Peter Brown runs the Quinnipiac University Poll and writes in the Wall Street Journal that this election will answer a fundamental question about the Democrats.

Is it their message that's garbage or just their candidates?

If nothing else, the 2008 election will resolve the question of whether the Democrats have been losing the White House in recent decades because of their message or because of their candidates' inability to articulate it well.

Since Republican Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, the only Democrat to win the White House has been Bill Clinton. But he was the rare Democratic nominee, and not just because he was victorious.

Mr. Clinton's southern roots and willingness to challenge his own party's philosophical orthodoxy may have made the difference on Election Day in 1992 and 1996. In any case, he followed a fundamentally different path than other Democratic nominees since 1980.

After the 1980, 1984, 1988, 2000 and 2004 elections, Democratic leaders argued that the American people had not rejected their ideas or governing philosophy. Instead, they said, their nominee had not effectively communicated the party's core message. It wasn't the American people rejecting those views and values, they contended.

Whether that was an accurate reading of the electorate or a self-serving analysis by the party's elites, it has made wonderful cocktail party fodder for years. But it has also been used as a rationale by those who didn't see the string of defeats as a call to retool the party's message.

These Democrats argued their politics were not out of step and there was no reason to overhaul the party message; they just needed to tinker with it around the edges and find a better communicator to make their case.