SLATE MAGAZINE

Can the Democrats Be Revived?

Nov. 12 - 15, 2002

From: Joe Klein
To: Robert Reich
Subject: Rules for Dems To Live By
Tuesday, November 12, 2002, at 12:16 PM PT
Dear Bob—

Wa-ay back in 1976, when Gov. Jerry Brown of California belatedly entered the presidential race, he was asked about his political philosophy. Was he to the left or to the right of Jimmy Carter? "Both," he replied. Obviously, this has some relevance now. The Democrats are back to navel-gazing, hand-wringing, and chin-pulling. (The Republicans are never so masochistically introspective; they never seem to question their essential beliefs, even when they get clobbered).

The first week of self-flagellation has been predictably banal. Some say move left. Some say move right. Both are right and both are wrong. If we're to have a vaguely interesting national debate, the Democrats have to move forward—away from the boring, tiny, and tactical issues, and language, and interest groups that the party has championed in recent years. This will mean a change in style as well as content. Above all, it will mean an extremely risky change in focus from the beloved and reliable geezers to the edgy, cynical, apathetic young people. The electorate has to be expanded. But the most valuable cache of votes isn't to be had in the poor neighborhoods—as admirable as such efforts may be—it is to be found on the college campuses, where the next generation of activists lives. We can discuss the policy details over the next few days. First, though, let me lay down three basic rules for a Newer Democratic Party.

Last week, Nancy Pelosi—the very sort of political anachronism the party should studiously avoid—launched her campaign for House minority leader with a self-delusional whopper: "The Republicans are the party of the special interests," she said. "The Democrats are the party of the people." What nonsense. It was the Democratic Party's obeisance to its special interests—specifically, to the public employees unions, the trial lawyers, and the AARP—that helped lose the election. Organized labor forced the party's disastrously witless position against the homeland security bill. The trial lawyers insisted that punitive damages be included in the terrorism insurance bill. The AARP has backed the Democrats' foolish and expensive prescription drug plan. (The Republican plan, which targets only those seniors who can't afford to buy their medicine, is, literally, far more progressive—as you know, Bob, a version of this plan has been successfully implemented in Massachusetts.)

The point is, Democrats too often let their interest groups get in the way of progress and equity. The labor movement, once righteous, has become one of the most reactionary forces in American life. Labor's position against free trade would impose a massive, regressive consumer tax on the poor and middle classes (check out this piece in Foreign Affairs). The teachers unions protect incompetence and inflexibility in the schools. The trial lawyers' insistence on punitive malpractice damages fuels the rocketing cost of health care. The AARP favors robbing our children to pay our parents (and to pay us, baby boomers, soon)—obviously, benefits to the elderly, who are the most prosperous demographic group in the country, should be targeted toward those who need help most.

This is not to say that the Republicans' special interests are any more noble; they are, in fact, spectacularly vile. But for the Democrats to succeed, they really do need to be the party of the people, which means defying their own special interests, when necessary, in the service of fairness, creativity, and progress.

Second theme: the Democrats need to embrace complexity. This is anathema, I know. Politicians hate compound sentences. But let's face it, most of the best Democratic ideas are complicated. They usually involve this formulation: We should make [name your sacrifice] in order to gain [name your long-term benefit]. The Republicans, by contrast, tend to be the party of the sentence fragment: Cut taxes. Wave the flag. Family values. (Although thoughtful Republicans are uncomfortable with such empty, short-term blather.) My sense is that civilians are uncomfortable with it, too. The folks may not be up on the vagaries of prescription drug plans, but they can sniff out oversimplifying phonies. They understand what poll-driven, market-tested language sounds like. They will be attracted to candidates who are a) unpretentious; b) funny; c) tough-minded; d) creative; and e) willing to tell them inconvenient truths. (By the way, unpretentiousness doesn't mean bogus, flashy NASCAR populism.) The obvious model is John McCain. But McCain isn't quite enough: He knows a lot about foreign policy and campaign-finance reform but little about domestic affairs. To be successful, Democrats will have to be more ecumenical, as comfortable with foreign and national security policy as they are at home. They will have to posit a more comprehensive foreign policy than the Bush administration seems to favor: one that includes the use of military power, to be sure (particularly the use of covert activities and special forces in the shadow campaign against terrorism). But they should go one step further and propose a policy that lives within a context of global cooperation against the transnational viruses that afflict civilized society—terrorism, proliferation, criminal combines, environmental depredation, and corporate lawlessness.

