@Robert Gentel,
Yes, that's possibly true. One of the problems the Democrats have faced for a long time is not really knowing who their base were. The notion of "limousine liberals" is rather ironic considering that they held telethons in the 1970s and well into the 1990s, because they couldn't pay off their campaign debts. They also began touting their "big tent" approach, attempting to be all things to all voters. (The big tent idea was, ironically, originally a Republican Party idea.) They have not been a single-issue party for a very long time. They have often, in fact, been their own worst enemy in campaigning. In 1968, they delayed the official campaign (even though everyone knew Humphrey would be the candidate) so that they could have a big party for LBJ, whose birthday was August 27th. Humphrey steadily decreased Nixon's lead throughout the campaign, and the three week delay proved crucial. (I got to talk Humphrey in 1968 when he came for a campaign dinner at the university i attended at the time. Despite his reputation for being too verbose, he asked us questions--six student workers who were setting up the ballroom--and he listened to the answers, and responded to their content.) Robert Kennedy had been assassinated, Martin Luther King had been assassinated, anti-war demonstrators had disrupted the convention--and yet Humphrey came within 2% of Nixon's plurality. Hell, George Wallace ran as a third candidate, bleeding off more Democratic votes. In light of the circumstances, Humphrey's performance was impressive. He got out the youth vote, despite being associated in the public mind with LBJ and the war. The Democrats need to do that again, but i don't see a Hubert Humphrey on their political horizon, and i don't think the big tent philosophy has served the Democrats very well.
Ah well, we can only hope.
