NYT: Baffled in Loss, Democrats Seek Road Forward [View All]

Baffled in Loss, Democrats Seek Road Forward
By ADAM NAGOURNEY

Published: November 7, 2004

WASHINGTON, Nov. 6 - The Democratic Party emerged from this week's election struggling over what it stood for, anxious about its political future, and bewildered about how to compete with a Republican Party that some Democrats say may be headed for a period of electoral dominance.

Democrats said President Bush's defeat of Senator John Kerry by three million votes had left the party facing its most difficult time in at least 20 years. Some Democrats said the situation was particularly worrisome because of the absence of any compelling Democratic leader prepared to steer the party back to power or carry its banner in 2008.

"We really need to work on the question of what we are for," said Walter F. Mondale, the former vice president whose 1984 loss to Ronald Reagan was invoked by some Democrats in assessing the party's spirits now. "Unless we have a vision and the arguments to match, I don't think we're going to truly connect with the American people."