It appears that a number of Democrats are just now waking up to the Southern Strategy that the Republican Party initiated over three decades ago. Thanks for joining us, folks! The predominant intra-party recrimination of the past few days seems to be that Democrats have alienated the morality crowd, that we are "contemptuous" of religion. Kevin Drum says that certain lower-to-middle class whites might have voted for Kerry, except, "Too often, though, a visceral loathing of being lectured at by city folks wins out and they end up marking their ballots for people like George Bush." Who are these people? "They're the ones who are uncomfortable with homosexuality, but understand that a steadily increasing acceptance of gay rights is probably inevitable. They don't want to ban abortion, but feel like it's common sense to require parental notification. And they're ready to agree that we need to do something about global warming, but that doesn't mean they take kindly to thinly veiled accusations that they're personally responsible for it just because they drive an SUV or eat a Big Mac."

For whatever reason, Drum is giving in to the popular framing device of Democrats as extreme secularists who want to ban the Bible and set lions free in the streets of Atlanta. Look at the examples he cites. "They're the ones who are uncomfortable with homosexuality." Wrong -- plenty of Kerry voters are uncomfortable with homosexuality, too. In fact, not a single one of the anti-gay ballot initiatives received less support than George Bush did in those states. They're the ones who actively want to discriminate against homosexuals, who believe that discriminating against homosexuals is more important than building an economic environment that creates jobs, or finding a strategy that leaves Iraq stable and out of our hands. "[T]hey're ready to agree that we need to do something about global warming, but that doesn't mean they take kindly to thinly veiled accusations that they're personally responsible for it just because they drive an SUV or eat a Big Mac." I don't know where the Big Mac thing is coming from, but again, no. The fact is, they are as likely as not to deny the trend of global warming, and, more importantly, are not willing to do anything at all about it. Would they like it if somebody else did something about it? Maybe, but only in the way they'd like it if somebody else fixed any problem that they don't think affects them.

The problem here is not that Democrats are anti-religion or hardline ideologues, the problem is that right-wing extremists brand any opposition as jihadist and the mainstream media -- as well as many "liberal" pundits -- go right along with it. The problem inside the party is that we don't understand this Apocalypse Bunker mindset. These people, whose religion accounts for 85-90% of the population and every federal leadership position, truly believe that they are being oppressed and that anyone who disagrees with them is in the thrall of the Fallen One. Remember, the person who made the infamous ad comparing Bush to Hitler was one lone crank, whose work was immediately discredited by MoveOn.org -- the people who did the "Kerry will ban the Bible and force dudes to kiss!" mailer were the Republican National Committee.

The fact is, both sides come off as arrogant lecturers to people on the other side. Can we honestly say Kerry lost more votes to "very real -- and often dripping -- condescension" than Bush lost to his inability to show even the slightest bit of humility? Oh wait, I forgot, not being able to name a single mistake he's made was good for him, because people like decisiveness. Look, we don't understand the right wing, and we need to stop pretending that we do. We spent about three months in the winter of 2003-4 trying to decide which Democrat was most "electable" by thinking about which one Republicans would vote for; brilliantly, we chose a liberal Senator from Massachusetts whose most recent votes would prevent him from solidly campaigning against the President's record. Josh Marshall has reposted a piece looking back to the Nixon re-election campaign. Pat Buchanan, the Nixon staffer who later launched the cultural war that has now elected a President he doesn't care for, wrote this:

They will not unite the country, and we cannot unite the country. What we can do is go on the offensive and move the dividing line. Drum is absolutely right about one thing -- we lost all across the board on Tuesday, but we lost close. If we hadn't allowed the Republicans to frame the debate to their advantage, a close state or two may have tipped to Kerry and we might be looking at a 50-50 Senate. We don't know; we can't. But when 2008 comes along, we can't do what we did this year, which is to play for a 4th down conversion. We looked at 2004 as a contest in which we only needed to pick up 538 votes; the Republicans looked at it as an opportunity to pick up 4,000,000 votes. They did it, we didn't. In 2008 we have to play for a touchdown. Right now that means a lot of squabbling inside the party. Fine. I welcome it. We have to reorganize. In an election this close, there are a lot of little things that might have caused the defeat. We can't try to just fix a few and hope that it's enough; we have to fix them all. We lost to an incumbent that people generally don't think is doing a good job and generally don't trust to handle the most pertinent issues in the next four years, and worse, we got outmanuevered. We didn't understand how the ballot initiative system can be gamed. We didn't understand how the mystery 4,000,000 voters view the importance of the judicial system, and how the sudden fragility of William Rehnquist may have driven them to the polls.

I'm going to continue with this later, but I want to sum up with this thought: Both parties are obsessed at the moment with pleasing the conservative minority in this country. The Republicans get their Congressional leaders from Mississippi and Tennessee and Texas; we get ours from South Dakota and Missouri and Nevada. As long as that continues, they set the rules.