Booman poses the question what would you do if you were put in charge of the Democratic party? It's funny he asks that as this would be my dream job if it really were on offer.
I think we'd have to start by looking at what didn't work. This last election strategy was an abject failure. Simply saying 'Yeah, I know what you mean about that bleepity bleep Obama' didn't work at all. Call it the Allison Grimes strategy.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2014/11/on-dems-allison-grimes-problem.html
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2014/11/democrats-find-operation-chicken-falls.html
The trouble is that the Dems' keep failing the 'Prisoner's Dilemma'. In this election and not for the first time, each individual Democrat elected to save his or her own political skin, the national party be damned. The GOP took the diametrically opposed position in this election-they linked every race at every level-national, state and local-to President Obama. In every race they ran against the President.
The attitude of most of the Democrats was to say "Obama who?' and this simply didn't work-Americans rightly don't like bullies but they don't respect punching bags. Still, things are not as bad as many in the media-and the GOP-are trying to say. What we have seen going all the way back over the last 46 years to Nixon's win in 1968 which ended the old New Deal national liberal coalition has been permanently divided government. If you were to look at the cumulative results of these last 46 years, this would be the takeaway-Americans seem bent on divided government. Which is a real pity as if this is what they want,, they are misguided. Hey, I've said it, democracy can goof.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2014/11/democracy-can-goof-and-last-night-it-did.html
Divided government doesn't lead to any stirring August moments of bipartisanship but just more and more gridlock. In any case, it's not necessarily that Americans want this-I think at this point most people realize that divided government these days mean nonworking government-but rather that the country remains very divided. So in the 70s and 80s the GOP stormed into the White House but couldn't get back into Congress. In the 90s they did indeed storm back into Congress, but by then the Dems had gotten a lock on the White House.
You can spin this history in a way that makes it sound like the Republicans are winning or in such a way that Democrats are winning, but at the end of the day, all predictions of either party now at the cusp of taking a new permanent majority have proven quite wrong.
Having said that I do think that the future will favor the Dems. Just because I point out a tendency doesn't mean I'm innocent of it! Keynes pointed out that in making predictions we are too partial to believing the future will resemble the recent past or the present. However, you can understand this, but that won't mean that you won't continue to have this prejudice-it's a congenital condition of the human race.
What we have seen in the Obama years is two different kinds of elections. There is the national election that Dems excel at and the off-year election that the GOP cleans up. I think the future advantage will go to the Dems because it's better to have the Presidential election advantage than the off year election advantage-as the electorate is much smaller in off years to start with. The GOP desperately needs to do something about their Hispanic problem before what happened to California happens nationally, but luckily for us Democrats. they won't.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2014/11/every-time-gop-wins-election-its-wave.html
I mean at this point, the GOP thinks everything it's done has been totally correct, they feel wholly validated and as Democrats we shouldn't be sorry about this. If anything, this election may prove to be the great false flag that the GOP will look back on with impotent regret in 10 years or so-when they have about as much power nationally as they do in California.
Still, the Dems do have a clear problem as well. They don't do well in off year elections and this is something they need to solve. The Obama haters on the Left-ie, the firebaggers who resonate at places like Jane Hamsher's Firedoglake
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-firebaggers-are-also-gloating-over.html
loved last week's loss which they predictably pinned on the Democratic party and especially Obama for being no better than the GOP.
If it's Obama's fault though why did he win when he was on the ballot in 2012? The firebaggers-they call folks like me Obamabots so why not call them firebaggers which is what they are, basically the mirror image of the Tea Party in effect?-tell us that the reason the Dems do so poorly in off year turnout is that their base is totally disaffected and has given up on them. However, if this is true why does the party not have this problem in Presidential years?
Nevertheless, the Dems do have a problem with turnout in off years. This must be the Democrats' focal point for now-figuring out why this is. If the Democratic party is held to be systematically disappointing its base why does this not show in Presidential years?
If there is one thing that should help the Dems going forward is precisely polarization, strange as it seems. However, it shouldn't as 'bipartisanship' is a myth. The good news, is that all the Southern Democrats are now gone-the one relic of the old Solid Democrat South is the Kentucky state legislature. This means that any future Democratic Senate will actually be liberal rather than Blue Dog Democrats that run more against the national party than their Republican opponent.
What the Dems really need to do is figure out gerrymandering and how to make sure that this despicably anti-democratic practice is much more mitigated in time for the next Census.
Finally, the Dems need to figure out something at the state level which is going the wrong way right now by a mile.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/11/11/can-democrats-get-their-act-together-at-the-state-level/
The first step though is the party must stop fighting itself. Maybe we can agree that you don't badmouth the Democratic President again and if asked about him you do more than primly declare that you're the one on the ballot not him but actually defend him and his record.
