Where do we go from here?

Posted by simon at November 5, 2004 12:19 PM

Thank you for your many calls, emails and posts these past few days. It is clear that many feel that these days, months and years ahead are critical ones for Democrats.

This debate about where we are going as Democrats is not a new one for members of our community. Planning and investing in a better and more modern party has been NDN's central mission these past eight years.

Since we've written and spoken so much about this subject for so long, we feel it best to use NDN as a central hub for this conversation in the days ahead. Here, on our blog you will find a new central thread so you read can what others are thinking, and we're posting interesting things we're finding each day. So keep coming back each day to find more, and feel free to weigh in with your thoughts, or suggest other things to read.

Below we provide links to some of most interesting pieces we've read so far, and I've also included links to some of the most important things we've published here at NDN.

So, keep the faith. We've received a tough but not fatal blow. We lost by a single state, not a landslide. We've begun to make the long-term investments needed to take on the modern Republican Party, this information-age Tammany Hall. And despite our anguish this week, we know that the answers we provided this election to our national security, economic, fiscal and health care challenges were simply better than what the Republican Party offered. Their vision is still not best for America, and despite the outcome, 55 million Americans agreed.

But we know in our hearts we must do better. We must have a clearer and more compelling vision for our country and the American people. We must have better and more mechanisms to communicate our vision, agenda and values directly to the American people. We must become more comfortable with the very idea that making our case effectively about our collective future is the highest order of our politics, and that all else is secondary. And we must, for once and for all, accept that the Republican/conservative argument is a real and powerful one, and for today, is trumping ours in the great marketplace of ideas that is Democracy.

Like you, I know that our path is a better one. That is why I am not sad, or despairing this week. I am excited that our Party is finally looking at our political situation honestly, and squarely. And with that insight we have begun to make the changes necessary to take on the great conservative message machine that has become such a powerful force in the life of our great nation.

Thank you for all that you are doing for NDN and the country. Rest up, think, blog, read these next few weeks. Come January we will have a lot of work that needs doing and will need your commitment, passion and support to continue our fight to restore the promise of America.

Why We Lost, The New York Times, by Andrei Cherny

51-48, The New Republic, Editorial

Wiring the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy, The New York Times Magazine, by Matt Bai

Fighting for the Soul of the Democrats, Time Magazine, by
Joe Klein

The Future of Progressive Politics, New Democrat Network, by Simon Rosenberg

The DNC and $100 Revolution, New Democrat Network, by Simon Rosenberg

Meeting the Conservative Challenge, New Democrat Network, by Simon
Rosenberg

A Commitment to Hope and Progress, NDN's Agenda for the First Decade of the 21st Century