After the pounding the Democrats took last week, every liberal pundit in the nation is wondering "What did they do wrong?" Not wanting to miss out on the fun, I'll add my two cents.

The Democratic campaigns in the 2000 and 2002 elections (with some minor exceptions) could have been taken out of a textbook on how not to campaign. The Democratic Party forgot about grassroot efforts and stuck to fat-cat contributors, TV advertisements and scripted debates. They let the Republican Party control national debate and showed less courage than the average rabbit. Their lack of courage and fight has spawned third parties, most notably the Greens, who, contrary to their professed interest in championing liberal causes, are actually contributing to the dominance of the right at the ballot box.

Clinton's first presidential campaign in 1992 was excellent, really rallying the masses. He successfully portrayed himself as a charismatic guy able to speak to the common person. His strategists realized that the value of fundraisers is not simply in the money they bring in, but in the excitement they generate for a candidate. Thousands of households (including mine) held small, local fundraisers that cost around ten dollars a plate; not major advertising dollars by any stretch of the imagination but a priceless investment of human capital. These events gave the average voter a vested interest in a Clinton's campaign and created local groups of friends and acquaintances who actively supported him. The result: a man with some very liberal ideas, such as nationalized healthcare, won. Clinton abandoned grassroots (as well as some of his principles) in 1996 in favor of the major contributor and soft money, as have most subsequent national campaigns for Democrat candidates, leaving the common folk feeling disenfranchised. Small time contributors like my family are no longer asked to participate.

Democrats also have allowed themselves to be pushed around by Republicans in setting the agenda for political debate. They were forced into voting on the use of force resolution early, which prevented serious pre-election debate on important domestic issues such as the environment, Social Security, health care, the economy, corporate responsibility, and the erosion of liberties under the "War on Terrorism." Congress' Iraq Resolution and the U.N.-passed American-backed Iraq resolution received a tremendous amount of publicity, whereas the Bush administration's attempts to change mining laws to allow the coal industry to bury streams with their mine tailings went practically unnoticed. The Democrats echoed the Republican line on Iraq for fear of looking like supporters of Saddam and wasted important time supporting Republican ideas rather than redirecting attention to Democratic strengths. Though the snipers were hunting down citizens in three states during the weeks before the election, gun control was only a minor election issue. The Democrats should have a lock on domestic policy. Who can forget about Republican calls to "privatize social security?" Apparently the Democratic candidates did. How did eliminating the estate tax, which taxes only the heirs of the superwealthy, become the "Death Tax" and a populist issue for the Republicans instead of a way for Democrats to illustrate how out of touch the Republican Party is with the needs of our nation? And can someone explain to me, why in the era of budget deficits and higher spending on defense at the expense of vital social programs, no major Democratic leader has made a ruckus about the Bush tax cut?

Inevitably, as Democratic rhetoric moved toward the right, many liberals became disillusioned with the Democratic party; many of them fled to the Green party. Normally the purpose of a third party is to provide a wake-up call to the major parties. The Populists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century never dominated at the ballot box, but their core issues, such as petition and recall, became mainstream because the Populists were enough of a force to sway the major parties. Unfortunately, so far, the reaction of the Democrats has not been to shift left to regain those lost votes but to shift right to make up for them. They must regain their core voters, not by changing their values but by redefining what is important. To head off the "Death Tax" debacle, the Democrats should have composed a forceful response saying, "Hey look, this is a tax that will never affect 99 percent of you, but instead only taxes those with a ridiculous amount of assets and is backed by the ultra-rich of the Republican party." Unfortunately, the Democrats let themselves be forced into voting for a bill that increased the amount of money not touched by the estate tax by several million dollars.

Hindsight is 20/20, but the advantage of a democratic system is that we can learn our lessons from the mistakes of two years ago. The Democrats failed to learn from their slips last time around and need a kick in the butt to get them moving again. I certainly hope the damage that will be done by a Republican-dominated Congress over the next two years will be enough of a wake up call.

As students, we have the luxury of being political idealists, and it is time to put our ideas to work. Rather than sitting around waiting for the next election, Democrats, Greens, and other liberal groups must unite. We must make our voice heard: grassroots organizing, big protests, massive letter writing campaigns, and maybe, if things get really bad, some good old fashioned civil disobedience. We must force our political leaders to focus on the issues that count.