In 1981, 37% of voters identified as Democratic, and 24% identified as Republican. In 1983, the Democrats peaked with 39% of voters identifying Democratic to 23% identifying as Republican. In 2003, 31% of voters identify as Democrats and 31% identify as Republicans -- the worst results for Democrats in the entire 1981-2003 time period.
http://www.pollingreport.com/institut.htm#Political%20Parties
Individual races, even individual Presidential elections, are the battles, but party identification is the war. Party identification is the status quo that every candidate uses as a starting point. Democrats have given up a 16% point edge in twenty-three years. Is it any wonder that the Democratic party grass roots are in a throw the bums out mood?
We could look at who we've lost. It is an instructive excercise. But, even more important is to look at who we can gain and to develop a strategy to get there. It isn't easy.
Part of the exercise is to change what people believe. Some of the change in party identification in the past twenty-four years has happened because Republicans have been able to convince people to change their views on policy issues. More people take a purist free trade and tax cut view today than they did a quarter century ago. They have kept their eyes on the big picture of an ideological vision. Democrats need to do the same and change attidues just as they did in the 1960s and 1970s, when reform movements changed American attitudes about many issues from race to gender relations to police power to war and peace to the environment.
The other part of the exercise is to look at which constituencies can be added to the party without compromising the positions and values that make the Democratic party worth our support. I don't think that this can come piecemeal. It calls for perspectives that can cast new light on a whole host of issues in a way relevant to lots of people. That's what environmentalism did, for example. It gave new meaning to issues from trash disposal to energy policy to urban sprawl.
I don't have the answer, but we know enough to recognize the answers when we find them and to start a concerted effort to look for them.