I've had an opportunity to talk to the young man who delivers the local paper to my home a few times, and much to my dismay I discovered how inept the Democratic strategy of not talking about policy issues is. The guy is a 20-year-old college student, an art major, devoted Catholic (mother emigrated from Ireland), and a movie buff. 2004 will be the first presidential election he's had an opportunity to vote in. He's precisely the kind of potential voter the Democrats should be aiming at. I did not get the impression, after talking to him several times at length, that he's political in any sense of the word. He said he planned on voting,and probably leans toward Bush, and Republicans in general, because of their pro-life stance.
I asked him if he'd consider voting for Kerry, and he responded that he didn't know what Kerry stood for, other then being the anti-Bush. He actually said that. Now being the anti-Bush might seem like reason enough to vote for Kerry among well-informed Kossacks, but to a young man who doesn't pay close attention to politics, like most of the electorate, he had no reason to vote for Kerry. He then made a positive remark about Bush's decisiveness, admitting along the way that Bush was stupid, and seemed to be wrong about everything, but still got points for sticking to what he believed. This sort of critique applies to the Democrats as a national party, writ large. We don't have an agenda, and we don't have the conviction to defend that agenda, and if we do, it's not filtering down to the casual voter.