Salon is running a brilliant interview with music executive Danny Goldberg that is the most insightful single thing I’ve read on what’s gone wrong with the Democratic party. Some excerpts:

It’s on cultural issues where the left has been most successful with the public, and on economic issues where they've had the biggest struggle, where they've lost. Yet a lot of people in the political world think the exact opposite. They delude themselves into thinking that their economic ideas and policy ideas are really popular and these social issues are dragging them down. But the facts are the opposite.

You have a political consultant culture that produces candidates like Al Gore, who thinks that on a nationally televised debate at the peak of the election season he should talk about the “lockbox” or “Dingell-Norwood,” incomprehensible insider jargon. I didn’t know what he was talking about, and I read the New York Times every day. And then there are people like Joe Lieberman, who feel the way to win swing voters is to attack popular culture. As if popular culture had been created by Martians, instead of by the actual people in the country.

I don’t know why they can’t talk about a moral conception of politics. I do think younger people want an idealistic framework for their politics, and the conservatives have been really good at creating an idealistic concept behind everything they do. I don’t agree with any of it, but they have a philosophy you can understand. Even people who don’t benefit from a tax cut feel that there’s a moral concept behind the idea of what taxes should be, and that’s why they support it. It’s not that they’re stupid. They buy into a moral philosophy that the conservatives express. Our guys don't express a moral philosophy.

I’m a little disappointed in people from my generation, the baby boomers, at least when it comes to electoral politics and public interest groups. We were so anxious to get into the game and get power and get our voices heard. The Gores, the Liebermans, these are people of my generation, the people running the public interest groups. So many times I’ll run into political people my age and they’ll say, “Oh, isn't music terrible?” And I say, “I don't think so.” Is music not as good as it was when we were young? Well, we're not the same people we were when we were young. Nothing is going to touch me the way Bob Dylan’s “Blonde on Blonde” touched me then. But today, to my daughter, Pink is somebody she's going to remember 30 years from now. Kids who like the White Stripes, or like Jay-Z or Eminem, these are artists who are touching them in a similar way. They’re 16 and we’re not.

I’m 30, and I’ve already figured that out. Baby Boomers have no excuse. But why is this more than a personal problem? Why is it a problem for the Democratic party? Here’s why:

To me, it’s amazing that no one has looked back on that election in the political world: There was this drop in young support for the Democrats, it was dramatic. Clinton beat Bush Sr. by 12 points among the 18 to 24’s in 1992. He beat Dole by 19 points among 18-to-24’s in ‘96. In 2000, Gore was only able to tie Bush in that group. A 19-point drop! There were 9 million people in the 18-to-24-year-old group, so that's a couple million votes, at least. That obviously would have swung New Hampshire, it would have swung Missouri. I think it would have swung Florida, although I acknowledge that Lieberman picked up some Jewish votes in Florida. But he cost them much more than he got them. I mean, it wasn’t only Lieberman. But he orchestrated Senate hearings in September, six weeks before the election, to bash culture. Then they wonder why Ralph Nader did so well among young people. I mean, that’s not the only reason why, but it certainly didn’t help.

Normally I wouldn’t post this many excerpts, but it’s just too good. Go read the rest of it.