“Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.”

If the Democratic party dusts off the same discredited play book in 2008, that old adage should be first and foremost in the minds of progressives. Actually progressives have been fooled more than once. In the November 2002 mid-term elections the Democratic party made only a token attempt to take back the House of Representatives and ended up losing control of the Senate. Democratic Senator Max Cleland of Georgia was among the defeated, in all likelihood the first victim of electronic vote fraud.

Inexplicably, Democrats didn’t rise up in protest after this disaster. Most hoped for better fortune in 2004 when there should have been a march on Washington heading straight for the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters. Terry McAuliffe and all of his minions should have been forcibly escorted out the door.

McAuliffe will soon be out, but it isn’t too late to read the riot act to a host of inexcusably incompetent politicians, consultants and pundits. The Democratic party was the recipient of a massive effort to turn the tide against Bush, but it wasn’t worthy of the hard work done on its behalf. On November 3rd John Kerry conceded when he should have demanded an investigation into missing voting machines in Cuyahoga County, Ohio and suspicious vote tallies in Volusia County, Florida.

Kerry’s wimpy concession may have seemed like the lowest point in a bad campaign but he managed to out do himself. Kerry had squirreled away $15 million for a political rainy day. There was enough precipitation in 2004 to have found some use for that money. Who knows what he was waiting for, the money certainly wasn’t earmarked for a recount effort.

Progressives will not be victorious unless they tell their own party, “No more.” Don’t attend or host a house party to call voters in swing states. Don’t make a bus trip to get out the vote. Don’t lift a finger again until the party whose ineptness makes those efforts a sham proves that it has turned over a new leaf and knows how to win an election.

Progressives must make demands. They must point out that hard work meant nothing in the face of Democratic party ineptitude. No one should consider doing any of the heavy lifting in 2006 or 2008 if the new leader of the DNC hasn’t adequately addressed the issues that led to this latest electoral catastrophe. The Democrats obviously don’t have a clue, so they may need a list of the issues they must confront if they are interested in winning again.

When nervous Democrats saw the danger signals in August and September they were told to shut up. They were exhorted to be unified and optimistic. Like children in a dysfunctional family they were convinced that the elephant in the living room was a figment of their imagination. Progressives must stop playing the role of enabler. If they accept a losing proposition again in 2008 they will have to say, “Shame on me".

Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in   Ms. Kimberley is a freelance writer living in New York City.  She can be reached via e-Mail at [email protected]. You can read more of Ms. Kimberley's writings at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com/