As Georgia Democrats struggle to find what went wrong on Election Day 2002, they are not alone. National Democrats have convened their own self-evaluation teams in an effort to find out what went wrong. Based on post election responses to polls and focus groups, the answer appears to be the same for both – no message and no messenger.

Regardless of whether viewed from the national or state level, voters could never identify what the Democratic message was. Indeed, in post election surveys, voters were asked what the message of the Democratic Party was. The most frequently given answers were that they were opposed to President Bush. That is not a good message when there is a popular President leading a war to protect national security.

Even at the state level, voters could not articulate a consistent Democratic message. As a result, they could not justify giving head of the titular head of the Georgia Democratic Party four more years as Governor of Georgia. In many respects, efforts to identify a message were reminiscent of the President George Bush ("Bush I") campaign in 1992.

In 1992, President George Bush attempted to convince the American people through advertisements and speeches that the economy was fine. The average American looked around, saw friends losing their jobs, watched their pay remain stagnant, and heard bad economic news all around. So, the response was "yeah, right."

In 2002, Governor Roy Barnes attempted to convince Georgians through advertisements and speeches that Georgia was fine. But when he ran advertisements saying education reform was working, voters heard teachers and parents lamenting the effects of an overhaul gone too far. When voters heard that scores were improving, voters saw headlines that test scores had dropped to fiftieth.

The same was true regarding the economy, job growth, taxes, and traffic. They heard one thing, but experienced another. And, contrary to the perception of many political gurus, voters are actually pretty smart. Candidates can run advertisements all day saying the sky is not blue, but if voters look out the window and see a blue sky, they can not be convinced otherwise.

In the end, neither the National Democratic Party nor the Georgia Democratic Party identified a consistent, believable message regarding why they should govern. The lack of message was only compounded by the complete absence of a messenger.

Neither Senator Tom Daschle nor Representative Dick Gephardt could ever rise above their partisan roles to be a credible source about what was good for America as opposed to the Democratic Party. Worse yet, no other Democratic leader could fill that role. Democratic candidates were even leery of any of the potential standard bearers campaigning for them in their respective campaigns.

The few credible Democrats like Senator Zell Miller were left carrying the weight for virtually every candidate only to find their own credibility undermined by overuse. And even then, most voters viewed Senator Miller more as a statesman than as a representative of his party.

No message; no messenger. That is a bad combination under any circumstances. Before getting too far down the road of blaming the losing incumbents, Democrats might want to look at the possibility that their Party let their candidates down as opposed to vice versa.