Wll Roger of the Democratic Party

Wll Roger of the Democratic Party
We lost the message, guys.

We did. We didn't control the message of the Democratic Party. Go here for a few minutes and listen to Jack Hitt talk about it on This American Life (H/T to Squirrely for finding this.) If it goes behind the pay wall, email me and I'll send it to you.

You back? Now if you aren't interested in this diatribe, head over here and see the blog "Dogs in Sweaters."

Hitt is right. We are in Will Rogers' party now who famously said "I belong to no organized party. I am a democrat."

Now is the time to think about why we didn't control our own message. We didn't. Any time the democrats got slammed, we basically went inside the house and made a steeping cup of tea. As Charles Robert Bone says this morning in an interview with Clint Brewer, "What does the Tennessee democratic party stand for?" I will admit that even I got so used to dealing with bluedogs that when I saw them put down, I was a bit shocked.

But, we didn't have a cohesive message. We didn't even promote what the democrats did well. (I add myself into this equation, so don't be too hard on me.I own it.)

The thing is we didn't, or weren't allowed, to push back, but when we decide to push back, we need a message that is consistent and doesn't go to the easy answers of just "blaming" Barack Obama because he won in 2008 or that old "he said/she said" thing that isn't productive in the least. We had our asses handed to us. We need to learn from it. We also, in this state, had our hineys handed to us in '08 but we haven't been talking about that much.

We didn't learn from that one.

Let's take a look at what messages we could be sending and controlling. (Subliminal note: control the message).

* Let's talk about that change really never originates in Washington. The message comes from outside and the tea party capitalized on this. This isn't going to be easy to do, as we have to have, once again, a message that will have to be built and constructed quickly. If you don't have endless patience, you will be disappointed. It took us a decade to get here and it's going to take time to get out of it. Al Gore in 2000, anybody. (No, I don't want to talk about how the election was stolen from him. It's history now.)
* Movements take time but they need participation outside our comfort zones. If you are urban, try to understand the rural and the rural needs to understand the urban, and so on and so on. The democratic party, during difficult times, has been the voice of the poor and forgotten in every setting. Let's remember that.
* Realize a conversation is more important than our differences. We cannot marginalize each other. Let's talk about things.
* We aren't really that lost in the wilderness. We just need to get a damned compass that works.
* Why aren't we talking about the great stuff in the health care bill instead of talking about what's wrong with it or backing away from it altogether?
* Why aren't we talking about that the economic stimulus package put people back to work? Or that the former administration had stimulus packages out there too. The private sector has put people back to work as well. It's not fixed, but it's moving like a slow river. But, it's moving.
* Karl Rove gets it. No, I didn't throw up typing that but you really need to familiarize yourself with his third party group, American Crossroads when it comes to using technology. The GOP, the Tea Party and AC don't have the market on this. As Dems, we need to be watching this as we move on into the 2012.
* We are being redistricted. That's something we can't do anything about at this point, but we can make people aware that it does impact them. It doesn't matter to the average bear though. This is strongly a politico issue that doesn't resonate with the majority of voters.

We need to figure out what the first step is and take it. And we need to start now.