Foxes in the Henhouse: How the Republicans Stole the South and the Heartland and What the Democrats Must Do to Run 'em Out

Introduction

This book was written for the millions of Americans who have been forgotten. For the millions of Americans who have been ignored or taken for granted by elected officials who have lost their way and have no sense of history or responsibility.

Untold millions of people work hard every day, play by the rules, raise their kids the best they can, love and respect their country, and ask only for a fair shake. Increasingly, they are not getting one.

For these forgotten Americans, there are real consequences to an indifferent and uncaring government. Lives are lost, dreams are shattered, hope is starved, and faith is shaken. Parents become disillusioned and distant, children are confused and neglected, families are demeaned and destroyed. Too often this lot in life is inflicted upon them by politicians who wrap themselves alternately in the flag and in religious jargon, all the while taking actions that undermine our nation and defy religious decree.

The truth is, lives are at stake every day, but too many politicians in both political parties seem to have forgotten that politics is about those who would be served, not about those who serve.

America is a great country, but too often of late, we have not been acting like one. Our political leaders increasingly have become puppets and pawns for special interests. In just forty-five years America went from a nation and a people who believed their government was just and good, and indeed was limited only by the extent of our imagination, to one in which our political leaders have brainwashed us to hate our government. In the meantime, our political debate has become self-centered and narrow. Special interests and their checkbooks have taken control of the helm of government and the windfall—for them—has been staggering. In just a few short years, Americans have witnessed the greatest redistribution of wealth from the working class to the richest elites in the history of our nation. Our investment in America’s infrastructure is a joke, and shortsighted and cowardly cuts in research and development are a cancer that will cost us dearly. Under the suspect façade of helping industry create jobs, we have cut regulations and piled on tax breaks upon tax breaks, thereby fostering an era of imperial corporate entities. Giving industry a leg up in and of itself is not a bad thing, but when industry does not give back to its workers in return, the relationship is broken. The result is that America’s working class has become a disposable commodity as unions are broken, wages are falling, benefits are disappearing, and jobs are exported. And as problematic as these things are, there is a darker side to such indifferent policies. These policies have severely undermined the American family in ways that we have not experienced in three-quarters of a century. A lack of good-paying jobs, minimal if any benefits, lack of health insurance, and the general disregard for our working class fosters insecurity, hopelessness, fear, tension, and turmoil. In short, these policies tear families apart. Ironically, and inexcusably, often the people creating these policies run for office on a pro-family-values platform. It is a sham.

On top of that, because corporate America is given free rein, too often their bottom line takes precedence over any sense of corporate responsibility. One needs to look no further than the toilet that has become our air, land, and water to see the folly of such policy. Never before in our history has the environment been under such an assault. As the polar ice caps melt, hurricanes rage, species disappear, habitat is destroyed, and waters become unswimmable and the fish in them inedible, sold-out politicians increasingly spend their time concocting spurious explanations as opposed to offering sound and honest solutions.

Politicians readily kneel at the altar of greed and pray to the almighty campaign dollar. Too often their souls cannot be saved for their souls were sold long ago. A now favorite campaign tactic is for candidates for office to belittle and demean our government as they attempt to be elected to it. In doing so, they show their ignorance and dangerous contempt for the founding principles of representative democracy. Such bankrupt campaign platforms also conveniently allow politicians to display a debilitating abdication of responsibility. As a consequence, our public policy is routinely designed for immediate gratification instead of long-term interests. This lack of courage, insight, and determination renders it virtually impossible for today’s political leaders to leave a positive mark on history. Instead, we are left with politicians defined by indifference, arrogance, sanctimony, and greed.

When this happens, our government fails the people it is supposed to represent. Look no further than the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina in the fall of 2005. A great American city demolished. Hundreds dead and billions of dollars lost. Bodies rotting in the stagnant waters and thousands left stunned and helpless for days on rooftops and in attics. All the while our government and its agencies—filled with incompetent and indifferent cronies selected for service not by the length of their résumé but by their political connectedness, or by the size of their campaign checks—seemed unable or unwilling to respond. It was one of America’s darkest moments. It was an embarrassment. An embarrassment to all Americans whose faith in their government was shaken and to America’s history as a nation who takes care of its own.

