The Republicans won and the Democrats did not. This has upset a good many of you out there, and I can see why. Some had  hopes and possibly some dreams pinned to the chest of John Kerry and his candidacy, and there is nothing wrong with that. In fact, many Republicans did the same thing. But, many of you woke up Wednesday hoping for a Florida-like problem in Pennsylvania, which did not happen. So, why did Kerry lose?

To tell you the truth, I am asking the same thing. The Democrats had the war, the view that the economy was still bad, as well as Bush’s inability to speak and they still couldn’t pull it off. The reason that Bush won and Kerry didn’t is because Kerry thought too much, he tried to be above the “fray” of the election, while Bush and his senior advisor, Karl Rove, treated this election like the values-war that it was.

Kerry worked hard to get those infamous undecideds that were lurking out there in the voting public, while Bush energized the base, got them to talk and made it impossible for them not to go to the polls. Look at Kerry’s comments about the funding and how he voted for it before he voted against it, what is that? That is Kerry working to make sense of something that even he can’t justify. Bush worked that angle every time he could and that is what won him the election. Every time Bush played that card it made it impossible for Kerry to talk about the issues at hand, putting Kerry on the defense instead of allowing him to talk about his positions on the issues.

This is just the tip of the iceberg on how Bush won and how the Democrats totally fumbled the ball on this play. The funny thing is, they can’t blame Bush, they can only blame themselves.

So where will the Democrats go from here? Suggestion No. 1: There needs to be new blood within that party, there needs to be new visions and new ideas that will drive this party to the next level, what ever they may  be. Suggestion No. 2: Stop going for the middle on issues such as the war. If your party is against it, say that. Instead the Democrats and Republicans fought for the middle; that is not what your base believes in. To win the election you need to energize your base and embrace their beliefs and they failed miserably at that this time around. Suggestion No. 3: Go with your “golden boy.” Kerry was not your guy, Dean was your guy. If you would have put Dean up against Bush, Dean would be having a cool new house with a nice desk. Why didn’t they go with their gut? Because they felt that substance over style was the way to go. They felt that they would win on intelligence alone, when in fact it was just the opposite. Dean had flare, moxie and charisma and the Democrats dumped him because of “The Yell.” That is too bad. He had emotion, the very thing that the public said Kerry didn’t have.

All-in-all, I think that the Democrats should do the opposite of what their instincts tell them, because if they couldn’t beat a candidate like Bush now, they never will unless some revamping and new thoughts come in. Good luck in ‘08’ and hope you follow these easy to use suggestions.

Reach Erik Burns at ecburns0212@webmail.winona.edu