Losing attitude.

As the President's poll numbers sink, and Congressional Republicans look over their shoulders, the Democrats are feeling better and better about the upcoming midterm elections. The Democrats need to pick up fifteen seats to take control of the House. That has always seemed like a long shot. But the worse things go for Bush, the more the number of seats in play increases--to thirty-six at last count, according to the Cook Political Report.

But even if the Democrats gain a majority in Congress in 2006, it won't be a progressive majority. The party leadership continues to promote caution on withdrawing from Iraq, criticizing the President, or taking a stand against the aggressive and unconstitutional policies of this Administration.

The conventional wisdom is that taking too clear a position might get in the way of letting the Republicans hang themselves. Gaining on the Republicans while standing still only reinforces the party leadership's sense that doing nothing is the best way to win an election.

So why be surprised that some Dems are even promoting losing as a winning prospect? Really. In May, Tony Coelho told Adam Nagourney of The New York Times that not gaining majorities in the House and Senate might be better for Democrats, since then they won't be blamed for the mess the country is in.

"The most politically advantageous thing for the Democrats is to pick up eleven, twelve seats in the House and three or four seats in the Senate but let the Republicans continue to be responsible for government," Coelho, a former House Democratic whip, told the Times. "We are heading into this period of tremendous deficit, plus all the scandals, plus all the programs that have been cut. This way, they get blamed for everything."

So when, exactly, can we expect a change of direction? When the Republicans start governing responsibly, ending the deficit, reforming government, restoring domestic services, and rolling back the Bush tax cuts? It will be a cold day in hell before the Democrats judge it a safe time to change the direction of the country.

And if they do manage to stumble into power, what are the chances that the Democrats will take bold steps to rescue the country from all the bad policies this Administration has brought on us? Not much, judging by the nervous attitude of the current leadership. Change is going to have to come from below.

Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean has incurred the wrath of House and Senate leaders by refusing to focus all of his group's funds on the next election. Instead, Dean is channeling money into long-term party-building activities in all fifty states.

That sort of thinking is anathema to the set-aside-everything-to-win-this-time Democratic Party.

"We have gone from election to election, and, if we don't win, then we've dug ourselves into a deep hole and we have nothing to start with," Dean told The Washington Post. "That is a cycle that has to be broken."

"The way you build long-term is to succeed short-term," Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) chair Rahm Emanuel shot back, after a contentious meeting in which, the Post reported, Emanuel left Dean's office spewing invective.

Emanuel, in addition to running the House campaigns, has been a chief architect of the curb-your-enthusiasm style of Democratic politics, opposing talk of complete withdrawal from Iraq and economic populism that might alienate swing voters.

Dean's strategy is a threat to that style of centrist politics, as much as it is to the campaigns' bottom line.

In fact, it might help cure what ails the Democrats. By bringing grassroots candidates up through the ranks, it is possible that, in a few years, the party might actually have some officeholders willing to take a chance on leading the country. Imagine.

Jim Dean, Howard's brother, leads an organization that hopes to nurture those future leaders. Democracy for America (DFA), a network of 650 volunteer groups in forty-nine states, grew out of the Dean Presidential campaign. "After Howard and then Kerry lost, none of these people were ready to pack it in," says Dean. "We're committed to rebuilding the infrastructure of the party from the ground up."

The group has a ten-person staff in Burlington, and an e-mail list of between 600 and 700 people who lend door-knocking and phone-banking time, as well as training and financial support, to hundreds of local candidates. In 2004, when DFA got started, it gave $1 million to some 600 candidates around the country. Two-thirds of the candidates it supports are local, another one-third are in Congressional or Senate races. The group also works with Wellstone Action, Progressive Majority, and other groups that do candidate recruitment, training, and support.

Recently, DFA endorsed Senator Joe Lieberman's primary challenger, Ned Lamont, who is running against Bush's favorite Democrat, arguing that Lieberman has sold out his constituents by supporting the war in Iraq and failing to oppose other egregious Bush policies. Union members, local pols, and activists in Connecticut are engaged in a highly energetic anti-Lieberman campaign. DFA's involvement spreads that energy to a national group of grassroots activists, who will raise money and volunteers for Lamont's campaign.

One of the most organized DFA chapters is in California, where the group helped push the candidacy of Francine Busby, who ran to fill the seat of disgraced Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham. Busby surprised pundits by pulling even with her Republican opponent on the eve of the election in a strongly conservative district. What was particularly notable about her race, Jim Dean says, is that the DCCC changed its practice of abandoning candidates in Republican-leaning districts and stuck by Busby.

"Normally, the DCCC would support her in the first round [when she was the only Democrat in a large field of Republicans] and then quietly drop out," Dean says. "This time, they did not. Those are the kind of gambles we need to take in order to win."

Grassroots groups like DFA may have to drag the party kicking and screaming into taking those gambles, in order to save it from itself.

Ruth Conniff is the political editor of The Progressive.