Republicans created and benefited from a massive information vacuum through dishonesty and immorality. Media irresponsibility helped maintain this fog of deceit. In this environment, the Democrats failed as teachers. The Republican method rests on manipulating misinformed people, and making sure they remain misinformed and pliable. While Democrats try to educate the electorate, Republicans try to trick voters and - failing that - to deny voting rights.

Too many Americans just don't know the basic facts, and many don't even care about the facts. That's why Democrats face serious problems in elections. Those who reject reason - the right wing base - may remain beyond reach. However, well-informed people should reach out to the rest of the Republican voters who would have voted better if they knew better.

Republicans enjoy an advantage because it's easy to manipulate people through fear and loathing. It's easy to appeal to the worst in people, enflame resentment and appeal to bigotry and fear than it is to convey sometimes complex facts to people overworked, overstressed, and deprived of sleep.

Americans failed the math portion of the November 2nd test. Too many of us heard statistics proving Bush's economic policies failed miserably, but don't know higher math concepts. Who can keep these huge numbers in mind when one million is a thousand thousands, a billion is a thousand times that, and the amount Bush added to our national debt is nearly one thousand five hundred times one thousand thousands or $1,486,097,000,000. These numbers overwhelm us.

When Bush took office, he found a budget surplus of $236 billion, according to his own Office of Management and Budget. But his profligate spending and his generous give-aways to his elite special interest supporters squandered those assets. Bush borrowed and spent $413 billion in our names, charged to our credit card deficit, just this year. Republicans try to blame 9/11 for this, but all legitimate economists point to Bush's massive gifts to his contributors and cronies. Most of our money went to people like Dick Cheney and corporations like Halliburton which Cheney ran and which still pays Cheney a princely sum.

Everyone knows Kerry "voted for the $87 Billion before he voted against it" but not enough understood why he did so. The measure he voted for demanded accountability and fiscal responsibility. Democrats and moderate Republicans were trying to make sure Halliburton and others already under investigation for defrauding the tax payers couldn't steal more tax money.

Bush killed the accountable approach when he threatened to veto it, so Bush actually blocked $87 Billion before he okayed it. Unfortunately Kerry failed to explain clearly that he voted against blowing up the national debt with unaudited handouts to war profiteers. The law Bush signed was not "support for the troops." The approach Kerry backed would ensure the money went to the troops, not to Dick Cheney. This culminated a series of Bush lies which enriched war profiteers and alleged defrauders at the expense of troops and taxpayers.

To review: First, Bush lied about the (non-existent) threat from Iraq. Then, he sent our troops into combat on false pretenses without adequate armor or equipment. Bush killed the responsible and honest approach to curing his horrendous and reckless errors, holding our troops hostage to yet another massive and unaccountable raid on the US Treasury.

Besides the infamous $87 Billion Bush threatened to veto unless it remained wide open to fraud, Bush's raids on the US Treasury looted $1.35 trillion in 2001, $96 billion in 2002, $330 billion in 2003, and gave over $100 billion more of your money to his corporate / special interest allies this year.

The Bush/Cheney Treasury reports that as of 11/4/2004 each of us is in debt by more than $25,000. The current total national debt is $7,429,933,000,000. According to US Treasury records, Reagan and Bush I policies added $3,506,958,000,000 to the national debt. Bush II's failures added $1,486,097,000,000. The total Reagan/Bush I/Bush II debt amounts to $4,993,055,000,000.

Treasury Data shows Bush, his father, and Ronald Reagan borrowed and spent nearly FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS in our name. That's more than two-thirds of the total national debt accumulated from the 1770s to 2004 in just under sixteen years. These three Republicans and their allies in Congress increased the financial burden on each American by an average of $17,000.

Before Bush rejected fiscal responsibility in favor of voodoo economics, President Clinton was paying down this monumental burden. Someone will have to pay off this debt. As Republicans shield the rich and huge corporations from paying their fair share, the burden falls ever more heavily on us, our children, and our grandchildren. Too many voters failed to take this into account, mainly because Democrats and the media failed to adequately expose and debunk Republican lies about Bush's policies.

For data on population, public debt, and whose policies ran it up see: U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division, "U.S. POPClock Projection" http://www.census.gov/cgi-bin/popclock, US Treasury "The Debt to the Penny and Who Holds It," http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpdodt.htm, and "The Bureau of Public Debt," http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opd.htm.

Americans failed the geography/current events portion of the election as well. Two thirds of Bush voters and half of all voters still think Iraq attacked us on 9/11. Even more think international and US investigations confirmed Bush's early pretexts for attacking Iraq - weapons of mass destruction, Iraq posed a threat to us - although the 9/11 Commission, Bush's appointed weapons inspectors and all known facts establish the opposite is true. Polls show most Bush supporters don't understand these basic facts. In this case, Bush and his coconspirators cleverly deceived the public, conflating Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. Democrats and the media explained the facts, but could not overcome cynical Republican lies about Iraq, al Qaeda and terrorism.

