Debra Saunders:
WHAT WENT WRONG? It's the question spurned lovers and political parties must ask when they've lost their prize. And how to go on? Last weekend, Democrats convened in Sacramento to begin to answer that question at a candidates' forum with the seven wannabes for the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee.
Did they care too much or not enough? For this go-round, the loss is an especially bitter pill for many activists, because they went down under the leadership of a man who voted in support of a war they despised.
It's hard to lose. It's really a killer when you lose after selling out. Hence the heavy support for Howard Dean in a room filled with Western Dems, in the neighborhood of Moveon.org.
The big divide in this race is between realists and idealists, centrists versus leftists, or, if you will, those who think the party is too liberal, and those who think the party isn't liberal enough. (Except they don't use the L-word.)
...
...there were two words I heard a lot during the forum: The real enemy is not Iraqi insurgents. The real enemy is Karl Rove, the GOP bogeyman. Rove, damn him, sold the Bush agenda to 51 percent of the electorate.
It's funny how the Democrats denounced the GOP evil genius, all the while suggesting that they could be Rove, only better. So they treated issues as if issues were mere packaging, not ideas with consequences. Rosenberg noted the party's need to "revitalize our message" -- hence, the de-emphasis on Iraq.
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