Democrats Seen As Overstating 2004 Defeat

In a USA Today op-ed (4/20), Ross K. Baker of Rutgers University says, "The loss by the Democrats in the 2004 election was not such an overwhelming failure. Yet, ever since the election, influential voices have urged the Democrats to reconfigure themselves, overhaul their rhetoric, infusing it with biblical references and pious affirmations, and soften positions on issues that have tended to distinguish them from the Republicans, most notably, abortion." Some Democrats "seem to want to emulate the Republicans in everything but name, but it is a fool's errand, which the GOP pursued in its darkest days in the 1960s. Republican critics of the practice even had a name for it: 'me-tooism.'" But by "historical standards, the Democrats, in defeat, performed impressively - even with a candidate whose views on the Iraq war were never clear and facing an uphill battle in holding Senate seats in states that were destined to be carried by the Bush-Cheney ticket." To have "defeated a wartime president would have been to pull off a feat never achieved by any opposition party in American history. That Democrats came as close as they did should be more a cause for congratulation than flagellation." The Frontrunner April 20, 2005