The world took note and shook its collective head in shock. Yet, the response of most of our political leaders was stunning in its indifference. George W. Bush—after the destruction had already been unleashed—rushed his deer-in-the-headlight face and macho hunched-shoulder posture down to New Orleans to announce that FEMA’s political appointee and Arabian Horse Association commissioner, credentialed Brownie, was doing a heck of a job. Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, in one of the most callous, insensitive statements ever uttered by a political leader, announced that New Orleans should be bulldozed. The ever out-of-step Senate majority leader Bill Frist, seemingly oblivious to the stark images being chiseled into the memories of all Americans of bodies floating in the streets of New Orleans, bounced into the Senate chamber Howdy Doody–like on the first day of business after Katrina hit, and announced he intended to take up tax cuts for the wealthy as his first order of business. Within weeks of the disaster, the Republican-controlled Congress—so cold, impervious, and insouciant that it seemed it could not help itself—proposed paying for the cost of Katrina, which had lifted a veil and exposed rampant poverty in America, by cutting programs for the poor. And even former first lady and now first mother Barbara Bush got into the act when she stupefied America with her chilling comments that the poor people who had lost everything in the Gulf actually had it pretty good living on cots on the floor of the Houston Astrodome.

Yet, something else happened when the winds and rain from Katrina blew over America. Millions of Americans for the first time in a long time saw that they needed government to work for them and to do a better job. They saw that Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich and their gang were wrong. The problem wasn’t that government was bad. It was that government was not working for the people it was supposed to represent. People saw that government needed to be better or it could fail them just as it had failed the people of the Gulf Coast.

Out of this disaster comes a tremendous opportunity for Americans to take back their government. It can be a defining moment when Americans say they are mad as hell at this indifferent, greed-coddling band of political impersonators and they are not going to take it anymore.

Ours is the greatest government in the history of humankind—it is time we once again started electing politicians who understand that fact and the daunting responsibility that comes with being so ordained. We own our government—selfish, greedy politicians do not. It is time they learn that government is supposed to work for the people, and when politicians neglect that fact, they can and will be replaced with political leaders who understand that fact.

The power of this nation to do good things is unparalleled in the history of humankind. And indeed, because we have been given much, much is expected. It is time America once again took its rightful place as the beacon of light and hope for the rest of the world. But we cannot do that unless we change the terms of the debate and demand more from our elected officials than the babble and distortions we are currently getting. America deserves far better than that. Too many Americans have lost their voice as politicians lost their nerve.

This book attempts to help give Americans their voice back. In its pages we offer tools to build that voice. We expose many in government who we believe have the wrong idea about what it means to serve. We argue that the Republicans lost their moral compass when they sold out for electoral success, while Democrats, shell-shocked at losing power, lost their courage and their will to reason and to fight. The result is that millions of Americans are being left behind, millions of opportunities lost, and millions of dreams shattered. The truth is that neither political party is doing a very good job for America right now. It’s time for the Democratic Party to find its voice and to find leaders willing to offer solutions and take political risks, and make our government again one of, for, and by the people. We offer the Democrats a blueprint for regaining their courage and will, and then argue that Democrats need to step up and fight for the causes and values that gave Americans hope and opportunity, and have made America the envy of the world.

In doing this, we know we are stepping on some rather large toes. To those individuals and groups we disagree with, we mean nothing personal—but the cause is much bigger than you are. The only thing we take very personally is the need to elect a government that will live up to the promise of this great nation. If we can once again get to that level, the voices of untold millions will be heard, the lives of untold millions will be strengthened, and the dream for a better world will be realized.

The time to act is now.

Steve Jarding

Dave Mudcat Saunders

Part I

A Little History

Lesson and Some

Scandalous Facts

Chapter 1

How in the Hell

Did This Happen?

November 1,, 2004. Election eve in the world’s greatest democracy…

Let’s make sure we got this right:

America was in a brutal, nasty war in Iraq, a war that its president, George W. Bush, had convinced Congress and the nation to enter—under false pretenses. Although the threat of weapons of mass destruction served as the justification for America’s starting the war, no weapons of mass destruction were ever found. America’s fighting men and women lacked body armor and sufficient troop numbers. Over 1,100 Americans had been killed in Iraq—most of them after Bush declared mission accomplished there. There was no end in sight. There was no real international coalition helping the United States, and there sure as hell wouldn’t be any willing guinea pigs should Bush be reelected. The war was costing the country $200 billion a year. On top of that, the guy who was responsible for 3,000 deaths on American soil on September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden, was running free and seeing his terrorist empire grow exponentially. At one point in the campaign, President Bush inexplicably said he didn’t give bin Laden much thought anymore. Polls showed that America’s esteem in the world community had never been lower and that voters’stomach for the war was tenuous at best.

