Growing the Democratic Vote
I'm a bit exhausted this evening, after the culmination of many weeks of staring at electoral and demographic data prepared by the ultimate Democratic number-cruncher Mark Gersh, leading to the release today of a study on Democratic and Republican performance in fast-growing areas of the country.
The links above adequately describe the study, but the bottom line is that Democrats cannot rely on demographic trends or conventional base-mobilization efforts to build a durable majority, even if, as we pray, we do exceptionally well this November. We're going to have to expand the base, geographically and demographically, using persuasion as well as mobilization, and not by aping Republican positions but by dealing with persistent doubts about Democrats on key issues, and by tailoring our message and agenda to the concerns and life-experiences of people who have not voted Democratic in the recent past.
Today's release event featured Ken Salazar and Tim Kaine, and a blizzard of data, charts and graphs. But the bottom line was clear and bright: Democrats can and must expand the base and grow the vote, particularly heading towards what may be a truly watershed presidential election of 2008, when we have a holy obligation to effect regime change in Washington.
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