As I noted last evening, the Democratic Party --- both locally and on the national level --- will need to make time over the next year and do some hard looking into itself. Until we as a party work harder to define what we are and what we stand for, then communicate that in a way that is non-threatening to the majority of our fellow citizens in the heartland, we cannot truly claim ourselves as a national party.

All one has to do is look at the map from yesterday. The Democratic Party only took a handful of states, mainly in our traditional strongholds of New England, portions of the old "rust belt", and the West Coast. Illinois stood awfully alone in blue, surrounded by solid red. And it's really troubling that the entire southeastern United States was red, when not too many years prior it would have been a Democratic stronghold.

The Democratic Party is a wonderful smogarsboard of people, representing a virtual quilt of interests: War, a woman's right to choose, enviromential issues, worker's rights, social and economic justice...the list goes on. But over the past two decades, since the so-called "Reagan Revolution" that brought people like Trent Lott and Newt Gingrich to the forefront, our opponents have been successful in communicating their message to America: That the term "liberal" is somehow dirty and equivilent to being a traitor to our nation.

What we have to do is find a way to better communicate our message in a couple of ways:

Show that we are the PARTY OF TRUE RESPONSIBILITY. Find a way to discuss our issues and concerns in a way that is not as threatening to potential supporters in the Heartland. I agree with William Saletan in Slate when he says that this is not a class war going on in America now, it is a culture war.

Start by changing the way you talk about pocketbook issues. Remember Bill Clinton's commitment to help people who "work hard and play by the rules"? Your positions on taxes and labor would be assets instead of liabilities if you explained them in moral terms. The minimum wage rewards work. Repealing the estate tax helps rich people get richer without risk or effort. Lax corporate oversight allows big businesses to evade taxes, deceive small investors, and raid pension funds.
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Some of you are dismayed by the emergence of a huge voting bloc of churchgoers. Stop viewing this as a threat, and start viewing it as an opportunity. Socially conservative blue-collar workers don't believe in the free market. They believe in the work ethic. Bush wins their votes by equating the free market with the work ethic. Show them where the free market betrays the work ethic, and they'll vote for the party of the work ethic—you—against the party of the free market.

And we need to communicate our issues stronger, not waltzing around answers or fearing to call someone out when necessary:

Democrats in the Roosevelt-Truman years didn't have this problem. They called tyrants by their name, and they didn't sound like they were faking it...
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When a Republican president runs a TV ad accusing you of failing to protect us from wolves, you should be able to point out that he's the one who emptied our shotgun into a fox, leaving us helpless against the wolves. And you should sound credible saying it.

When we begin putting things into a moral perspective, those people who blindly support the opposition party will take notice, then hopefully realize that it's truly in their best interest to "come home".

But we cannot stand aside when our opponents bash us time and again. I like Dave's perspective this morning on his blog spacecoastweb when he says:

It's gloves-off, bare-knuckle street-fighting. We can't live by Queensbury rules in a "SmackDown!" world.

Maybe, that's why those, who try to play fair, keep losing.
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Enjoy and remember, even in the wide world of 'rasslin', the bad guy's mask is pulled off at the end of the show.