Third theme: The Democrats have to stop being so goddamned negative and pessimistic. No piece about the party should omit Dick Gephardt's famous retort to Ronald Reagan's "Morning in America" ads: "It's getting closer and closer to midnight." (For that reason alone, Gephardt should be barred from further national political activity.) Reich, this is your specialty: Why are Democrats always so downbeat and mopey about the most dynamic economy in the history of the world? Why are your friends at the American Prospect so perpetually dour, dark, and humorless? Why can't they be as funny as you are?

The most important qualities that Newer Democrats need to enlist are optimism and an inspirational, idealistic American patriotism. This is particularly true if they want to appeal to young people. I would guess that those who watch Saturday Night Live and MTV adhere to only three bedrock political principles: tolerance, environmentalism, and entertainment value. (I would guess, for example, that they intuit the difference between Eminem's—and, yeah, mea culpa, Sister Souljah's—scathing social realism and true intolerance.)

As Governor Moonbeam posited a long time ago, environmentalism can mean just about anything—but most of all, it means the thoughtful use of human and natural resources. These values should be defined as broadly as possible, and they should be at the heart of the Newer Democratic Party. In 2000, Al Gore announced a fairly bold environmental policy then chose not to emphasize it. That may have been for the best: Gore probably would have done the old, sky-is-falling, ice-caps-are-melting routine. True enough, but environmentalism is more profitably touted as the exhilaration of new ideas, new jobs, new industries, new gizmos. It is also, now, a form of national security: We don't want to send young people off to fight Islamic fanatics for oil. The Dems should renew John Kennedy's call for a trip to the moon: this time, a high-speed, heavily funded energy independence program. They should also renew Kennedy's and Bill Clinton's call to altruism—this time, in the most muscular possible way, with an emphasis on national service programs like the Police Corps and Teach for America, programs that involve real commitment and sacrifice. And real work, for a change. They should also, for credibility's sake, tell some unpleasant truths. For example: Even though you are young and healthy, you have a moral responsibility to buy health insurance and lessen the burden on those less fortunate than you are (and we'll offer you with a health insurance tax credit, if you need the help).

Bob, I know you're hot for a payroll tax cut. I'd much rather see tax credits dedicated to providing health insurance, college tuition—and also, to encourage people to buy high MPG cars. What do you think?

Best,
Joe

From: Robert Reich
To: Joe Klein
Subject: Where's the Party?
Wednesday, November 13, 2002, at 5:50 PM PT

Dear Joe,

Look, I can't stand all this Democratic hand-wringing and moon-howling any more than you can. We went through this in 1980, then again in 1988, then again in 1994. And it's always the same crap: Should Democrats move rightward to the Republican-Lite center, or move back to FDR? We attend endless-blather conferences about "The Future of the Democratic Party." And then go off and do whatever they want to do.

Joe, your criticisms of the Democratic Party presuppose the existence of a Democratic Party. But the fact is, as Gertrude Stein once said about Oakland, there's no there there. Millions of people call themselves Democrats, and several hundred thousand show up at Democratic state and national conventions. A Democratic National Committee raises money. But there's no real Democratic Party. Nothing like what the Republicans have. They have a network of conservative think tanks, a boatload of money to market the ideas that emerge from them, and spokespeople to sell them. They recruit and train prospective candidates. And they have discipline. My God, do they have discipline. They decide on a party line and stick with it. They even have oligarchs—the Republican Powerful who gathered together in 1996 and decided George W. Bush was going to be their candidate in 2000. What do Democrats have? Conferences on "The Future of the Democratic Party."

