Where I think the Democratic Party went wrong?

[cwelsch]

Half the people voting for John Kerry think the war was a good idea and that we need to keep the troops there.  The other half of his voters don't and don't.  Too bad for him, the anti-war half has a disproportionate effect because they are the backbone of the activists and membership of the party, the partisan left, so the anti-warriors on the partisan left decide who the pro-war center-left votes for.  That's why you have this odd mix of Kerry being pro-war, anti-war, anti-this war, anti-Bush.

The result is he cannot come up with a Truman or Reagan type plan because his voters wouldn't stand for it.  He might actually see them stay home.  The only thing the Democratic Coalition (it's not a Party like they say, least not right now, it's a Coalition) stands for is anti-Bushism.  The center, center-left and left all agree on anti-Bushism, they dislike Bush and want to get him out.  All Kerry can safely do is bash Bush.  His voters don't agree on free trade, the war, not even abortion (because Kerry wants the union vote, they trend pro-life) as much as they all hate Bush.

They cannot provide a positive ideology a la Truman or even a positive foreign policy vision.  All they can do is hammer Bush and talk vaguely about foreign alliances.

Of course, Kerry is mocking our allies by calling it a phony coalition.  The allies have modest armed forces, sending a thousand troops from Poland or the Netherlands is a big deal to them - especially since almost all those countries still have troops in Afghanistan as well.

He's also an idiot, because if the UN replaces the US, where are they going to find an extra hundred thousand troops in the world?  What, China?  Russia?  Yeah, I don't see France and Germany taking up the slack.  He should either favor pulling out or staying in, but the UN cannot take the slack on this one.

Anyway, I agree.  Kerry has a very poor, forced ideology but he's not capable of changing it or doing much else without flipping the bird at half his base.