Didn't the vice president win the popular vote? Wasn't he perhaps the
real winner in Florida? Yes on both counts. But the crucial question for
Democrats seeking lessons from the 2000 election isn't whether Al Gore
was -- or should have been -- the hairbreadth victor. It's how he got himself
into such a squeaker in the first place.
How did a sitting vice president take one of the great winning hands
in political history -- unprecedented peace and prosperity, a president
of his own party with historically high job approval ratings, all the
advantages of incumbency -- and play it into a tie that was finally decided
in the courts? How did he whittle a vote share predicted by respected
political science models at between 53 percent and 60 percent into a 48
percent dead heat with George W. Bush?
The answer, as Al From points out, lies in the Gore campaign's failure
to understand the changing social, economic, and political demographics
of America. From notes that Americans today are richer, better educated,
more suburban, more wired, and more invested in the stock markets than
they were even eight years ago, much less two decades ago.
More important, people who identify themselves as middle class outnumber
all others by 3-to-1. Any campaign that is based on the old class principles
and fails to appeal to the great mass in the middle -- and to its most
influential subgroup, the rising learning class -- will not be able to
forge a winning majority. From lays out a strategy for rebuilding a coalition
that includes the party's traditional base but also reaches other key
voter groups with an agenda built on New Democrat principles.
Will Marshall argues that the vice president's campaign often sounded
like a rerun of the failed Democratic efforts of the 1980s, focused on
special interests and bereft of a compelling central message. Marshall
calls on Democrats in the loyal opposition to revitalize their party with
fresh ideas to equip Americans for the New Economy.
Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) notes that national Democrats sent a big government
message that does not resonate in increasingly important suburban congressional
districts like the one he represents outside Seattle. He shows how Democrats
can win -- and hold -- such districts with New Democrat campaigns.
Finally, Mark J. Penn's poll gives it to us by the numbers. It reveals
how Gore's failure to build on the successes of the Clinton-Gore administration
-- especially the economic ones -- cost him points. While he won on a host
of specific issues, it is equally clear that Gore lost on such meta-themes
as changing the tone in Washington and smaller government.
What emerges from these articles is a blueprint for success in 2002 and
2004. If the candidates follow it, predicts From, we'll see a Democrat
back in the White House four years from now.
