Joseph, our American in Paris, looks back on the dialogs – starting with the idea from several friends that it is now time for the Democrats to win over the religious “values” folks of the heartland.

Wow. Apres moi, la deluge. (Louis XIV)

Really, I will address all of this seriously next week. I'll just say that I'm neither suggesting that we become them nor fake it. We didn't get out our base. Bush did that for us. They didn't get out their base; we did. Republicans have been able to keep their fringe quiet, and he quietly rewards them. Our fringe elements mistakenly thought that it was time to go for all the marbles. They were wrong. Their base is bigger than ours. Accept it, and deal with it. Martyrdom is a choice one makes to lose everything just because one can't have it all. That isn't noble.

It’s stupid!

It has been obvious for some time that the senate and house were going down the pipe. With this reality, was Kerry going to be able to extricate us from Iraq? Answer: at this point, no one can.

Was he going to be able to roll back the tax cuts, which even the executive-controlled Office of Management and Budget (OMB) says is mostly to blame for the spiraling deficit? Same answer.

After four years of problems deepening, we have W (or someone like him) again. Do you think whoever comes next for the Republicans isn't going to hire Karl Roverher? Guess again. Where is our Karl Rove, anyway? Where is our Forest Gump? Isn't it enough to be right, and have some access to power? Is it better to feel right and have NONE?

By the way, comparing Bush to Hitler or Nero is shrill and silly. Things are bad, but not that bad. "Forrest Gump", now that's fair. Seriously though, this does us no good. True, I have compared Rove to Goebels, but that was with grudging admiration more than contempt. [Note: see this in these pages where a fellow says. “To a person used to living in France, the country that invested joie de vivre, America seems like a grim and terrified place, and its leader like Forrest Gump with rockets.”]

More to come.

Regarding the limeys saying we're dumb: well, maybe. [See The Day After the Day After - bottom of the column.] But who is the bigger fool, the fool who leads or the fool who follows? Ouch.

I really will make a case cogently next week.

But for now, QUOTE DAY!

"I would rather be right than be president." Henry Clay, who lost THREE TIMES! (Get my drift?)

And on my contention that the Democrats supporting gays came at a great cost, I'll riff on Gary Schandling: "I've never burned a flag. Then again, I've never put one out either."

Rick, The News Guy in Atlanta, has a direct response to all this -

I think there is something to be said about them getting out our base, but the reverse is not true. It's been fairly well documented by now that Karl Rove, the "architect," had engineered the evangelical vote for the last four years, and was able to keep it pretty quiet up until the last moment.

And I don't know what you've been hearing over there in Froglandia, but I think there's really been not much noise heard from "our [so-called] fringe elements" over here - by which I assume you mean gays, especially those pushing for gay marriage and such, as I gather from your other message. In fact, I do believe all that state constitutional amendment stuff, too, was engineered by Rove, leaving the rest of us with nothing to do but sit back and quietly watch it all happen.

But also, I think to suggest that gays were somehow overreaching, especially in an election when the vast majority of the real talk was about Iraq, is like saying that the Jews may have had a legitimate gripe against the Nazis but that that was no reason for them to become whiners about it.

Their base is bigger than ours?

I don't see real evidence of that, only that they showed up to vote in larger numbers this year. It wasn't necessarily that big in 2000, and what goes up this election must eventually come down, which it may do in 2008.

Accept it, and deal with it?

How would you want it to be dealt with? What are you suggesting we all do? If this is one of those "learn to deal with your grief" or "get over it" things, I've never bought into that sort of thing. It may make one feel better for the moment, but I think misses the point in the long run.

You say, "Martyrdom is a choice one makes to lose everything just because one can't have it all. That isn't noble. It’s stupid.

Although (and I'm not being coy here) I honestly don't know how martyrdom enters into this -who are the martyrs in this, and what are they doing to make themselves martyrs? - but I do disagree with your characterization of martyrdom. In reality, martyrdom is a sacrifice one makes of oneself, for the benefit of others. It's sort of like what I.F. Stone says in his recent quote being floated, that you have to fight and fight, even knowing you will lose and lose, because years from now, someone will end up winning that fight. [See The Day After the Day After - top of the column – for the Stone quote.]

But yes, Stone says you must not feel like a martyr in doing it, but do it because you like it. Maybe so. Whatever. Noble? Maybe, maybe not. But stupid? Not.

After all, had Henry Clay decided to be president instead of being right, there's a very good chance he would have ended up being neither, and then we would never heard of him! Now that would have been a stupid waste of a life on his part!

Maybe next week we'll continue this, but I'm guessing we won't be in the mood. (Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm getting tired of it already.)

And Dick in Rochester New York adds -

Tagging along behind Rick...

I believe that what lost this election and a whole bunch previously is Democrats letting Republicans define them - very successfully. I do not remember "liberal" being a real four letter word until Reagan pasted it all over Mondale and Ferraro. Reagan mentioned it against Carter, but did it in skywriting in '84. Bush I did same thing with Dukakis in ‘88. The Democrats have never reacted to change liberal to a positive. (Many of us still believe this. Civil rights, cross-culturalization, Affirmative Action, Social Security, Medicare and so on. Consanguinely, dems/libs have let rep/neo-cons successfully create wedge issues that capitalize on "good conservative values" and "squishy, godless liberal lack of values.")

Simply - the Republicans can do one syllable attack crap and Democrats respond with three paragraph rhetoric and the audience is already gone. Deomocrats have never made much effort to challenge why "tax and spend liberals" is not nearly as bad as "borrow and spend neo-conservatives."

