Democrats and those wicked blogs

Frisco mayor Gavin Newsome is offended that some blogs are apparently blaming his decision to grant illegal marriage licenses to gays for the Kerry failure:

“Why aren’t the blogs talking about Schwarzenegger and his popularity at the convention? Why aren’t they talking about (the governor) going out to Ohio a couple days ago? Why aren’t they talking about the bin Laden tapes?

And Dianne Feinstein is blasted by gay rights groups for saying that the gay marriage issue was decisive in election results.

So the question here is what voters had in mind when they told those exit pollsters that “moral values” was their number one issue. Was it hating gays, or was it something more like integrity and honesty?

We’re seeing a lot of nastiness on the left already, where they essentially blame the voters for being too ignorant or too hateful to vote for Kerry. Excuse me, but doesn’t this sort of thing miss the point of elections? I mean, the people are what they are, and the politicians are supposed to win their support. Kerry failed to do that, despite 30 years of experience at that sort of thing, all the money he could possibly need, and an army of volunteers stretching from Canada to Mexico and Santa Monica to Manhattan. No, you can’t blame the voters.

Similarly, the Democrats who blame their alleged lack of organizational muscle are smoking Denial Brand Crack. With the unions, the Meetups, Moveon.org, Soros’ billions, Michael Whouley, their blogs, their mountain of books, magazines, and movies, you can’t fault the Kerry organization any more than you can fault the Dean organization for losing Iowa.

It really comes down to the same thing it always comes down to: the message. Kerry’s message, insofar as we were able to understand it, didn’t resonate outside the liberal enclaves in the big urban areas on the coasts and around the Great Lakes. Like the blogosphere, these population centers are vast echo chambers, insular, self-reinforcing, and self-referential.

Normal America wasn’t sold, and you can’t win elections without selling at least a part of it.

For the Democratic Party to stem their losses in the House and Senate come 2006 they’re going to have to get in touch with Normal America, and the first step is to stop the sneering, followed immediately by a cessation of the polarizing talk about “two Americas” and all that implies.

You’d think these damn people didn’t hear a word Barack Obama told them at their own convention; were they stoned?