America’s economy was shaky as hell. Unemployment was high—particularly in states considered swing states. For the first time ever since records had been kept, this president had lost jobs. Over 3 million Americans had become unemployed under George W. Bush. Jobs that Bush was creating were, for the most part, service industry jobs at one-quarter the pay of the jobs lost—and they offered no benefits. Forty-four million Americans lacked health insurance—4 million of them added since George Bush had taken office. Thirteen percent of Americans, a total of 36 million people, were in poverty. Let’s repeat that one—13 percent, or 36 million, of Americans were in poverty, one-third of those children. More than 1.5 million people watched their income fall below the poverty line on W’s watch. As a consequence of misguided and suspect tax cuts, the greatest redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the wealthiest Americans in history had taken place in less than four years. There was a projected $7.5 trillion debt, after Bush had inherited a $2 trillion surplus from the Democrat Bill Clinton. More money had been spent in debt under George W. Bush than under any other president in American history. Think of that. But it was actually worse: In his first four years as president, George W. Bush had spent more money in debt than all previous American presidents combined. America’s deficit spending spree sat at a whopping $412 billion for fiscal year 2004 alone. Interest rates were threatening to explode.

Storm clouds were gathering. This dismal record and all its attendant uncertainty occurred with Bush entrenched in the White House and Republicans firmly in control of both houses of Congress.

Democrats were hungry, and smarter than ever. They shortened their 2004 presidential primary calendar to ensure an early nominee to compete with what would be the incumbent’s money advantage. They generated millions of new activists and donors of the Internet variety. They were unified in their disdain for W and careful not to beat the hell out of each other in the primaries. It worked. The Massachusetts senator and war hero John Kerry secured the nomination barely three weeks into the primary campaign season. Fallen Democratic pretenders jumped into his open arms. Kerry started raising money faster than Republican lobbyists pillage Indian gaming funds. Millions and millions rolled in. Kerry didn’t even get burned by not taking the federal campaign spending match! He was more than competitive with Bush. His online fund-raising surpassed the president’s. A million dollars a day poured in! Democrats started these funky 527 groups and raised even more money. Somewhere near $200 million! They were feelin’ it, baby. They set up shop in the political swing states. Record numbers of volunteers, donors, and staff flooded Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Iowa, New Mexico, and Florida. Life was good. Democrats were competitive financially! A big hurdle had been jumped.

On top of that, in this time of war, their presidential nominee was no mealymouthed, weak-kneed, pacifistic apologizer. Democrats had gotten themselves an honest-to-God, down-home, authentic-as-Elvis war hero! Even better, John Kerry had medals! Lots of them. Including three Purple Hearts. George Bush thought Purple Hearts were flavored marshmallows in Lucky Charms breakfast cereal. While Kerry had bled for his country—he was wounded three times—Bush’s gums bled when he got his teeth cleaned. Kerry earned medals for valor while Bush earned a college athletic letter—for being a cheerleader. In the late 1960s, Kerry did two tours in Vietnam; in the late 1960s, Bush would have been happy to tour Vietnam—so long as the tour bus was air-conditioned and arrived back at the hotel each evening in time for happy hour. Kerry pulled fallen soldiers from the Mekong Delta. The only delta Bush knew of was Delta Dawn—Helen Reddy’s hit song if you live north of the Mason-Dixon line and Tanya Tucker’s if you live south of it—which he listened to by the pool at the club. Kerry chased a Vietcong killer into the jungle; Bush had a killer ride on Air Force One for a date with Tricia Nixon. (Apparently, she wasn’t impressed.)

