There has been a lot of talk lately about the election results and the reasons why the Democrats, despite their best efforts, lost this important race. Voter fraud myths have been hitting the Internet, and liberal listservers are abuzz with wishes this was all just a dream.

Last Wednesday, the reality of the situation set in as I cried for an hour over the incredible amount of time that I personally spent knocking on doors and talking to people about the progressive ticket. I walked from house to house in crappy Iowa towns, trying to get John Kerry into office, and, for all that work, I got nothing. Paul Johnson, the local demigod of progressive politics, didn’t even make it into office. It was a black Tuesday for all Democrats.

Why?

Why didn’t the Democrats get anywhere Tuesday night? Although the election results were very close in most states, Republicans still came out with a 4.5 million vote lead over the Democrats. Pundits on CNN and Fox News argued it was the “great field campaign” lead by the Republicans. But with organizations like America Coming Together, MoveOn, and the mobilization of liberal organizations like Planned Parenthood that endorsed John Kerry, the grassroots organizational ability of the Republican Party was trumped by the efforts of people desperate to get George W. Bush out of office.

The negative ads done by the Kerry campaign did nothing to help their cause; however, the Bush camp had their own mud slingers, namely the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and other conservative 527s. Instead of blaming the lack of effort, the Democrats gave in to their campaign.

However, it is the message of intolerance that the party espouses that leaves moderates and conservatives feeling left out. More than 5 million evangelical Christians who didn’t vote in 2000 voted this year, and you can guess where their votes went.

The Democrats are intellectuals who seek to maintain and promote their narrow view of the world. They promote special interests, like same-sex marriage proposals that failed to win one single state when the issue came up on the ballot. This shows that, although fundamentally many Democrats think this is a good thing and support the idea, the majority of Americans are still not comfortable with the idea of allowing same-sex marriage. Instead of addressing the issue from a different angle, the Democrats sling back “homophobia” to Republicans.

This doesn’t mean I am jumping ship of my beloved party. The party platform is endowed with many values and beliefs that I hold dear. That doesn’t make those beliefs true for everyone, however. Just because I think it’s right doesn’t make it right.

I agree with the concession speech given by John Kerry when he asked for unification within the nation so we can all persevere together. He held back tears as he spoke about the love he had for this country and the amazing people he had the opportunity to meet.

I let the tears flow as I listened and contemplated how that unification process can begin. Democrats need to accept facts as they are and stop drawing lines in the sand of “we are right and you are wrong.” Republicans need to accept the facts and stop drawing lines in the sand of “you’re either with us or against us.” In short, these two parties need to listen not only to each other but to other parties as well. We have shoved our ears full of cotton and failed to listen, failed to understand and failed to reason with those who may have better ideas than we do.

If the Democrats really want to make changes, they need to be willing to step back and become the party of true tolerance instead of being simply the party of liberal politics.