The only time there's even a semblance of a Democratic Party is when Democrats come up with a presidential candidate, but if you look closely you'll see that Democrats don't actually come up with a presidential candidate. Instead, several dozen men who call themselves Democrats come up with themselves. Thirty months before Election Day they let it be known that they're considering running. Each starts endless rounds of visits to New Hampshire and Iowa, talks to all the interest groups you identify (trial lawyers, unions, teachers, AARP, Washington environmentalists, identity organizations), chats with Washington-based columnists, meetings with prospective donors in Hollywood, Massachusetts, and other bastions of Democratic money. Twenty-four months before Election Day, a half-dozen such entrepreneurs are still running. At this point, the 100 Washington-based Democratic political consultants, pollsters, and marketers decide who they want to place their bets on. And the race is on. Meanwhile you and I are still sitting in some "The Future of the Democratic Party" conference.

So, the first thing we need is a real party. Something with grass roots, with the capacity to think new ideas and market them. We need a movement that embraces all the people who have been left out, who have been screwed both by big corporations and big government—people who are working their asses off but aren't earning much more than they did a dozen years ago, who have grown cynical about every institution in American society but still love America with all their hearts.

But we can't have a movement unless we also have conviction and courage. Democrats used to have these things. Republicans have no monopoly on being tough against tyranny or hard-headed when it comes to domestic policy. For almost a century it was Democrats who waged war (Wilson, FDR, Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson), and it was mostly the kids of Democrats who fought in and got killed in wars. And for 60 years it's been Democrats who have managed the economy well—spending more than revenues and cutting taxes when the nation needed these things done to prevent the economy from sinking, and cutting deficits when they get out of control, as in 1993.

It takes no conviction and no courage to move to the Center. You want to be president, you campaign from the Center. But if you want to be a true leader, you define the Center. You don't rely on pollsters to tell you where the Center is, because you can't lead people to where they already are.

If I hear another pundit say 40 percent of Americans vote Democrat and 40 percent Republican so the real action is with the 20 percent "swing" in the middle I'm going to puke. Most Americans who are eligible to vote don't even bother most of the time. The party of non-voters is larger than either Republican or Democrat. And even those who do vote have no strong party loyalty. They watch three months of attack ads on television and on Election Day end up voting for the person they despise the least. In this last campaign season, Republicans outspent Democrats 3-to-1. So, it's not surprising Republican candidates seemed marginally less despicable.

The big differences in American politics today are between those with courage and those without it, those who can inspire and who can't. Among the former are the late Paul Wellstone and John McCain—politicians with deeply held views and who are passionate about what they believe. They don't care too much about the polls, they love this country, and they have a fair degree of contempt for Americans who are powerful but who don't really give a damn about America or about most other Americans. On the other side is a large group of hard-boiled poll-watchers and ass-kissers who spend most of their time raising money from people and groups with a lot of it.

Finally, Democrats have to have fun and do their politics with a sense of humor. I agree with you about this. All the negativism and anxiety is a bummer. Who wants to join a funeral procession? We need a new generation of happy warriors. The world is not going to hell. In fact, we're far better off than we were 20 years ago, 50 years ago, a 100 years ago—largely because of reforms Democrats championed. I'd hate to be a Republican because Republicans hate government, and now they run it. Can you imagine being in total control of something you detest? That's a real bummer.

So, let's celebrate what we can be: Let's have a tax cut for working families (paid for by repealing that portion of Bush's giant tax cut going to the rich). Also universal, affordable health care. And, yes, a vigorous environmentalism based on renewable energy. I like your notion of a call to altruism; college students are already doing way more community service than their parents did in the 1960s. But mostly we need a real party, the courage of our convictions, and a sense of humor and optimism. What we don't need is another conference about The Future of the Democratic Party.

