Our Man in Arlington

On the Wednesday after the election, Arlington Democrats met at Clarendon’s Nam Viet restaurant for their annual post-election luncheon. This year, the mood was decidedly mixed. Locally, Democrats did very well indeed, as they have in most local elections for the last twenty years. Nationally, however, the mood was all doom and gloom.

For the better part of the lunch the mood was upbeat. Winners Barbara Favola (County Board), Libby Garvey and Frank Wilson (School Board) exulted in their victory, with all due modesty of course, and effusively complimented their excellent campaign workers.

Arlington Democratic Chair Jim Turpin duly honored the three co-chairs of the Democratic campaign in Arlington, Sheriff Beth Arthur, Alfonso Lopez, and Peg Lorenz, as well as the many Democratic campaign workers in headquarters and on the streets. The accolades were well deserved. The campaign this year may have been the best organized yet, and this is saying something for a local organization whose organizing expertise is well known at both the state and national levels.

The mood became more somber when attention shifted from the local to the national electoral results. Dan Steen, chair of Jim Moran’s 8th District congressional race, lauded Moran’s victory and the volunteers who did so much to achieve it. And well he should, since Moran won by the largest vote ever cast for him and a very comfortable 60% district-wide margin (about 62% in Arlington).

Then Jim Moran came into the room and began to analyze the national results. Suffice it to say, he reflected the surprise and disappointment felt by the Democratic crowd – and a desire to figure out what really happened. Moran did not resort to Bush bashing (at least not very much), nor to bitter attacks on the various groups that are suspected to harbor violently strong anti-Democratic feelings (fundamentalist Christians, NASCAR dads, Swift Boat veterans – you name your favorite group). He called for a serious examination of the results of the election and a subsequent re-tailoring of the Democrats’ national message to reach and convince a broad majority of America’s voters.

This is no small task, but it is not insurmountable and it does not, as some very conservative columnists such as George Will and Charles Krauthammer sound the death knell of the party nationwide.

The national party would do well to look at Arlington in getting hints about how to win nationally. Arlington Democrats have been less ideological and far more results-oriented than many national Democrats. And they have generally fielded candidates who have been deeply involved in all aspects of community and are intimately familiar with their multiple constituencies. On top of this, Arlington Democrats are extremely well organized at all levels. This has been a very important factor in their great electoral successes.

In the meantime, however, the mourning has not run its course. My wife is still in the denial stage, threatening to remain in bed in a darkened room for the next four years. Others have spoken, only half in jest, of moving to Canada or, in the extreme, to New Zealand, which is about as far away from the United States you can get and still speak recognizable English. This, too, shall pass – but it might take a while, a sign of how passionately people on both sides engaged in the national campaign.