I think we'd have to start by looking at what didn't work. This last election strategy was an abject failure. Simply saying 'Yeah, I know what you mean about that bleepity bleep Obama' didn't work at all. Call it the Allison Grimes strategy.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2014/11/on-dems-allison-grimes-problem.html
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2014/11/democrats-find-operation-chicken-falls.html
The trouble is that the Dems' keep failing the 'Prisoner's Dilemma'. In this election and not for the first time, each individual Democrat elected to save his or her own political skin, the national party be damned. The GOP took the diametrically opposed position in this election-they linked every race at every level-national, state and local-to President Obama. In every race they ran against the President.
The attitude of most of the Democrats was to say "Obama who?' and this simply didn't work-Americans rightly don't like bullies but they don't respect punching bags. Still, things are not as bad as many in the media-and the GOP-are trying to say. What we have seen going all the way back over the last 46 years to Nixon's win in 1968 which ended the old New Deal national liberal coalition has been permanently divided government. If you were to look at the cumulative results of these last 46 years, this would be the takeaway-Americans seem bent on divided government. Which is a real pity as if this is what they want,, they are misguided. Hey, I've said it, democracy can goof.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2014/11/democracy-can-goof-and-last-night-it-did.html
Divided government doesn't lead to any stirring August moments of bipartisanship but just more and more gridlock. In any case, it's not necessarily that Americans want this-I think at this point most people realize that divided government these days mean nonworking government-but rather that the country remains very divided. So in the 70s and 80s the GOP stormed into the White House but couldn't get back into Congress. In the 90s they did indeed storm back into Congress, but by then the Dems had gotten a lock on the White House.
You can spin this history in a way that makes it sound like the Republicans are winning or in such a way that Democrats are winning, but at the end of the day, all predictions of either party now at the cusp of taking a new permanent majority have proven quite wrong.
Having said that I do think that the future will favor the Dems. Just because I point out a tendency doesn't mean I'm innocent of it! Keynes pointed out that in making predictions we are too partial to believing the future will resemble the recent past or the present. However, you can understand this, but that won't mean that you won't continue to have this prejudice-it's a congenital condition of the human race.
What we have seen in the Obama years is two different kinds of elections. There is the national election that Dems excel at and the off-year election that the GOP cleans up. I think the future advantage will go to the Dems because it's better to have the Presidential election advantage than the off year election advantage-as the electorate is much smaller in off years to start with. The GOP desperately needs to do something about their Hispanic problem before what happened to California happens nationally, but luckily for us Democrats. they won't.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2014/11/every-time-gop-wins-election-its-wave.html
I mean at this point, the GOP thinks everything it's done has been totally correct, they feel wholly validated and as Democrats we shouldn't be sorry about this. If anything, this election may prove to be the great false flag that the GOP will look back on with impotent regret in 10 years or so-when they have about as much power nationally as they do in California.
Still, the Dems do have a clear problem as well. They don't do well in off year elections and this is something they need to solve. The Obama haters on the Left-ie, the firebaggers who resonate at places like Jane Hamsher's Firedoglake
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-firebaggers-are-also-gloating-over.html
loved last week's loss which they predictably pinned on the Democratic party and especially Obama for being no better than the GOP.
If it's Obama's fault though why did he win when he was on the ballot in 2012? The firebaggers-they call folks like me Obamabots so why not call them firebaggers which is what they are, basically the mirror image of the Tea Party in effect?-tell us that the reason the Dems do so poorly in off year turnout is that their base is totally disaffected and has given up on them. However, if this is true why does the party not have this problem in Presidential years?
Nevertheless, the Dems do have a problem with turnout in off years. This must be the Democrats' focal point for now-figuring out why this is. If the Democratic party is held to be systematically disappointing its base why does this not show in Presidential years?
If there is one thing that should help the Dems going forward is precisely polarization, strange as it seems. However, it shouldn't as 'bipartisanship' is a myth. The good news, is that all the Southern Democrats are now gone-the one relic of the old Solid Democrat South is the Kentucky state legislature. This means that any future Democratic Senate will actually be liberal rather than Blue Dog Democrats that run more against the national party than their Republican opponent.
What the Dems really need to do is figure out gerrymandering and how to make sure that this despicably anti-democratic practice is much more mitigated in time for the next Census.
Finally, the Dems need to figure out something at the state level which is going the wrong way right now by a mile.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/11/11/can-democrats-get-their-act-together-at-the-state-level/
The first step though is the party must stop fighting itself. Maybe we can agree that you don't badmouth the Democratic President again and if asked about him you do more than primly declare that you're the one on the ballot not him but actually defend him and his record.
The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the younger Republican Party.
ReplyDeleteIf this is all your research company has uncovered you're in trouble.
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