This makes me so uncomfortable

In the week and a half since the election, I've read a lot of articles decrying the Democratic Party for having no clearly defined moral values, no vision. Most of these articles insist that if the party ever wants to regain power, it must move to the right, embrace Christians, and compromise on some "lesser" beliefs (usually whatever the author doesn't feel too strongly about). Here's yet another article from someone claiming to have the answers. But point number three of nineteen is

The failure of the Democratic Party to connect with America's desire for fulfillment is political death.

He later says that Americans want "a deeper sense of personal meaning, a national mission, and passion in times of fear." I agree. I think you can draw a straight line between that desire and the US's crusade to destroy Iraq, now endorsed by the American public (not to mention the movements to ban or restrict gay marriage, abortion, freedom of expression, and personal privacy). So yes, if the Democrats want to win, one way is to try to out-Republic the Republicans, but do they want to change the direction of the country or do they just want to win power?

I believe that the Kerry campaign had a vision but were afraid to articulate it because they thought it was their election to lose, and talking just gave Rove and his team ammunition to sway voters back to Bush. As it turns out, they and we misjudged the majority of voters. What seemed so obvious to so many of us, that anyone would be better than Bush, wasn't obvious to them; they needed to be convinced, and the Democrats' campaign didn't do it. Worse, they were afraid to try. We tried. We screamed ourselves hoarse, but we didn't realize that we were only screaming at each other. The other side wasn't listening to us, and were apparently willing to believe Bush and his administration in spite of massive evidence to the contrary (I call this the O.J. Simpson bamboozlement defense).

I don't know if it can be done. I don't know if it's possible to establish a dialogue that would allow us to put forth our concerns in a way that would enable the other side to hear them. But I know we have to try. So clarify the party's vision, yes. Stop letting the Republicans set the agenda and define the terms of the discussion, by all means. But if the party becomes a clone of the GOP, what's the point?