John Kerry has an excellent chance to win the 2004 election but, even if he does (and certainly if he doesn't), Democrats' long-term project of turning their party into the nation's dominant electoral and governing force will still be far from completion.

That long-term project is the subject of an interesting symposium in Boston Review, based around a lengthy essay by Rick Perlstein. Perlstein, author an excellent study of Barry Goldwater and the rise of the conservative movement (Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus), is very unhappy indeed with today's Democratic party and offers a prescription for change that is clearly influenced by his own study of the Goldwater phenomenom.

That viewpoint is well-summarized in the last paragraph of his essay, reproduced below (though I certainly urge you to read the entire essay, if you possibly can):

Conservative political ideas are bad, and they have been winning. Liberal political ideas are good, and they can win. But this final message is for all of you who might have been nodding along with the presentation the whole time, smiling in agreement: you shouldn’t have been, at least not if you were following all my points. For this argument is for the objective necessity of political risk for irreversible commitments. And irreversible commitments are not anything to smile glibly at. If risk is not frightening, it is nothing at all. Republicans began their march to an irreversible commitment to the full conservative program in 1964. It led that year to an atrocious defeat. I’m not saying the Democrats need to embrace an economic liberalism superjumbo, and then lose, in order to win. I’m saying that they must embrace an economic liberalism superjumbo, and they must stick with it even if they lose, in order to win big. Dream again, or die.

I am not so sure this is the right prescrption and I am also not so sure the Democrats are in quite the dire position Perlstein says they are. Here's the last part of my reply to Pearlstein in this symposium (you can read the entire reply here and the other contributions to the symposium here):

I certainly agree with Perlstein that [Clinton's] populist approach, particularly in 1992, was part of his success, but so was his New Democrat approach to mending many of the image problems sketched above. Focusing on one without the other won’t do; Clinton’s success depended on a synthesis of the two approaches. As for Perlstein’s claim that his dog Buster could have beaten George H.W. Bush in 1992, I will let this unusually silly—but revealing—observation slide by without further comment.

Perlstein’s focus on the populist side of Bill Clinton without giving due credit to the New Democrat side shows he does not understand the depth of the political problems Clinton needed to deal with and that Democrats still have to deal with today. This is still a country where there is serious concern about the effectiveness of government spending, serious resistance to taxes even for worthy causes, serious concern about Democrats’ foreign policy toughness, and serious worries about Democrats’ association with non-mainstream social values. Democrats cannot overcome these problems simply by wishing them away (let’s not worry about winning, says Perlstein, let’s focus on . . . 2018).

The good news is that Democrats are gradually overcoming these problems. They are making good progress on eliminating Democratic defections to the Republican Party (a huge problem in the 1980s) and winning over political independents (who voted Republican in the 1980s but are now leaning Democratic). Building up the Democratic party-ID advantage is a longer-range project, but I believe progress can be made here too (though I am doubtful, for various reasons, that Democrats will be able to regain their pre-1984 advantage in full). But doing so depends on combining the Clinton synthesis Perlstein disdains with some of the broad, large-scale thinking he so clearly favors. But since he did not take such a nuanced approach, his call for large-scale thinking winds up seeming impractical rather than inspirational. As someone who shares his interest in big ideas and long-range strategizing, I think that’s a shame.

Obviously, I'm a bit more optimistic than Pearlstein and one of the reasons was outlined today in The New York Times Magazine by Matt Bai in an article with the somewhat histrionic title "Wiring the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy", which you should definitely read, if you haven't already. The article covers an emerging trend among "ideological" big money Democrats (i.e., big donors who have a political agenda around revitalizing the Democratic party, rather than lobbying for parochial economic interests) to give more and give more effectively through forming pools of venture capital to promote new Democratic institutions and ideas. Here's one revealing excerpt from the Bai ariticle:

What makes these meetings [of big donors in different cities] remarkable is that while everyone attending them wants John Kerry to win in November, they are focused well beyond the 2004 election. The plan is to gather investors from each city -- perhaps in one big meeting early next year -- and create a kind of venture-capital pipeline that would funnel money into a new political movement, working independently of the existing Democratic establishment. The dollar figure for investment being tossed around in private conversations is $100 million.

''You're talking about raising a lot of money,'' I said doubtfully.

[Andy] Rappaport [a wealthy Silicon Valley venture capitalist] tilted his head to one side. He looked as if he felt sorry for me.

''A hundred million dollars,'' he said, ''is nothing.''

I like the sound of that! Anyway, check it out. While one must take Bai's breathless tone with a grain of salt (if this doesn't work the Democrats will go the way of the dinosaurs!!!), I do believe that this trend is an important one and holds great promise for the Democrats.