One voice determined to make itself heard was that of Congressman Harold Ford Jr. As Nancy Pelosi prepared for what seemed to be an unstoppable march to the House minority leader’s slot, Ford announced his availability. The play was all the more stunning since it came the very day Martin Frost (convinced of Pelosi’s invincibility) dropped out of the race. Ford proclaimed himself a change agent who would reach out to every wing of the party and suggested Pelosi was too old (she is 62 to his 32), too doctrinaire, too much a fixture of a failed past. Many saw Ford as a protest candidate. And though there was plenty of agreement that something needed protesting, there was less agreement (once you got past protesting Democratic losses and an inability to inspire the Democratic base) on what precisely that something might be.

Losses by Georgia’s Democratic governor and senator, for instance, could hardly be attributed to the House minority leader. Congressman John Lewis blamed a party strategy that poured millions into television advertising and less into grass-roots organizing. “The black vote was never aroused,” he says. In contrast, Republicans mobilized their base with an effective ground-level effort. They also benefited from the rage Gov. Roy Barnes incited by shrinking the Confederate battle cross on the state flag.

Indeed, in Georgia and in many other states, ethnic polarization prevailed. In Texas, the Latino-black “dream team” (Tony Sanchez for governor, Ron Kirk for senator) drew Latinos to the polls. Just short of a million voted (accounting for nearly 22 percent of the total), more than double the number in any previous Texas off-year election, according to the William C. Velasquez Institute. And they went strongly for Sanchez and Kirk. But Anglos had other dreams.

Even so, advocates for Latino politicians did not see Tuesday as such a bad night. A Latino, Bill Richardson, was elected governor of New Mexico. Three new members were added to Congress. Numerous Latino state legislators won office. And the Republicans put forth several Latino congressional candidates. “There were 19 Republican candidates, none of them viable,” joked Larry Gonzalez, of the National Association of Latino Elected Officials. In fact, a few were elected; but the larger point is that the election signaled that Latinos cannot be marginalized by either party. What it signified for blacks is less clear. Kirk was defeated and Carl McCall failed to become governor of New York; but Ohio and Maryland elected black lieutenant governors, both of whom are Republicans. Blacks may have difficulty winning at the top of the ticket, but there seem to be no particular barriers for black running mates. For Republicans, says Bond, black running mates can be a plus, “inoculating” white candidates against charges of racial insensitivity.

What happened last Tuesday, however, has less to do with race than with other factors, chief among them Bush’s ability to transform himself in the public eye. Progressives, disaffected minorities and others wrestling with frustration at that reality are challenged on several levels. On one, they must figure out how to separate public perceptions and support for the war on terror from issues that have little to do with the fight against Al Qaeda (issues ranging from civil liberties to judicial appointments to reproductive rights). On another, they must reassess how resources are used. (Patricia Ford, executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union, wonders whether her union should place more emphasis on local issues and local elections, where resources can have more impact.) But eventually, if they are to be more than the opposition, they must meet the challenge of coming up with figures as skilled in mythmaking as Bush–figures who speak in a Democratic voice with Republican authority, figures who offer a plausible way to deliver us from the danger that made an ordinary president so much larger than life.