10 lessons Democrats can learn from this year’s midterms, Part 1
The Democratic Party is feeling a bit on the downs (and that’s an understatement) headed into this year’s midterm elections. They’ve bought into the doom and gloom being spread by the pundits, who have since January been pronouncing 2010 to be the Year of the Republicans (even though every poll shows that the GOP is even more unpopular than Washington Democrats) and they’re preparing to take Titanic losses on Tuesday. But even before the election (which in the end may not be as bad as all that) Democrats can take away a few very important lessons that should be helpful in 2012 and beyond.
Lesson #1: When you’ve got an advantage, exploit it. The Florida Democratic Party has got to be the textbook example of an entity that’s almost congenitally unprepared to fight the future. Faced with an opposition party that’s literally being investigated by the feds, and whose previous speaker of the House and immediate past party chairman were both indicted, and which has run its finances in a style more befitting the legends of Chicago politics rather than a sleepy retiree state — to include the man who will likely become the junior Senator from Florida and a Republican candidate for governor for whom the first word thought of by Republican focus groups is “crook” — the Florida Democrats will likely not win a single cabinet seat tomorrow. If they eke out a few bright spots, they will be a slim victory for Alex Sink, only due to the near felonious record of her opponent; holding the 22nd Congressional District — because the Republican in the race is insane, and picking up the 25th, because the Republican in the race really appears to be a spy for Cuba (ahem) … and there’s an outside chance Dems might defeat the current Republican party chairman, John Thrasher, in a rare case where they fielded a really good candidate (a former TV anchor) against the guy who promoted a bill hated by the state’s teachers. Other than those happy accidents, mostly not of their making, Florida Democrats have failed to capitalize on a single advantage they had going into 2010, and they had several: superior fundraising; a wide registration advantage; the statewide infrastructure left behind by the successful Obama presidential run; an opposition party on the brink of federal indictments; a female candidate in a state where the Democratic primary in 2008 went to Hillary Clinton; and a national “change” election in a state where their opponents run the government lock, stock and barrel. And yet, Florida Democrats ran not a single ad on the criminality of the Florida GOP. They stood by, agonizing over Gov. Charlie Crist while Marco Rubio waltzed untouched to the center, and to 40 percent in the polls. And they are on the brink of watching their state go ruby red, two years out from the re-elect.
Nationally, Democrats have refused to campaign on healthcare reform, even as it has taken effect and the $250 checks are in the mail to seniors. They failed, from the White House on down, to support or promote the stimulus, leaving Republicans to do it for them in their districts, and only a handful of people in media to call the GOPers out on it. Even the year of wrangling over healthcare represented a huge wasted opportunity, in which the White House was complicit in letting the Senate dither over the bill while Americans were waiting, with increasing impatience, for somebody to start talking about jobs. But incredibly, the stimulus had already passed, and was working its way through the economy, saving jobs and creating new ones, with no one to sell it to the public. Ditto the saving of GM, which should have made Michigan unwinnable for Republicans for a generation. Instead, the GOP is poised to take over that state. Unbelievable.
Lesson #2: never make a red state Senator your majority leader. Democrats have been burned by this one twice — first with Tom Daschle of South Dakota, and again with Harry Reid, who inherited the gavel when Daschle was unceremoniously ousted from the Senate in 2004 in an unprecedented revenge attack by Republicans, including the then-minority leader Bill Frist, against a sitting majority leader to pay Daschle back for opposing George W. Bush’s agenda. Because guys like Daschle and Thune start out in precarious positions as Democrats representing red or swing states, they can’t afford to take on the kind of risks that a blue state Senator can; nor can they afford to stand staunchly behind the party base, which in the end, is what carries a party through in tough election environments. Hyper partisan leaders like Mitch McConnell, or John Boehner can milk their base for all its worth, while the compromisers like Reid alienate their base by constantly having to compromise, as they walk the line between supporting a Democratic president’s agenda and the need to look out for their own re-election. When Reid was preparing to ascend to the big chair back in 2004, his hometown paper in Reno wrote prophetically:
Daschle was labeled an obstructionist by Republicans. And he was forced to take positions in support of Senate Democrats that sometimes conflicted with interests of South Dakotans, said University of South Dakota political science professor Bill Richardson. “I think what happened to Tom Daschle is a cautionary tale to Sen. Reid,” Richardson said.
Even if Reid is re-elected, and I defer to Nevada’s top reporter Jon Ralston on this one, rather than Charlie Cook, since Ralston actually knows the state — he should face a leadership challenge, and be replaced by a blue stater, stat. I’d prefer Bob Menendez, but Chuck Schumer might be even better, hailing from the very blue state of New York. Schumer is a guy who can afford to play hardball, without fear for his own future.
