My first reaction relates to something Al From wrote in the kickoff piece to this discussion:

Politics is littered with false choices – and, to me, no choice is more false for Democrats than choosing between a political strategy aimed at increasing our base vote and a political strategy aimed at winning over swing voters. To win elections consistently and build an enduring political and governing majority, we need to pursue both strategies.

Absolutely correct. Indeed, the REAL dispute among those debating this issue is precisely what strategy serves BOTH of these goals. I remain a strong believer in the Lincoln 1860/Politics of Contrast/Fighting Dems approach that, at one time, was favored by the Netroots. Now of course, many in the Netroots agree with Al From's view that:

In recent elections the Republicans have pursued a strategy that aims nearly entirely in expanding their base – in finding Republicans who have been non-voters and getting them to the polls. That strategy worked for them in 2002 and 2004, but failed in 2006. I’m convinced that it is ultimately a losing strategy for the Republicans because it will drive too many swing voters and voters with loose party attachments to the other side as it did in 2006.

For Democrats, I’m convinced that such a strategy would be a disaster. For starters, Democrats cannot consistently win elections without winning moderate voters by substantial margins like we did in 2006. Consistently, over the last several decades there have been more conservatives than liberals in the electorate – the electorate may vary a little but it’s usually around 30 percent conservative, 20 percent liberal and 50 percent moderate. That means if the Republicans win the conservatives and Democrats the liberals, we have to win 60 percent of the moderates just to break even. That’s not an ideological statement; just pure arithmetic.

I created a firestorm the other days when I criticized a post by Kagro X that accused the DLC of jumping on the Obama bandwagon. But I think Al From's views make clear that he could easily support Obama from conviction, not political convenience. Al From and the DLC's theory of political style are completely in tune with Obama's. I know this is inconvenient for our friends in the Netroots, but it is simply a fact.

My view is different and I will rehash it in a later post. but I want to touch upon an important point in Joan McCarter's post as well.

Joan writes:

Ed Kilgore began this roundtable discussion with two questions: are swing voters worth the trouble? Can Democrats win with base mobilization alone?

. . . The key for the Democratic Party in shaping a strategy for the 2008 elections will be allowing Democrats running in the region to run with a high degree of independence from the national party's message and structure. The key for Democrats running in the West will be to find those issues that can be branded as Democratic and that uphold our progressive values.

(Emphasis supplied.) I agree with the need for devolution for the Democratic Party and I think Howard Dean has argued for it as DNC Chair. Previously, I noted this Dean strategy when commenting upon Matt Bai's NYTimes piece on Dean:

Devolution of power in the Democratic Party is inextricably tied to Dean's 50 state strategy. I don't know if I agree with Dean's execution of the strategy, in fact I am pretty sure I disagree with a lot of it, but the idea of a 50 state Democratic Party is sound, even essential, to its continued relevance.

It is no secret that I am a proponent of a politics of contrast for Dems. I am also a proponent of a Big Tent Dem Party. Are these two ideas mutually exclusive? I think not.

For example, while I am skeptical of a short term strategy that can deliver significant wins for Dems in the South, the medium and long term offer opportunities. But I think they come from the devolution strategy that Howard Dean is trying to execute, creating strong state Democratic parties that control their own local message. National branding still requires a national message and, more importantly, negative branding of the Republicans.

Last year, Mark Schmitt wrote a compelling piece, "One Democratic Party, Or Many?" that I think nicely illustrates this point:

A few months ago, I heard Ed [Kilgore], in response to a question at a talk, explain how Democrats had, over several decades, crafted several different ways to win in the South, the most recent being a coalition of white suburbanites, African-Americans and rural whites based on improving education, with Governor Hunt of North Carolina an example. His argument was that Democrats would win again, with a different coalition. If Ed's written this up, I hope he'll share the link -- it was more useful than the complete works of Earl and Merle Back.

Beyond the Deep South, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Montana, Kansas, Arizona and Tennessee all have Democratic governors and they all have one thing in common: they are very popular. In addition, the big Midwestern states that were a powerful base for Republicans in the 1990s have now mostly swung back; if Ted Strickland is elected governor of Ohio next fall it will be a significant shift back.

It is tempting to pick any one of those governors -- Schweitzer in Montana, Bredesen in Tennessee, Napolitano in Arizona, etc. -- and say, "that's the formula for Democrats." Obviously, each of them has figured out some sort of formula that works for them in their state. But their formulas are all very different -- Schweitzer populist, Bredesen high-tech, Napolitano tough and clean -- and all of them would face a different situation if they ran for U.S. Senate, where voters' opinion of the national Democratic party comes into play. . . But clearly something about the national Democratic party was pulling these candidates down.

True enough. But Mark picked states where Dems simply aren't going to win in the short term. And no message we deliver will change that. Oklahoma and Alabama? Forget them, in the short term.

And this is where Mark's analysis faltered in my opinion. He looks at states where we have no chance to prove what? Mark thinks a better national message can deliver Oklahoma? Alabama? Puhleeaze. No more than Massachusetts can be delivered to the GOP at the national level. Thus Mark made this error:

[Competence in governing is] very different, though, from the idea that we need a single, coherent national message (economic populism or cultural moderation or national security). But even if there were a strong national message, would all of our state-level stars, the Napolitanos and Granholms, the Easleys and Sebeliuses, embrace it? And if they wouldn't, what's the point?

The point is we can win in PURPLE states. We can find a message that works in purple AND blue. And, to be frank, it is basically a negative message about the extremists that run the GOP.

But that is not to say that multiple local messages are not also necessary. The Big Tent. And Howard Dean understands this. Thus his devolution strategy is essential to making a national Democratic Party, a Big Tent Democratic Party, a relevant and powerful reality. The devil is in the details of course, but the big picture is essential, and I think Dean gets the big picture.

This post is already too long and there is much more to say. But I end this post here.