From: Joe Klein
To: Robert Reich
Subject: Victims of Discipline
Thursday, November 14, 2002, at 7:46 AM PT

Dear Bob—

All right! Passionate and funny … but, uh, I don't agree. The Democrats are a party. They have think tanks. They have money (not quite as much as the Republicans, but plenty—much of it wasted in Florida this year). They have had successful base-rousing, Get Out the Vote campaigns (Gore's in 2000, for example, which won the popular vote by 500,000). They don't have as much discipline as the Republicans, but that's not necessarily a bad thing—it's like rock 'n' roll, a reflection of the vast, messy, polyglot American exuberance. It's one reason why this is such a terrific country.

1. Don't talk about Iraq.
2. Don't talk about Bush's tax cut.
3. Demagogue Social Security.
4. Pander on prescription drugs.
5. Blame Bush for the business cycle, without offering an alternative.

Yecch! So, yes, you're right about consultant-driven politicians. It seems the entire party has succumbed to the Cult of the Tactical. Even the Democratic Leadership Council—the last known source of fresh ideas in the party—has fallen for the siren song, encouraging blind, unnuanced support of the president on Iraq, and caving on gun control. (At one point, Evan Bayh of Indiana, the current DLC president, told the New York Times that Dems should support Bush on Iraq because polls say that people think Democrats are weak on national defense!)

You didn't mention Iraq, by the way, a telling omission. We may be at the beginning of a major, long-term religious war, and the Democrats have nothing to say? In some cases, the Dems are mute because they are mortal doves; they agree with Wellstone, but don't have the guts to say so. The sadder silence came from those who favor the judicious use of force, but within a nuanced, multilateral context—those who agree with Bush's goal in Iraq, but abhor the administration's garish rhetoric and gratuitously ideological world-bashing (by the way, the president's behavior since his U.N. speech in September has been unexceptionable). The fact is—reprising yesterday's sermon—the wise foreign policy strategy is too damn complex to fit in a 20-second TV commercial.

You mock moderates, call them Republicans-Lite. But, to my mind—and I'm a flaming moderate—the best new ideas have come from the middle of the spectrum in recent years. In domestic policy, it was the idea that centralized, industrial-era bureaucratic systems are too rigid and too expensive (urban school districts, for example); it's better to give individuals money—tax credits, vouchers, whatever you want to call it—and allow them to make their own choices on health care, housing, prescription drugs, day care, schooling, and so forth. You were a pioneer in the field, Bob, with your voucherized job training and retraining program at the Labor Department. The reactionary left opposes this idea (the AFL-CIO wasn't too hot for your program, if I recall). The Republicans pay lip service to "empowerment" but don't want to actually pay money for it. The progressive middle says: Fund it amply, monitor it, regulate it—but do it. (By the way, tax disincentives are a good idea, too: I'd favor a cigarette-level tax on bullets, for example; I would tax corporations on their "externalities"—the social and environmental disruptions they cause—not their profits.)

In foreign policy, the basic idea is global citizenship: American leadership—with lots and lots of quiet diplomacy and consultation—in organizing collective action against terrorists and rogue governments, against environmental depredation, against the transnational efforts of corporations to escape taxation and of criminal combines to escape the law, and the free flow of goods, services, information, and, to the greatest possible extent, people.

These are real ideas, disdained by the far left and right. I believe that success in politics, and in governance, will be determined by which party embraces them most enthusiastically.

Back to you …

From: Robert Reich
To: Joe Klein
Subject: Getting On Message
Thursday, November 14, 2002, at 3:46 PM PT

Dear Joe,

Democrats with too much discipline? Give me a break. There was no national Democratic message precisely because Democrats couldn't agree on squat. You say they decided not to talk about the Bush tax cut. Wrong. Every one of them talked about it, but they canceled each other out because they said opposite things. Six Senate Dems up for re-election trumpeted their support for it; Max Baucus ran around Montana insisting it should be made permanent. Most other Dems campaigned against it—some, like Charlie Stenholm and other Blue Dogs because it will break the budget; others, like Paul Wellstone and Ted Kennedy (not up for re-election but making a lot of speeches) because it's unfair.

