A Bit of Deconstructing the Democrats in Election '04

Peter Schramm had two informative posts yesterday on No Left Turns.

First, a post that sites both the Wall Street Journal and Patrick Ruffini (a blogger who ran the Bush-Cheney'04 website). There are a lot of numbers and lot of percentages that may create blank stares, but Schramm gives a helpful overview, basically saying that turnout helped the President and there are less hidden Dems then the Dems like to believe ending with this Ruffini quote:

Political scientists are going to have rewrite the book on this one. Broken glass Republicans outnumbered broken glass Democrats - despite everything the media establishment held sacred and holy about this election. There is no hidden, nonvoting Democratic majority. There is no cap on the number of people willing to vote Republican. GOP mobilization efforts work just as well with high turnout. Next time you see a long line at the polls, smile.

Second, Schramm comments on a Washington Post article that proposes to set up Colorado as a model for the whole country as a way to secure a Democratic Victory in '08.

"The notion that moral issues won the 2004 election was disproven in Colorado," [Democratic Chairman Christopher]Gates continued. "We offered solutions, not ideology, and won almost everything." Well, maybe this will work, maybe it won't. But it is worth keeping on eye on because Salazar did (by and large) run as a moderate, and the GOP in Colorado does seem to be in dissaray.

The GOP Colorado may be in dissaray, I am in not position to know. But the GOP everywhere else seems pretty well organized, especially as it relates to getting out the vote (as evidenced by the other post above). Additionally, I don't know that the Democrats are generally known for offering solutions - or at least, respectable solutions. It is of course well know that Senator Kerry had a lot of plans, but were any of those plans actual solutions?

As to the question of running a moderate - yes, that worked for Salazar in Colorado and it seemed to almost work for Brad Carson in Oklahoma. [And I think it would have worked for Daschle if he were actually a moderate]. But what are the chances of the Democrats selecting a moderate candidate through the Primary process? They're not good. Colorado is an interesting situation, but I'm not yet convinced that the Democrats can use it to create a national model - at least not successfully and not with their current base of liberal voters.