Kerry concedes

Read the story here.

So what do we do now? Someone just said that Kerry conceding now will help heal the nation. I remember the same thing being said about Al Gore. Didn't happen.

Democrats should concede nothing for the sake of unity. While ultimately I agree with Kerry's decision to call it an election, Democrats all over need to start standing up for what they believe in, and not appear to cower under the apparent mighty Republicans.

Nancy Pelosi, for example, doesn't take much guff. She is strong willed and out spoken. Democrats need more people like her to talk of the ideas that makes the party great.

Perhaps 2008 Democrats find a nominee from the south? I'm not sure how much longer we can take it for granted that we lose down there.

I think the gay marriage amendment in Ohio did Kerry in. Perhaps there are Democratic amendments we can put on ballots in the future, such as stem cells.

My big thought last night was to convince 100,000 Californians and New Yorkers to move to a red state and take it over. That's not going to happen. Instead, Democrats need to figure out how to change the minds and hearts of more than 100,000 people across the country. Our ideas are good and strong. We just need to spread them.

Finally, there will be a lot of gloating and insulting going on today, I'm sure. That, too me, is not what politics is all about. Politics is about the sharing of ideas that makes the world better. Calling a Kerry lover names, or insulting the man himself is not making anything better. I concede Bush got out the vote better than we did. He ran the campaign that won him re-election. That doesn't mean I agree with the guy in any way. It means I fight harder for what I think is right in the face of this.

2006 starts today. Find local candidates who are ready to fight for what we all believe in and support them. Find Republicans in a weak condition and fight against them. Fight for what you believe in. Be strong.

*UPDATE* There are plenty of people mourning the loss today and looking to the future. Josh Marshall makes a darn fine point here.

For the Democrats, what I fear most (and what I've privately worried about for months) is this: Energy cools after an election. That's inevitable. But organization and institutions can survive. And it is within institutions and organizational infrastructure that energy and power exist and persist.

Certainly it would have been more pleasant (and perhaps better) to nurture all the organization and infrastructure that has been built up over the last two years under a President Kerry. But my concern over the last few months has been that if Bush won, all of these groups and organizations and incipient infrastructure would simply be allowed to wither, as though it had been tried and found not to have worked.

That, as a factual judgment, I think is just plain wrong. And if that were allowed to happen it would truly be tragic. The truth is that what Democrats have begun to build over the last two years is tremendously important. It just wasn't enough, not yet.

I remember talking to Simon Rosenberg, the head of the New Dem Network, at the Democratic convention last summer. You'll remember, he and his group were profiled in the Times magazine around that time. The article, in brief, was about plans to create a Democratic-leaning counter-establishment along the lines of what Republicans did two generations ago -- with an alternative media, activist groups, organized political giving, in short a political infrastructure.

He told me he thought it would take ten years to accomplish. And I told him my one worry was that it could all be strangled in its crib if Kerry didn't win.

(snip)

Leave today for disappointment. Tomorrow, think over which of these various groups and organizations you think has made the best start toward what I've described above, go to their website, and give money or volunteer. After that, okay sure, take a few more days for disappointment, maybe a few more weeks. But this takes time. And you shouldn't lose heart. The same division in the country remains, the same stalemate. The other side just got the the ball a yard or two into our side of the field rather than the reverse. And we have to deal with the serious consequences of that. Tomorrow's the day to start.

Heh:

Apparently I wan't vigilant enough to prevent blog piracy. Mss Balsham and Stefanescu are curs. It looks like Bush won, which is sad. The lesson I draw is that if you are stupid, you can get ahead by being sufficiently resolute and confident. THIS IS AN IMPORTANT LIFE LESSON. I will never ever ever ever admit that I've made a mistake, and I will sneer, and I will be conifdent and RESOLUTE, because confidence and resoluteness makes you the President of everybody.