The Democrats won’t have a Nader scapegoat (which they didn’t have in 2000, but don’t tell a Democrat that), they’ll have to face the fact that their candidate lost all on his own.
Kerry was a weak and stiff candidate—like Gore was in 2000 and Dole was before Gore.
Right now, Hillary Clinton is planning to run in 2008. So is Jeb Bush. Clinton will lose to the Bush juggernaut because Democrats aren’t progressive enough to vote for a woman and because Democrats aren’t progressive enough to challenge their federal party to lose their corporate campaign funding.
Dan Rather will continue to say wacky offensive pseudo-folksy shit (from 2000: the close race was like “two babes in bikinis running to the beachhouse … It’s going to be hot and tight.”).
The US is far more conservative than the Left wants to admit. The Left doesn’t have as many supporters as the Left wants to claim. The Right is more powerful because their messages are more easily understood and more popular with an increasingly stupid country: 11 out of 11 states OK gay marriage bans, Bush gets a popular vote mandate (millions more than the US participants in the biggest single march against the invasion of Iraq), the American South wants Republicans more than Democrats.