You're also wrong about Iraq: They weren't mute. Almost all Dems talked about it. But here again, no message broke through because Dems were all over the map. Most supported the president. A few did so wholeheartedly (Max Cleland, Dick Gephardt). Some said we should go into Iraq only after Saddam rejects a Security Council resolution. A notable few (Kennedy, Wellstone, Gore, about 30 Democratic House incumbents) didn't want to give the president blanket authority to go to war in Iraq and offered quite eloquent testimony why—some of the most nuanced and thoughtful foreign-policy statements I've heard in many years. None fit into a 20-second TV commercial though, which may be why they didn't break through.

Of course Dems did their usual fulminating about Social Security, but it was nothing like a unified campaign. Some wanted partial privatization (let the Social Security Trust Fund diversify into stocks), most rejected privatization, some said the Bush tax cut threatened Social Security, a few resurrected Clinton's idea of a new layer of private "USA accounts" on top of Social Security with government matching private savings on a sliding scale depending on family income.

You get my point. No national message, no national Democratic campaign, no Party.

As I've said, maybe Dems did everything they could. W. is hugely popular, the country is still traumatized by terrorism, most of the free TV air time before Election Day went to Iraq and then the sniper, most of the paid air time went to Republicans, who outspent Dems 3 to 1.

But still, Dems missed a big opportunity to stake out some clear positions and a few big ideas. And if the emerging presidential candidates don't, you can kiss the Dems goodbye in '04.

So, what are the ideas and where are they? If you want to stick with your "middle of the spectrum" rhetorical nonsense, that's your business. I'd prefer to talk about boldness and conviction.

First off, Democrats have to be willing to tell Americans what's happened to jobs and incomes over the last two decades. It's a national scandal that threatens to pull our society apart. At the least, Democrats should demand repeal of the portion of the Bush tax cut going to the top 2 percent. Use the savings to finance a two-year moratorium on payroll taxes on the first $15,000 to $20,000 of income. Eighty percent of Americans pay more in payroll taxes than they do in income taxes. Make the choice clear: Republicans want a giant tax cut for the rich. Democrats want one for average working families.

Turn the old Republican blather about revenue-sharing on its head. Agree that the states are where the action is. But point out most states are now broke, with the result that school budgets are being slashed and social services whacked. Demand that the Feds do a $100 billion revenue-share each of the next two years.

Consolidate all federal and state employee health-care plans into a single large national plan which, because of its size, is able to negotiate terrific deals with health-care providers and pharmaceutical companies. Then let any citizen opt into it. Premiums will become so low that it will become the equivalent of a single-payer plan. Yet, because it's voluntary, it won't fuel the political opposition a single-payer plan would.

Expand the Earned-Income Tax Credit to become an all-purpose system for financing everything low-income people need, and get rid of all the complicated categorical programs with all their different eligibility criteria and bureaucratic bumbling.

On foreign policy, create a new global version of NATO designed to root out terrorists anywhere. Create the best and most elaborate global intelligence operation money can buy. But also recognize that if more and more people out there are willing to kill themselves in order to kill us, we've got to give the poor and cynical of the world something positive to believe in. Debt-forgiveness, foreign aid, economic development, literacy, immunization, and low-cost drugs for the Third World have to be understood as part of a new global effort to fight terror with hope.

Enough? Of course not. We need to flesh out details, explain why these things are important. Also come up with more ways young people can serve their country. And put strict limits on campaign contributions.

But it's got to be a movement, Joe. It's got to be sold at the grass roots, and the grass roots have to be able to develop and amend and build upon these sorts of ideas. Democrats will get nowhere with a lot of "position papers" going to presidential hopefuls who will promptly and appropriately chuck them.