3. Get to know some black consultants who can help you with the base. Democrats got embarrassed by Republicans this year, as the GOP put up 14 candidates for Congress, while Democrats put up just a single statewide candidate, Kendrick Meek from Florida, who in the end didn’t have the money, the name ID, the nationalized base, the message or frankly, the campaign strategy to pull it off. Sure, he had the endorsements of the president, the vice president, the state party and on and on, and of course, his friend former President Bill Clinton. But let’s face it. The Florida Senate seat is a pick-up, not a hold. It was not a priority for the national party, which is why the DSCC spent exactly zilch trying to help Meek get elected. The president did what he had to do to show support to Meek, with Alcee Hastings glaring at him from across the transom. But in the end, Rahm raised like $50k for the guy, and the president personally raised zero. And while you can believe that no suggestion was made that Meek drop out, it’s now clear that conversations took place in which the White House nodded in agreement as Bill Clinton attempted to broker a deal for Meek to consider doing just that. And you can’t convince me with any amount of spin that the White House wouldn’t have been perfectly happy with a Senator Crist. In the end, the drop out flap, combined with the near bungling of the black vote by gubernatorial candidate Alex Sink, and the spectacle of white Democrats calling for Meek to get out of the race even before the Clinton drama could haunt the party, especially at the state level. Despite the fact that Meek’s campaign hasn’t handled the response to these kind of oppo attacks well at all, more than a few Black politicos in the state feel burned by what they see as a sacrifice of Meek to the greater goal of electing Alex Sink. Rightly or wrongly, the state party (which has repeatedly nominated bland candidates who have no traction with minority voters) has to respond to and correct that impression. Most importantly, Democrats have got to learn the lesson, once and for all, that showing up a few weeks before election day and asking to be recognized in a few dozen churches is not a strategy for motivating black voters. Its a recipe for creating a lot of independents in the next voter registration cycle. Democrats will likely survive it this year, both because Meek is now getting a strong sympathy vote, and because Rick Scott is such an odious troll. But they should be warned not to use that playbook again.
4. Learn how to market women candidates. Alex Sink is smart, accomplished, and not bad looking — all important qualities when you’re marketing a candidate. But she barely ran as a girl. Likewise, the party of Hillary has failed utterly to protect the most powerful woman in the country — Nancy Pelosi — from the right wing dogs of war. Pelosi, who will go into the history books as the most accomplished Speaker of the House since Tip O’Neil, in terms of the historic legislation she saw through, was used, even by fellow Democrats, as a combination mommy and punching bag; forced to take her troops across the precipice time and again for White House priorities, only to be hung out to dry by the Senate, and left holding the bag for legislation that nobody wanted to own once she got it passed. The bungling of the Pelosi brand is partly the fault of Republicans who decided to turn her into a bogeyman, and partly the fault of her own team, which failed to really fight for her image. But it’s also a systemmic issue with the Democratic Party, which doesn’t seem to know what to do with the powerful, smart women in its midst. Meanwhile, Republicans will take any sentient female being, slap a $100,000 wardrobe on her and ship her off to Fox News for media training and voila! You’ve got yourself a media darling. Adult command of basic history and the English language optional.
5. Figure out who and what you’re fighting, and who and what you’re fighting for. What the Republicans have been able to do in two years, after being declared dead by the mainstream media in November of 2008, wasn’t rocket science. They had to distance themselves from the toxic Bush brand, and separate themselves from responsibility for the hurtin’ their allies on Wall Street put on the economy. So they ripped open the Palin playbook — the one John McCain was too stuck up to use in the presidential election — and started using it. I call it the “M and M” strategy: Muslims and Mexicans. Every time white working class voters begin to focus on Wall Street, the big banks, or big business as the source of their economic woes, the right screams Muslims! or Mexicans! “Look, there’s one now!!!” “OMG, they’re coming across the border!! They’re taking your job!!! …” And just as the Bush administration became expert after 9/11 at keeping the nation in a constant state of fear and anxiety, allowing them to push through policies that would have been unheard of in a saner America, and to have those policies defended by a phalanx of the conservative base that intimidated even the news media into going along (it got to the point where even evangelical Christians, who worship a guy who was nailed to a cross for God’s sakes, were pro-torture.) Similarly, the defenders of the top 2 percent have stoked economic anxiety, including among more affluent white voters who haven’t yet been done in by the Great Recession, in order to deflect blame away from the bigwigs and onto our neighbors — the suspicious brown and turbined people… the “illegals” and of course, that suspiciously named president of ours. And rather than push back in the same concerted fashion that the right, with the help of its media arms like Fox, have sold their base on Obama hatred, Democrats (Obama included) have tried to reason with and compromise with the forces of darkness.
There’s one thing that the wingers have said in the last ten years that I believe to be true: there are enemies you simply can’t negotiate with, because all they want to do is kill you. Democrats need to learn to stand up for their base, which is middle class Americans who draw a paycheck every week (or who used to before the Bush recession), young people, and people of color, and fight for them with the same vigor that the right, and their vassals in the tea party fight for corporations. Had they done so, there would be no enthusiasm gap, and we’d be looking at a very different election day.
Part two of “10 lessons” will be published on Tuesday, November 2nd. Stay tuned to this space for more…
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[...] The Reid Report: The Democratic Party is feeling a bit on the downs (and that’s an understatement) headed into this year’s midterm elections. They’ve bought into the doom and gloom being spread by the pundits, who have since January been pronouncing 2010 to be the Year of the Republicans (even though every poll shows that the GOP is even more unpopular than Washington Democrats) and they’re preparing to take Titanic losses on Tuesday. But even before the election (which in the end may not be as bad as all that) Democrats can take away a few very important lessons that should be helpful in 2012 and beyond. [...]
[...] (or lose big) there are lessons the Dems can take away from today. You can peep the first five here, and here are five more [...]
I disagree a bit with you on Reid. He has been relentless in pursuing the agenda and made himself a target. Reid is not a public bigmouth like Boehner, but he does act. (And isn’t what you are advocating for a blue state leader who fears no retribution the same thing you deplore in Pelosi’s role?) The relative timidity and all the compromising in guiding health care through the Senate came straight from the administration.
As for the FL Dem, what a mess. Blow the whole thing up.
Sink: Agree with everything you say but interestingly enough, in every focus group I’ve sat through, the men like her better. It’s just who she is -and a bad result of our era of poll-and-focus-group driven campaigns.