That’s right, George Bush avoided the draft, and Dick Cheney had other priorities in the sixties. But now that they were the men in charge, safe in their Washington bunkers, war seemed exactly the politically expedient thing to do. Democrats thought Bush’s misguided war in Iraq would do something else as well, they thought it would give them an ace in the hole by firing up the dormant youth vote, that mass of 40 million Americans aged eighteen to twenty-nine who usually vote in dismal numbers but who were sure to be bebopping to the polls in record numbers this time around. And just to be sure, the Democrats had Puffy a-rippin’ and Eminem a-rappin’, parting the political Red Sea for these previously lost electoral souls. Democrats knew they finally had a winner on defense and on patriotism.

To top it off, Kerry picked the superlawyer U.S. Senator John Edwards of North Carolina to be his running mate. Edwards was smart, possessed movie star looks, and had a record of defending the little guy in court unmatched since Atticus Finch strolled to the jury box in Harper Lee’s classic Pulitzer Prize–winning novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. The Democrats now had the smile to counter Dick Cheney’s smirk. They had the lawyer who put the screws to big corporations to counter the callous, unfeeling Halliburton CEO who cashed out after screwing the working people. The planets were aligning.

Even the tenuous 51 to 48 hold Republicans had on the U.S. Senate seemed to be slipping. In Oklahoma they nominated a real nut job, Tom Coburn—they just couldn’t help themselves. Six weeks out their senator in Kentucky was branded by certain news media mentally unfit to be reelected. Their nepotistic ways were backfiring in Alaska. Their candidate in South Carolina seemed to open his mouth only to change feet. The times they were a-changin’—just in time for Bob Dylan’s autobiography. The sixties were not dead, they were alive! Democrats were on a roll. Democrats couldn’t lose…

But they did.

November 2, 2004

It is enough to piss a person off…

Bush won a second term with 51 percent of the vote and a record nearly 60 million votes to Kerry’s 48 percent of the vote and 56 million votes; Bush won the electoral college vote 286 to 252; Bush won thirty-one states, Kerry nineteen.

According to The Washington Post, this was the first election in which exit polls showed equal numbers of people, 37 percent, self-identifying as Democrats and Republicans. For decades Democrats had been winning those polls.

Worse, Bush’s vote totals improved from his 2000 performance in forty-eight of the fifty states. On top of that, more states now leaned Republican, and in the fastest-growing areas of the country, the outer suburbs of major metropolitan areas, Democrats lost badly. A Los Angeles Times study showed that Bush won 97 of the 100 fastest-growing counties in America.

Nationally, George Bush won with groups and in regions he was supposed to win with and in: men, whites, conservatives, churchgoers, the wealthy, rural areas, the South, and the exurbs. Indeed, he swept the South—clean. What was disturbing was that his support within these groups got stronger, not weaker, from 2000 to 2004—even in regions and among groups devastated by his economic calamities.

Bush increased his vote among men from 53 percent in 2000 to 55 percent in 2004; among married voters from 53 percent to 57 percent; among white voters from 54 percent to 58 percent; among conservatives from 81 percent to 84 percent; among white Protestants from 63 percent to 67 percent; among those who attend church at least once a week from 59 percent to 61 percent. Among those earning $75,000 to $100,000, Bush increased his vote from 52 percent in 2000 to 55 percent in 2004, and he received a solid 63 percent of the votes of those earning over $200,000. Among gun owners, Bush won again by a better than two-to-one margin. In America’s suburbs, he increased his winning total by 3 percentage points from 2000. In rural America, Bush increased his margin of victory to 59 to the Democrats’40 percent in 2004, compared with 56 to their 40 percent in 2000. Among working-class whites, who were rocked by his misguided economic policies, Bush won by an amazing 23 points. And, just to make matters worse, exit polls showed that by a 55 to 39 percent margin, working-class, white voters trusted him to do a better job on the economy than Kerry.

Now look at what W did to the normally loyal Democratic base.

Among women voters, Bush increased his vote from 43 to 48 percent from 2000 to 2004. He drew 11 percent of black voters in 2004, up from 8 percent in 2000. He won 23 percent of those voters who self-identified as gay, lesbian, or bisexual. He garnered 25 percent of the Jewish vote, compared with 18 percent in 2000. And he won the Catholic vote in 2004, capturing 52 percent—he lost that vote to Al Gore in 2000 (oh, and by the way, John Kerry was a Catholic). We know Kerry took some heat from the Catholic Church for his position on abortion, but he wasn’t trying to get the Pope’s vote. Studies show most American Catholics feel as he does on abortion. Had he gone after those voters and showed he was proud to be a Catholic even though he didn’t entirely agree with Church doctrine, we believe most Catholics would have respected him and connected with him. But he ignored them.

