A secret dissident in a blue state

I joke that I’m “the only conservative in Western Massachusetts” but about one million Bay Staters voted for President Bush in the 2004 election. In today’s Boston Globe, Joan Vennochi prints part of a letter by another Massachusetts Bush-voter who could not back Kerry because she had no idea where he stood on vital issues of national security:

"Long ago, I gave up the idea that presidents actually do anything to make public schools better or healthcare more affordable. For me, this election was all about homeland security and the war in Iraq. Kerry never sold me on how he would do a better job with either one. To this day, I don't understand his positions on the war, or what his plan was to bring home the troops. Kerry didn't understand that I was a long way from seeing terrorism as a `nuisance' and that I needed reassurance that if we were attacked again, he would strike back. I wanted plain speak, and he gave me nuanced rhetoric.”

Vennochi concludes with this warning for Democrats:

If Democrats persist in stereotyping the Bush 2004 voter, they will never figure out how to win back voters in 2008, like the woman described above. Registered as an independent, she voted for Al Gore in 2000 and holds a professional job in a bastion of local liberalism. But traditional Democratic constituencies -- women, minorities, and labor -- no longer perform like trained seals. They need reason beyond party affiliation to vote for any presidential candidate.

The Democrats need some serious introspection, but instead they’re still – still! – flailing away in Ohio. Rock on, Terry McAuliffe.