All best,
Bob

From: Joe Klein
To: Robert Reich
Subject: Codgers, Exit Stage Left
Friday, November 15, 2002, at 9:08 AM PT

Dear Bob—

Okay, we disagree on the disciplined quality of the Democrats' campaign this year. There isn't much profit to be had in rehashing it . but I seem to remember that it was a widely touted Democratic strategy to "get Iraq off the table." And the Democrats' arguments on Social Security, prescription drugs, and blaming Bush for the economy (without offering an alternative) were pretty universal.

You offer an alternative, which is-as Martha Stewart would say-a good thing. Your idea of a payroll tax cut is a good thing-although I would target it, using payroll tax credits to encourage people to spend on health insurance, education, and more efficient automobiles. Your idea of allowing people to buy into the federal and state employees' health insurance system is quite good, too. I liked it when Bill Bradley proposed it in the last presidential campaign (and when the Heritage Foundation proposed a similar, progressive, refundable tax-credit system 12 years ago). You make it voluntary, which is a very DLCish sort of position; I'd make it mandatory-the actuarial numbers only begin to work when healthy young people are required to pay in to the system. So I guess I'm to the left of you on that one . but I do find the boldness of your moderation bracing.

The most important question, though, is how to build a party that has the energy to counter the rather lockstep Republican machine. You say "grassroots," which is nice-if it isn't a euphemism for limiting this show to labor and minorities as it usually is. Let's face it: The industrial unions are pretty much over-even in the Democratic Party. This year, old labor backed losing candidates in the Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts primaries (in Michigan, the United Auto Workers' candidate, David "Baghdad" Bonior, lost to the Michigan Education Association's Jennifer Granholm). The only part of the labor movement that remains vibrant is the public employees sector, particularly the teachers. But I have a question about that: Whom are the public employees organized against? (The industrial unions at least had a rationale: They were organized against the power of capital). I also have a litmus test: Any Democratic candidate who blathers about the importance of public schools and follows the AFT/NEA line on tenure, merit pay, charter schools and, yes, vouchers, must send or have sent their own children to public school. The hypocrisy of Clinton and Gore and far too many other Democrats on this issue is nauseating.

As for minorities, I saw Jesse Jackson rehearsing the same old same old the other day about the Democrats needing to work harder to register and appeal to "people of color." (A pathetic euphemism.) I hope we're not going to revisit the argument about special breaks, special attention for ethnic and lifestyle slivers. One of the terrific things about our kids is their utter acceptance-no, their celebration-of racial and sexual diversity. My sense is that the old black-white bifurcation is being defused, especially on college campuses, by the infusion of Latinos, East and South Asians, Arab-Americans, and an increasing number of Cablinasians (as the multiracial Tiger Woods defines himself). There is an excitement to this-the grandest of American excitements: In diversity there is enormous strength. But as the demos changes, so should the pitch-from "Here's what we're going to do for (name your subgroup)" to "Here's what we're going to do together." In the end, America's vehement mongrelization, freedom, and wild-ass creativity are our most effective calling cards to the rest of the world. And, for the past 50 years, these values have been the Democratic Party's greatest strength as well.

Which brings me back to where I started: The Democrats seem to be aiming their anachronistic pitch to constituencies on the wane. The Greatest Generation was pretty damn great, and should not be forgotten (since they are chronic voters), but there are new generations to be wooed. I suspect that focusing on the payroll tax, worthy though that may be, just won't cut it. I'm not sure what will. This is a difficult thing for old baby boom codgers like you and me to admit, but we may have to start asking rather than pontificating-asking young people to show us the way, tell us what's important. I loved Harold Ford Jr.'s challenge to Nancy Pelosi-not just because Pelosi needed challenging-but because of its generational implications. Ford looks like a tyke. We have to remember how old and stodgy our parents seemed when we were his age-that's how we must seem now. After 40 years of generational solipsism, we boomers have been crowding the stage for too damn long. We need to learn how to share the spotlight and then, gradually, how to leave it.

It's been fun this week, as it always is when I hook up with you.