And the numbers got even worse.

In urban areas, traditionally a Democratic blowout, Bush gained fully 39 percent of the vote—up from 26 percent in 2000. Among Hispanic voters, his percentages were numbing. Bush won 44 percent of the burgeoning Hispanic vote in 2004, up from 31 percent in 2000. That amounted to the greatest share of the Hispanic vote of any Republican candidate for president since exit polling was first employed, in 1972. What about the elderly, voters aged sixty and older, a traditional Democratic coalition partner? Bush won among seniors 54 to 46 percent, a seven-point gain from 2000. Among those voters self-identified as not a high school graduate, another traditionally Democratic group, Bush pulled even with Kerry, garnering 49 percent, up from 39 percent in 2000. And while Kerry did win the youth vote, 54 to 45 percent, up from Gore’s winning percentage of 48 to 46 in 2000, the Associated Press reported that fewer than one in ten voters in 2004 were in the eighteen to twenty-four age-group.

Remember, not only did Bush receive these startling numbers but he did so against the best-funded, best-organized, best-prepared Democratic presidential nominee in modern political history.

Despite the greatest get-out-the-vote program ever waged in a dozen or so key swing states, Kerry lost. Despite the Democratic National Committee outpacing the Republican National Committee in fund-raising for the first time ever, Kerry lost. Despite record amounts of money raised by a Democratic presidential nominee, Kerry lost. Kerry even had $15 million left over on November 3—after he lost! Explain that one, Senator. Fifteen million dollars might have been just enough to buy 75,000 votes in Ohio. But we digress. Despite a unified party behind him and a seeming universal disdain for Bush among Democrats and significant segments of Independents, Kerry lost. Despite low job approval numbers and high wrong direction numbers for Bush, Kerry lost. Despite deplorable numbers of unemployed, staggering poverty rates, and mushrooming numbers of people lacking health care, Kerry lost. Despite more donors, volunteers, and paid staff than any other campaign in American history, Kerry lost. He lost Ohio, Florida, West Virginia, Iowa, New Mexico, Arkansas, and Missouri. He was shut out in the South and nearly blanked in the Midwest. Despite $200 million spent by 527s in these and a handful of other key swing states, Kerry lost them all—except New Hampshire—his neighboring state.

That’s $200 million—for New Hampshire. And that is not even factoring in the money spent by Kerry’s own campaign.

And Kerry’s loss was merely the tip of the iceberg.

Republicans went from fifty-one to fifty-five seats in the Senate.

Democratic Senate majority leader Tom Daschle was beaten by a deer-in-the-headlights, pretty-boy empty suit in South Dakota.

In Alaska, Lisa Murkowski, whose only qualifications were that her old man wanted her to be a senator, won in a walk.

Republicans swept every southern Senate seat: In Georgia and Florida they came up big; in Louisiana, they elected a Republican to a U.S. Senate seat for first time ever; the psycho Tom Coburn ran away with Oklahoma; the homophobe Jim DeMint cruised in South Carolina; and the Cuckoo’s Nest escapee Jim Bunning was handily reelected in Kentucky. The Peter Principle, as it turns out, has reached a zenith in American politics.

To add a block of salt to the wound, the charm of the Democratic vice presidential nominee, John Edwards, seemed to run out; he couldn’t even pull his home state, North Carolina, for Kerry (they lost it by a larger margin than did Al Gore four years earlier). On top of that, the Senate seat Edwards gave up to run for president went to the GOP.

And while the state losses are painful, the big-picture losses are stunning. Eighteen of twenty-two Senate seats in the states of the Old Confederacy are now firmly in the hands of the GOP. Throw in the fact that all four U.S. senators from Oklahoma and Kentucky are Republican, and the GOP is coming awfully close to an electoral U.S. Senate trifecta in the South. In the last two election cycles, there have been nine open Senate seats in the South. On November 3, 2004, the GOP was batting nine for nine. Democrats need to get someone up throwing in the bullpen.