Besides the points above, there's more missing information as well. The pro-Bush mass media refuses to report how profoundly Republicans cheated. They rigged machines, accused innocent voters of committing crimes, stood in the polling place doorways and even inside polling places to block and delay voters. All this intentionally and illegally deprived people of voting rights.

True, Kerry made some odd mistakes which damaged his chances culminating with an astonishingly premature concession. Data and best evidence shows Kerry probably really won New Mexico, Ohio, and Florida - and thereby carried more than enough Electoral Votes to win. Even if the math is "fuzzy," the rule is clear. If you break the law and cheat - even if you merely make a razor-thin margin a bit wider - you lose. Anyone who cheats to win in sports, business or politics - should not gain rewards by cheating. Electoral criminals should go to prison, not grab power. Otherwise, this is not a free nation.

That said, Democrats must figure out ways to communicate better with the 1/3 of Bush's voters who aren't too unintelligent or insane to accept facts. The media and Democrats must more clearly explain the ways almost every Republican policy rests on false premises and almost always hurts most Americans. Fundamentally, Democrats and the media must expose ways Republicans abuse "moral" issues in immoral ways - lying to us to hurt almost all Americans - while practicing the most pernicious hypocrisy.

Specifically Republicans dishonestly, unfairly and hypocritically smear Democrats by associating them with legal but unpopular things. They also attack Democrats for "softness" on - even as they commit - crimes. Republicans rail against but commit adultery and pay for and get abortions. Leading GOPs like Bill Bennett preach morality even as they enrich "sin palaces" packed with scantily clad women called casinos. Republican propagandists such as Rush Limbaugh abuse drugs while condemning drug abusers to death.

"Family Values" Republicans tacitly defend those who molest and even kill their own children by blaming others for these crimes. Remember Susan Smith? Newt Gingrich blamed liberals when she murdered her children, even though her step-father who molested her was a local Republican Party boss and "Moral Majority" leader. Even though Gingrich failed to pay child support for his own children.

No one should blame all Republicans when some Republicans like Smith's father abuse their children or when Smith and Andrea Yates kill their kids. But when Republicans like Gingrich and Limbaugh blame Democrats and accuse them of "opposing morality" the media and the electorate should shun right wingers who engage in such criminal coddling hate speech.

Since so many of their top leaders practice what they preach against, Republican moral pontifications merely provide a smoke screen behind which Republican economic policies rob hard working Americans of their earnings in an unabashed class war which enriches the idle rich. Republicans fool their voters by blaming "liberals" for smutty movies and TV shows, even though bastions of the right wing like FOX and NBC pour "degenerate" entertainment into the culture.

Republican demagoguery on race, gender, sexual orientation, class and other divisive fault-lines dates back decades. Republican hero Joe McCarthy ruined lives by spewing lies and distracted law enforcement and public attention from real spies and real threats. GOP icon Ronald Reagan - then nominally a union president and Democrat - collaborated in witch hunts, betraying friends who trusted him, just because they were less right wing than he was. Racist Ex-Democrats including Strom Thurmond, George Wallace, and many others established a strategy Republicans like Richard Nixon, Reagan and both Bushes used to carry most of Dixie in presidential elections from 1972 to 2004.

Racism and divisive demagoguery - branding Democrats as "traitors" who are "soft on communism" (updated to "soft on terrorism"), who keep "coddling criminals," and give money to "lazy, shiftless" welfare recipients - persists as the main theme of Republican politics. When Democrats failed to contest these scurrilous lies, they've lost or won by too little to prevent election theft. When they've successfully communicated to the public, they've won easily.

Republican policies hurt most voters, so Republicans have to obscure these realities. Right wingers nurse grudges and fan the flames of hatred, resentment and division. They encourage the victims of their pernicious policies to wallow in their victimization, as they mislead their electorate. They point fingers at women (whom they call "Feminazis", minorities (whom they stereotype and attack), and the mythical whipping boy called "the liberal elite."

Republicans rely on "culture wars." These divide and conquer tactics divert legitimate frustration away from multi-national corporate crooks and conmen and Republican officials who give our money to their wealthy elite allies. Using focus groups and intense polling Republican strategists refocus anger from the powerful guilty to target the innocent weak. They get away with it because Democrats haven't adequately exposed these immoral tactics and the media remain largely silent.

Democrats have to confront Republican "culture war" bigotry behind which the right wing wages class warfare. They have to work with working people to educate them about the many ways Republicans attack working families. To do so, they have to draw clear lines between themselves and the Republican-backed "malefactors of wealth" who outsource jobs, and refuse to shoulder their fair share by writing loopholes into the tax code and setting up off shore mail drops as their "residence." Basically Democrats must do what it takes to inform Americans better

Too many Americans failed the citizenry test. Another way of saying that is Democratic candidates and spokespeople failed to communicate well, in large part because of Republican propaganda (lies) and media malpractice. Still, Democrats cannot control what the Republicans and pro-Republican media do. They can only work to overcome immoral right wing tactics and lazy or biased media misinforming Americans.