Democrats acknowledge they were outgunned

For Democrats still absorbing the loss of Senator John Kerry's election loss to President Bush, the lesson to be learnt is an old one -- it's not over until it's over.

That sentiment was visibly absent in Boston Tuesday, when Kerry supporters watching the early exit polls became increasingly convinced that their side was well on its way to victory.

Fundraiser Deven Verma, who was in Boston, recounted a dinner that Senator Edward Kennedy attended with a number of Indian American contributors, where Kennedy boasted of Kerry's imminent win. "He said he'd found out how much it would cost to send President Bush's stuff from the White House to Crawford, Texas," said Verma with a laugh. "He said it would cost $ 8,500 and that the Democratic Party was ready to write a cheque."

In the next few hours, those predictions proved wrong as the returns came in, forecasting a Bush victory.

"Till 10 it was great," said Verma. "We thought we were winning. All the polls said Kerry was ahead. Obviously the public at large is looking for something different. [Fears regarding] the gay and lesbian support, that Kerry would take away the Bible and firearms played a major role in the election."

While Indian-American Democrats are yet to start second-guessing the Kerry campaign, there is acknowledgment that in many ways, they were simply outgunned.

"We had a phenomenal ground game planned," said Ro Khanna, a Democratic operative and one-time Congressional candidate. "We had phenomenal resources, and the Republicans managed to mobilise as well. We didn't mobilise as many people as the Republicans mobilised. But I think the Democratic party did a terrific job of mobilising voters. What wasn't anticipated was the number of Republican voters. I think the Republican base came out for Bush. The rural voters, the evangelicals, all of them came out in record numbers."

For Bay Area fundraiser Sunil Paul, the crucial difference may have been in the method of reaching out to voters.

"The Republicans really focused on person to person efforts," said Paul. "Their message was -- get out your neighbors and reach out to people you know. That's the single most effective way to motivate people. I didn't see quite as much on our side of that kind of effort. I thought our side did an incredible job of staying organised and obviously it wasn't enough."

Nonetheless, for Verma and others associated with the Indian American Leadership Council, a newly formed fundraising arm of the Democratic National Committee, the future is bright.

"We were able to bring the Indian American community together," said Verma. "That's one of the major achievements. Credit for that goes to Senator Kerry himself. He said at my house in 2002 December that the Indian American community needs to get involved. So we organised ourselves all across the country."

Significantly, the community effort was varied, from top-down, money-heavy efforts such as that of the IALC to more grassroots approaches, said Toby Chaudhuri, of the Indian American Leadership Initiative.

He pointed to a number of organisations, partisan and non-partisan, that spent the last several months performing intense Get out the Vote activities, including South Asians for Kerry, Project Impact and South Asian American Voting Youth.

 "SAAVY had a very targeted program where they identified young people who are interested in voting for particular issues, and they turned them out using professional tactics...that had never been done before among desi youth," he said.

And while Bush won the popular vote, his efforts with minority groups were less successful than that of the Democrats.

"Eight-eight per cent of his vote came from whites," said Chaudhuri. "He lost African Americans 9 to 1, Indians nearly 2 to 1. He tried to woo Hispanics and earned all of 40 per cent of their vote."

"The exit polls show that Asian voters voted 60 to 31 for Kerry. Which is very interesting because Asian voters in the past have been a lot more split. So that's a real change in the voting behavior," said Chaudhuri.

Regardless, the loss has left Democrats pondering their next step, and wondering where the nation is headed.

 "What's most distressing to me is that clearly there is a need for people who share our views to reach out to others who don't share that point of view," said Paul. "To be understood you must first understand and I'm a little fearful we don't understand how the other side thinks. That's a dangerous situation for a country."