, and been too kind to mention, my confident prediction of last week -- that on Jan. 20 John Kerry would give his first presidential inaugural address -- turned out to be 100 percent wrong.
I'll have a side order of crow with my humble pie, please. That's after I finish eating my hat. My congratulations to President Bush on his solid re-election victory.
Now our old friends, the Democrats, having lost an election that many in the party fully expected to win, have begun their melancholy trip through the four States of Defeat.
The First Stage: Blame the Candidate. Like clockwork, both leaders and followers of the losing party reflexively blame the defeat on their own losing candidate, the same man whose buttons and bumper stickers they proudly wore and for whom they voted.
Think about recent presidential elections. How did the Democrats explain their 2000 loss? It was all Al Gore's fault. Just as Republicans in 1996 had put the party's defeat squarely at the feet of nominee Bob Dole. Earlier, losing Republicans in 1992 and losing Democrats in 1988 found fault, respectively, with President George Herbert Walker Bush and Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis.
Now it's John Kerry's unfair turn to be rebuked and reproached. The indictment is familiar: Kerry did not "connect" with voters; he was not likeable, and lacked humor and warmth. Eventually, losing party members tire of condemning the presidential candidate they in fact chose.
The Second Stage: Blame the Customer. Actually, the voters are the villains. Pick your character defect. Voters are too stupid or gullible or selfish or mean-spirited or lazy.
For members of any losing party, this is the most dangerous point on the political compass. In the United States, for the past 144 years, we have only had two major political parties.
Politics is a matter of addition, not subtraction. Writing off a majority of the electorate who voted against your candidate as ethically disabled, intellectually challenged or morally bankrupt all but guarantees continued minority status.
One 2004 variation of Blame the Customer can be heard from many well-heeled Democratic liberals who are perplexed by voters earning at or even below median income who vote Republican and choose to overlook that Bush's tax policies disproportionately benefit those at the highest income levels. How can these people, affluent liberals ask, vote for Bush and against their own economic self-interests?
Of course, the same people asking this question enthusiastically supported John Kerry, who solemnly pledged to repeal the Bush tax cuts for those earning more than $200,000 a year. This simply means that these affluent Democrats were voting against their own economic self interest.
People vote on values, not simply pocketbook. As respected Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart explained two weeks before the election: "The most interesting central group in 2004 is regular churchgoers. President Bush has done a brilliant job in terms of reaching out to people who go to church on a weekly basis -- a full 40 percent of all voters. We found Mr. Bush with a lopsided lead among these voters. Voters need an understanding of what a presidential candidate's inner core is."
So, too, do Democrats.
The Third Stage: Find the Gimmick. There must be some trick the other side is using that enables them to win. When Roosevelt won four White House terms, losing Republicans discovered that FDR's trick was his fireside chats on radio and that they simply had to find somebody as good on radio as Roosevelt.
Democrats offered a similar and equally delusional explanation for Ronald Reagan's back-to-back landslide victories. The Gipper was great on TV -- as if the answer to the Democrats' problems was to nominate a more issues-oriented Regis Philbin. In 2003, it wasn't the Internet, it was the antiwar message of Howard Dean that worked. It's the message, not the medium.
Finally, Stage Four: Get Me a Winner. No more litmus tests, no more ideological hurdles for the would-be nominee to jump. We will overlook philosophical soft spots or political missteps. We want to win the White House. Meet President Dwight Eisenhower and Bill Clinton.
Thanks to the 22nd Amendment, which limits presidents to two terms, George W. Bush has now run his last race. He will soon be a political lame duck. You may choose to look the other way, but the contest for both parties' 2008 nominations has already begun.
