Via Rush & Molloy, Bill Clinton characteristically focuses on “tactics” as the way to defeat Republicans:

“The guy [Max Cleland] left half his body in Vietnam,” he said. “They’re in the business to beat us. When they come out after you, it is a contact sport.

“Get better tactics. Don’t wuss around. And quit saying, ‘They’re so mean and vicious.’ They only do it because it works. When they don’t do it anymore, we can go back to a more civilized way of doing business.”

This is the same mistake Bill Clinton frequently made during his presidency (according to John F. Harris, Dick Morris decided that Clinton “was masterful at tactical maneuvers, but only average as a strategic thinker”). It’s the same mistake John Kerry made. And it’s the same mistake Democrats are making today as they try to mitigate voter concerns about their weakness on national defense and values issues without making fundamental changes in what they stand for.

If there’s one lesson that George W. Bush’s presidency teaches us, it’s that tactics don’t win; strategy does. Bush may lose a news cycle, but the long-run strategic thinking of Karl Rove has consistently paid off, while the short-term tactical maneuvers of Democrats almost never have. How Clinton has still failed to grasp this, I don’t know. But Democrats won’t beat back Republican attacks on them as weak on defense until they’re no longer weak on defense. There are no tactical solutions to this problem.