Kevin Drum links to this semiserious piece in the Washington Monthly talking up Democratic prospects for '08, from the global, corporate, entertainment and political benches.
What the hell. I'm willing to be unconventional. And it's not like we're loaded with charismatic, clean up hitters who deserve their turn. One stipulation I have, though, is that he or she agree to not run away from the word "liberal". As Ezra says:
We don't need to turn out our base, we need to enlarge it. We need to make liberalism safe and attractive, and we need more Americans to demand more progressivism in their candidate. When Barry Goldwater turned the hell out of his base, he lost by one of the widest margins in American history. His base was too small. When Reagan turned out his base, he won repeatedly. Reagan made conservatism attractive, he made his base -- theoretically the same one Goldwater had -- huge. Which is why the whole idea of bases as monolithic groups is dead wrong, they're amorphous, they fluctuate in size. And they're not the answer. When liberalism is ascendant and its spokesperson appealing, our base will be huge. Until then, it'll never be large enough.
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