Gray Davis, Dr. Kiron Skinner, Antonio Gonzalez and Sandra Tsing Loh analyze Election Day results. DNC Chair Howard Dean also weighs in on the party victory.
Gray Davis
"Well clearly, people voted in record numbers because they wanted change. They're tired of tuition costs going up, healthcare costs going up. If they had a pension, that being chipped away at. They're - most Americans lives are not getting better. They're getting more complicated, more expensive, and they feel like they're sliding backwards. So those kinds of issues to prescription drugs, minimum wage, and other issues have to be dealt with. And I think there'll be some accommodation from the White House on that.
On foreign policy, there has to be some reconciliation with what we're doing in Iraq. Clearly, the president's play-calling is not working. As I said, he's a quarterback calling the play. Every play is losing ground. We have to try a different play. I don't know precisely what it is, but it has to be some combination of telling the Iraqis, "This is your country, fight for it as hard as we fought for you. We'll stick around and help you, but it's now your task."
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Gray Davis
Former Governor, California
Dr. Kiron Skinner
"On foreign policy, I'm deeply troubled, because yes, the Democrats won on an electoral strategy based on, "Washington is the problem; the White House is the problem." They made it national, not local. That was very clever and very successful. But underneath it, I see no deep strategizing for dealing with our competitors in the world. Russia, in 2005, spent more money for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union on arms sales to the developing world. It spent 700 million on surface-to-air missiles to Iran. "
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Dr. Kiron Skinner
Hoover Institution Fellow
Antonio Gonzalez
"So you have sort of the Democratic coalition. Women, labor, minorities, moving up in ranks, taking leadership positions. And it's gonna be a challenge for them to really change course. 'Cause as you know, the unwritten story in this election is that Democrats didn't really run on a full agenda. They ran on, "We're anything; we're not Bush. We're not Republicans."
That was the agenda they ran on. It was the Pelosi strategy. It was successful, but now it's time to govern, at least in part. So they're gonna have to put forth an agenda.
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Antonio Gonzalez
Southwest Voter Registration Education Project
Sandra Tsing Loh
"It used to be that we used to have to put them in a certain box. I know, again, as a Democrat female, people are going, "Yeah, isn't it great that Hillary Clinton is so powerful," and you go, "But what about Condoleezza Rice?" It's often mentioned that she's not such a hero among the feminists, because she's on the Republican side. But I think in fact they're all really interesting, powerful women who have their politics .They don't have to be any which way. So I think Nancy[Pelosi] - it's great. But it'll be interesting to see how she negotiates this new role. "
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Sandra Tsing Loh
Writer, Commentator
Howard Dean
"The American people want a new direction, and that's what they're gonna get, at least as far as we're concerned, to our ability to influence this president. Secondly, one of the things that pleases me the most is we’ve won some seats in places that we don't normally win seats. And it's gonna be our job over the next year and a half to cement those gains, work really hard in those districts.
One of the mistakes I think the Democrats have made for quite a while is to not reach out to places like Nebraska and Kansas and some of the - even the red areas in California, where we give seats away for free to the Republicans. Well, now we have a great opportunity to show Americans that all those things that the Republicans have been saying about us for all these years simply aren't true.
That the fact of the matter is we balance budgets, that we know how to govern, and that we know how to listen to people, which is something that I think the president's party has fallen down on."
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Howard Dean
Democratic National Committee Chairman
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