Mix the southern red states with those nationally, and a very ominous picture is developing. The red states are getting redder, not just in presidential races but in U.S. Senate races as well. Following the 2004 elections, Republicans held forty-four of the fifty-eight Senate seats in the twenty-nine states that W won in both 2000 and 2004. To put this another way, the Republicans’ stranglehold on red states is becoming so great that they are poised to capture a U.S. Senate majority every election cycle without ever having to contend in blue-state Senate contests.

The Republicans didn’t stop with wins in the Senate. They slightly increased their hold on the U.S. House of Representatives, picking up 3 seats and moving to a solid 232 to 202 to 1 margin there. They also made the red states redder in this house. All six of the Democratic House seats won by the GOP on November 2, 2004, came in red states. On top of that, the Republicans virtually took over the Texas delegation, beating three long-term Democrats and taking a commanding 20 to 12 margin in the delegation. Funny, it doesn’t seem that long ago—because it wasn’t—that Democrats like Sam Rayburn, Lloyd Bentsen, and Lyndon Johnson led dominant Democratic delegations from Texas. The wins nationally guaranteed that Republicans would keep control of the U.S. House of Representatives for ten years running. Never before in American history had the GOP held the majority in the House for ten years.

One other topic of note in the 2004 elections. In the eleven states that had same-sex marriage amendments on the ballot—Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Utah—gay marriage proponents were crushed across the board.

Pretty bleak.

So what did Democrats do following the debacle of November 2, 2004?

They went into denial. John Kerry touted the fact that he got more votes than any presidential candidate in American history—except George W. Bush. Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe announced that Democrats were so successful in 2004 they would never again be at a money disadvantage with Republicans—except figures for 2005 show that Republican victories in 2004 translated into a windfall at the fund-raising trough, while Democratic fund-raising looked more like a windchill. Party operatives claimed they had the greatest Democratic get-out-the-vote operation in swing states in American political history (they did)—except the Republicans got more votes in virtually all of them.

Stop it, Democrats. You got your butts kicked. Admit it.

Politics is a bottom-line business. It is all about the win, the actual, count-the-votes win. There are no moral victories in politics. There are no ribbons given for second place—and no power, no policy advancements, no political panaceas. Simply put, to govern, you have to win your political battles.

So what did Republicans do after their commanding wins on November 2, 2004?

They claimed a political mandate. Republican leaders and cheerleaders said, We are one election cycle away from a veto-proof majority in the Senate; they said, We now control the judicial branch of power so thoroughly we will shape judicial precedent for generations, thus solidifying our loyal political base; they said, We have unified a national coalition of voters and made significant inroads into the destabilized and uncertain coalition of our opponents, on which we can build even greater electoral successes in future elections; they said, We will clamp down on all power in Washington—from lobbyists to the bureaucracy, from the media to the moneyed interests, and use that power to our electoral advantage; and they said, You loser Democrats who doubt us, just watch us.

To hell with you, we say.

These people are drunk on their own power. They believe their own government-subsidized talking heads. They believe there are no consequences for having sold their political souls to faceless, gutless corporate thieves. They have no sense of history or responsibility when it comes to governing the greatest democracy the world has ever known. They believe they have gotten away with their smoke-and-mirrors charade, in which they obfuscate their bankrupt values by wrapping themselves in all that is religious or patriotic. They believe it is acceptable to use this government as their personal playground and ATM machine, stealing from the poor and the working class and pouring billions of dollars into the pockets of the wealthiest and greediest.

They are wrong. They did not win a mandate on November 2, 2004.

Republicans—from George W. Bush to any number of Senate, House, and gubernatorial candidates nationwide—could have been and should have been defeated in 2004. They had weak candidates, an arrogant message, phony patriotic and religious justifications for support, and smug and elitist leadership.

Take nothing away from what they did. But let’s be clear, Republicans won in 2004 because Democrats let them win.

It’s time for that to stop. Democrats have to regain their footing and their voices. Democrats have to understand that too much is at stake, too many lives will be lost if they continue to lose to these fraudulent pretenders.

Democrats must win some elections.

We know the results of the 2004 elections were bleak for Democrats, but that should not intimidate them; it should embolden them. Enough is enough. It is time to stop the bleeding and win again.

In the pages that follow, we will provide a blueprint, first for how Democrats can regain their voice and their focus, and then for how Democrats can maneuver through some of the thorniest issue areas on the political landscape—from