It probably does not matter that much now as the doomsday clock is in overdrive.

And Joseph wraps up his points -

Damn if I'm not getting a little tired of this myself.

Think I'll just make a few points and drop the matter.

1. Alan cited an article saying the loss was not on the gay issue, but on terrorism.  Baloney.  Yes, that was also a factor, one of several. Another (my first thought after Iowa) is that Kerry is from Massachusetts . Don't the Democrats get it yet? Republicans can nominate a northerner, but Democrats cannot. Those who are thinking of Hillary for 2008 must really enjoy losing.

2. Yes, Rove worked the Christian angle, but the Democrats played into their hands in many ways. Witness the shrillness of Michael Moore, or the Guardian UK's adventure in Clark County, OH. Preaching to the converted, and driving MANY who were ambivalent into the arms of the President. Again, making comparisons to Hitler is not helping us. We need to tone it all down. Comparing gay marriage to the Holocaust, as someone just did, may play here or in Berkley or in the back bay, but in most of the country it does not.

3. The ground has shifted beneath our feet. It is time to recognize that Republicans are right - Democrats ARE out of step with the mainstream, or the mainstream is out of step with US, if that makes you feel better. The mainstream has lunged right leaving the Democratic Party almost irrelevant. While it is tempting to think of history as a gradual rise toward enlightenment, but even a cursory view proves this false. The trajectory of history more closely resembles the DJIA: seemingly ever upward in the long view, but a bumpy ride with many bear markets along the way. On must adapt or die. We ARE out of step. An anti-gay marriage amendment passed in Oregon. OREGON!!! And Oregon makes California look like Kansas. This should tell us something about the pulse of the nation.

One must tailor one's expectations accordingly. How did the civil rights movement fare in the '40s? Not very well. I imagine that Rosa Parks would have been thrown off the bus, or thrown in jail and that would have been the end of it. That's not to say that one should stop fighting, but one has to let the context determine how one fights. Sorry to say, but many of the things that lefties hold dear are ideals that will never be achieved. Some will be achieved, but very slowly, in fits and starts. This is simply not a time in history when one should expect great lurches forward towards enlightenment principles. Fight, but don't expect nor demand everything tomorrow. Okay, I may have been winding you all up a bit, but on this I am perfectly serious: Are gays not substantially worse off in much of the country than they were before? Worse off than they might have been had certain elements been less militant? Isn't there a fair chance that the issue opened an opportunity for putting these state amendments on the ballot for no other reason than to get a few million extra conservatives out to the polls? A chance that this made the difference? I think so.

And when Dan says that it made a big difference in Ohio, I for one believe him. Point: if we want to win the hearts and minds of the enemy, we need to listen to them and adjust our message rather than self-righteously talking AT them. Note to Michael Moore: just go away.

4. That doesn't mean abandoning principles. "What goes up must come down" is cute, but when? History suggests that we could be in for a long ride. What to do? Several answers: Don't sell policy, sell virtue. We have enough of it. The funny thing (and Dan, perhaps you will scoff) but I actually believe that the Democrats embody not only Christian new-testament principles better than the Republican party of today, but the conservative values of old: responsibility, caution, community. Funny, but in many ways WE are the party of Reagan! This would not be the first time the parties have completely reversed polarity. Sell THAT.

The Reps don't get hung up on policy details. And pragmatism impresses the wonks, but not in Peoria. Give me a candidate from the South who really is a Christian, not a faker. Someone who can connect and inspire. I don't care if he's dumb as a post. Give me Forrest Gump. We can always package him with smarter men. Works for them, and lefties will still vote for him. Republicans, ironically ARE more pragmatic in this regard: They know what kind of guy they need, and what he needs to say to get the office and trust that he'll do lots of stuff once he gets their that it was “better not to talk about while he was running.” Again, we need to disengage our need to prove we're right, and just be right. Swallow the indignation and be effective.

5. Being "right" is a fine thing I suppose, but what good is wisdom if it's of no profit to the wise? David Mammet refers to this as the "great liberal fallacy": that it is sufficient to merely recognize an injustice and empathize. If we can temper the need to prove we're right, go quietly about doing what we do, keeping an eye on the big picture rather than parochial interests, be patient and keep divisive issues in the background, then we may achieve a position from which all this high-mindedness is actually put to some use. It works for them, and it can work for us. Mark Twain wrote "Thunder is fine; it is impressive. But it's the lightening that does the work". Being right is not enough, and if we let it get in the way of getting to do the work that is the real betrayal of principles.

6. The thing that is really troubling about the gay issue is that blacks and Hispanics, statistics show, are somewhat more homophobic than whites. I would like to see statistics on minority votes in the states with marriage amendments on the ballot. Democrats should have the Hispanic vote hands down, but we do not. This is one reason. There are others. Had Kerry chosen Bill Richardson he might not have won the election, but he would have won Hispanics for a generation.

7. Finally, someone recently wrote that this was not the massive loss the press is making it out to be, that it all came down to Ohio. Bullshit. Think about how dishonest that is. We lost by FOUR MILLION VOTES. Think of it. In four short years, we have gone from being outraged that one can lose the popular vote but win the Electoral College, to believing that the Electoral College is the only thing that counts. I assure you that had we won by four million votes, we would declare a mandate too. The public has spoken, and by a significant margin, it has said that we suck.

Oh.