Best,
Joe

From: Robert Reich
To: Joe Klein
Subject: Igniting Idealism
Friday, November 15, 2002, at 9:30 AM PT

Dear Joe,

Constituency? Watch out. Over the next two decades, the Greatest Generation's elderly will be replaced by old boomers, who'll be the largest, noisiest, and most demanding political constituency in American history-you and I among them. Tens of millions of boomer bodies all will be corroding. If you think prescription drug coverage is a big deal now, wait until medical science promises boomers we can look young and have sex like rabbits and party until we drop. Across the land there'll be outcroppings of "Med-Meds" for boomer geezers-think of Club Meds combined with medical facilities. Snorkeling all morning; extra oxygen in the afternoon. Worse yet, most boomers haven't saved a dime for retirement. All the equity's in their homes. And home prices will take a dive when the boomers all want to sell.

In other words, brace yourself. We'll be lucky if the Dems, as well as Republicans, don't sell out completely to aging boomers. Increasingly, a fault line in American politics will be generational. Who will represent the young? Who'll inspire them? Enable them to feel the joy of politics? I haven't seen a Dem among the current crop who comes close.

As to organized labor, my betting is on the SEIU-the service employees. It's the most diverse union in the AFL-CIO. Its ranks are full of Latinos and blacks. Its leadership is young. It's organizing like mad. It's recruiting and training a lot of young people. It's representing just those who are most marginalized in the emerging-hotel workers, hospital workers, workers in large retail stores, janitors. And it's succeeding, with some huge victories over the last few years. The SEIU is the closest we have to a "movement" union. If it can keep growing and show some more political muscle, it could have a major role in transforming the Democratic Party.

Here's something I learned in my own abortive entry into politics this year: Idealism isn't dead. It's just waiting to be ignited (among young people, minorities, the poor) or reignited (among the middle-aged jaded). Millions of people are yearning to get involved and change the way politics is practiced. It doesn't matter whether they call themselves Progressives, Greens, Democrats, Independents. They want the system cleaned up. They want government to work better and for more people. They yearn for political leaders who are authentic, who'll stand up for what they believe in, who aren't afraid to take on sacred cows and tell it like it is, who have new ideas that are common-sensical. They're deeply worried about where the Bushies are taking the country.

All it will take is a match.

I'm diverging only a little from our assigned topic, Joe, because this is much bigger and more important than the future of the Democratic Party. It's really about the future of democracy. Our democracy is in terrible trouble right now. Power is in the hands of a tiny group of people who are using the threat of terrorism to impose their crimped vision of a corporate commonwealth. Large corporate entities are more politically potent than they've been at any time in my memory. We're back to the era of William McKinley.

Truth be told, I don't give a damn about the future of the Democratic Party. Parties are means, not ends. I'm a lifelong Dem and have devoted a huge chunk of my life to the party, but if the party is comatose I'm not going to throw myself onto the tracks to keep it barely alive. The question is: Can Dems turn themselves into a national movement to take back our democracy? Can they give voice to those without a voice? Can they regain their passion, courage, soul?

I hope they've learned something from this election. To me, the clearest lesson is that Republicans know exactly what they stand for and who they stand for. Democrats don't. And when you know what you believe and for whom you exist, you've got a better chance of winning. It's Democrats like Max Cleland and Jean Carnahan who won't survive. Both voted for Bush's tax cuts and for going to war in Iraq. Both were booted out.

If I'm right, and we're back in the era of William McKinley, then we're on the cusp of just the movement I'm talking about. It happened in 1901. Teddy Roosevelt gave it force and legitimacy, but it was already bubbling up. If the Dems see it and feel it, they'll be the party of the future. If not, well, it will bubble up some other way.

Good to hear from you, Joe.
Bob

Joe Klein is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of The Natural: The Misunderstood Presidency of Bill Clinton. Robert Reich is university professor of social and economic policy at Brandeis University and national editor of the American Prospect. He was secretary of labor during the Clinton administration, from 1993-97. He is also the author of several books including, most recently, The Future of Success.