There a bit of internet buzz about a four part series of articles being written in The American Prospect by John Halpin and Ruy Teixeira regarding a Democratic strategy to win in November. It's a good read and I recommend the whole series as they unfold. But Kevin Drum jumps into the fray after part one, quoting from the article:

The totality of the advice simply misses the mark and obscures the underlying problem driving progressives’ on-going woes nationally: a majority of Americans do not believe progressives or Democrats stand for anything....This trend, one we call the “identity gap,” has been written about and discussed by others in years past. What is not understood is the extent to which this gap continues to drag down progressives and Democrats and depress their support in myriad ways. “No identity” translates into no character. No personal integrity. No vision worth fighting for.

To which Kevin responds:

So we need a strong identity. Check. And how are we going to figure out what it [my emphasis] should be?

In fairness to Drum, the Halpin/Teixeira piece does seem to focusing on what "it" is. And if that's the direction to which they are headed, I don't totally disagree with Drum.

But I'd like to suggest something that perhaps both parties just don't seem to get. The thing Americans are objecting to with Democrats is not what they stand for. Democrats have a long and storied history of generally believing in many core principles that almost anyone could recite: pro-choice, belief that government can help those who can't help themselves, belief in the middle class and so on.

The larger issue is the verb in the equation .... how Democrats stand for something. Any regular reader of this blog knows I've pounded this to death. The fact that Democrats are seen as calculating is the problem, even within the range of it's core beliefs is the larger issue. The reason the whole "flip-flop" meme worked with Kerry is that the GOP maximized this dynamic. Kerry stood for many very liberal/progressive values. His confusing voting record was explainable and is the inevitable result of being a legislator. But to explain all of that was to be "nuanced" which left voters confused and doubting. As an aside, this is also exactly what is spoiling Barack Obama.

Like Paul Hackett, Democrats simply need to be passionate about what they believe, and stick to it. Voters realize that politicians beliefs won't exactly match their own. But the meta-message of someone who actually stands behind their positions says a lot about the integrity of the person. And most voters simply don't have or take the time to read past that image to the nuances of the issues anyway.

A sense of strong belief that is roughly in the neighborhood of their values, that's what people vote for. And this issue is the essence of the ongoing battle between the "netroots" and the "democratic establishment". Howard Dean/Barbara Boxer gets it. Harry Reid sorta gets it. Pelsoi/Summer/Shrum et al don't.