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Glenn,
Two thoughts just occurred to me, after reading your piece and some remarks by Paul Krugman at his blog -- and a piece by Lambert that he links to.
First, think about how the Republican Party achieved its rise to modern prominence by absorbing white Southerners. It didn't happen quickly. After Harry Truman and the Democratic Party integrated the armed forces and came out for "civil rights" in 1948, many Southern Democrats walked out of that year's convention and backed "Dixiecrat" Strom Thurmond in the 48 election (winning 4 Southern states). Then, after Lyndon Johnson and the Democratic-dominated Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (with the help of many moderate to liberal northern Republicans and over the opposition of Southern Democrats), George Wallace ran as an "American Independent" in 1968 (winning 5 states). Wallace returned to the Democratic Party, to his everlasting credit, and won subsequent elections in Alabama with heavy black support, but most white Southerners finally made the switch to the Republican Party in the 70s and 80s.
My point is that there are many independents, moderates and even conservatives today who know that something horrible has happened to the Republican Party (a party devoted to balanced budgets has become the party of massive deficits, a party of foreign policy restraint has become the party of aggression, the party of Ike and NASA has become the anti-science party, a party which proclaims devotion to the Judeo-Christian tradition has become the party of torture, the party of "original intent" has become the party of the "unitary executive"). Some have already become Democrats. A good example is Democratic Senator Jim Webb of Virginia (who probably should be the Democratic VP candidate in 2008). But most are not yet ready to make that step. My plea to you, to Krugman, and others is this: welcome these people. At the very least, don't make the transition even more difficult for them.
My second point is that the Democratic Party needs to have as its spokesperson the most charismatic, the most appealing, the most eloquent, the most persuasive, the most unifying leader possible. We need a leader whose voice and image has some potential, at least, to equal that of a Jefferson, a Lincoln, a (in the age of sound) FDR, and a (in the age of TV) JFK. We need someone who can rally the most people when the crunch comes, when the "malefactors of great wealth" (to quote the other Roosevelt) have to be confronted. We need the Presidential nominee and the VP nominee who can, in advance of that confrontation, bring in the most Democrats along with them. We have such a person available. And I haven't even touched on background factors which would make Barack Obama a transformative leader in American history and even world history (Charles Peters, in the current Washington Monthly, quotes a Democratic Senator who told him "that Obama was the only candidate who had even a remote chance of doing something about the growing hatred of the United States by Muslims").
What's really frustrating me right now is how some of you, who profess to be interested in growing the progressive movement and the Democratic Party, are disparaging Obama's efforts to appeal to and bring along more and more people. And if you want to talk "principles," let's talk about the Iraq War. What was proposed was a war of aggression against a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11. Worse than a crime, it was stupid. Any Democrat who voted for the authorization of war in 2002 will be as compromised and as tongue-tied as John Kerry was in 2004. That was the defining vote of our time. Unless the Democratic Party wants to draft Al Gore, there is only one choice.
But here's my challenge to you. What would you have said in response to these words in 1865? "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
