Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Republican-Lite Democrats Are Only Good At One Thing: Losing

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You think Democratic primary voters want this as their candidate against Trump?

A silly new poll from Morning Consult purports to show something about how the 2020 Democratic nomination is shaping up. The same kind of lo-info, identity politics idiots who saddled the party with Hillary Clinton in 2016, want Joe Biden in 2020. Will Democratic primary voters ever think about where a candidate might actually want to take the country rather than the color of their skin or the shape of their genitals? I think so. But it takes some kind of concentration, which isn’t easy when you’re talking about something years in the future (even just 2). Anyway, that list up top is the latest iteration of the laughable horserace tabulation, different from Monday’s. What! No groundswell for the Starbucks guy? No Mayor Buttfuck Buttigieg? No Terry McAuliffe? Where’s The Rock and Hillary, all the governors who want to form unity tickets with John Kasich and the backbencher congressmen no one ever heard of like John Delaney who’s been living in Iowa campaigning for a year and only tangentially more absurd than Seth Moulton or Tulsi Gabbard?

Note: This is stupid, so don't take it seriously


Have you read Steve Phillips’ NY Times’ OpEd about why a conservative Democrat is not going to win in 2020? He implores Democrats to learn “the right lessons from the midterms. He wrote that conventional wisdom dictated that both Andrew Gillum and Stacey Abrams “did not give Democrats their best chance; more traditional, moderate white candidates were seen as the most competitive. In this view, moderate candidates can better appeal to and win over ‘swing’ white voters. And yet, and yet… “Over the past 20 years, the best-performing Democratic candidates in statewide elections in Florida and Georgia have been Mr. Obama, Mr. Gillum and Ms. Abrams. (Hillary Clinton in 2016 was actually Florida’s highest Democratic vote-getter ever.) This year, Ms. Abrams dramatically increased Democratic turnout, garnering more votes— 1.9 million— than any other Democrat running for any office in the history of Georgia (and that includes Jimmy Carter, Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton).”
Midterm results laid bare the fallacy of that view. In Missouri, Claire McCaskill, the incumbent Democratic senator, lost to Josh Hawley by six percentage points, 45.5 percent to 51.5 percent. Senator McCaskill campaigned by highlighting her moderate credentials and ran a radio ad distancing herself from her party: “Claire’s not one of those crazy Democrats,” a narrator said. “She works right in the middle and finds compromise.”

In Tennessee, Phil Bredesen, the state’s former governor, lost his bid for the Senate by over 10 points despite his attempt to peel off Trump supporters by coming out in support of Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.
The day Bredesen came out in favor of Kavanaugh— leading in nearly a dozen consecutive polls at the time— I wrote that Democrats could kiss base enthusiasm and the Tennessee Senate seat goodbye. Bredesen, a mainstream conservative, outspent extremist Marsha Blackburn $15,246,145 ($5,516,942 from his own fortune) to $11,819,522 and Schumer’s Majority Forward SuperPac and Senate Majority PAC threw another $18.5 million into Tennessee on behalf of Bredesen. But no amount of money could save him after that stupid, pointless statement. So… will Democrats learn the right lesson? Out of the question— at least for life-long know-it-alls like Schumer (and Pelosi, Hoyer and other party leaders).

Phillips suggests looking more closely at Georgia, contrasting the 2014 election and the recent midterm. “The strategy of wooing supposedly moderate whites was put to the ultimate test when Democrats fielded nominees from two of the most prominent Democratic families in the history of Georgia-- the Carters and the Nunns. Jimmy Carter’s grandson Jason Carter ran for governor, and former Senator Sam Nunn’s daughter Michelle Nunn ran for Senate. Together their campaigns spent more than $20 million, pouring enormous sums into television advertising seeking to persuade moderate whites to back their bids.”

They both lost, with about 45% of the vote each. This cycle Stacey Abrams is governing around 49% as more voters are counted in an incredibly corrupt electoral environment. And in the 6th district, where ultimate milquetoast moderate Jon Ossoff— with every dime the Democratic establishment could raise for him-- lost last year, “riding the swell of turnout inspired and organized by Ms. Abrams, the Democrat Lucy McBath flipped that seat.”
Clearly success required a different strategy. Ms. Abrams and Mr. Gillum embraced the Obama playbook for winning elections: It starts with emphasizing mobilization over persuasion. Ms. Abrams’s campaign defied conventional wisdom by spending early and big on a vast mobilization effort that involved calling, texting and knocking on the doors of nearly 600,000 infrequent Georgia voters a full year before the election.

Mr. Gillum took a similar approach and was buoyed by the backing of organizations such as New Florida Majority, which hired community-based canvassers to knock on tens of thousands of their neighbors’ doors to identify and mobilize Gillum supporters long before the rest of the country caught on to his candidacy.

These campaigns laid the groundwork for future Democratic success, because the thousands of volunteers, operatives and new voters will pay dividends for the 2020 Democratic nominee.

Mr. Gillum and Ms. Abrams did exactly what Mr. Obama did: They inspired people across the racial spectrum to participate and vote, and they did it by being unapologetically progressive. They did not shy away from championing Medicaid expansion, pursuing criminal justice reform and promoting gun control policies.

Does this strategy require a candidate of color? No, but it does call for candidates who can inspire voters of color. Beto O’Rourke in Texas is an excellent example, and his inspiring and well-organized campaign brought him closer to winning statewide than any Democrat has come in Texas in years. And nationally, the Democrats reclaimed a majority in the House by winning in nearly a dozen districts with large populations of voters of color.

Ms. Abrams and Mr. Gillum were also not afraid to tackle the not-so-silent racist “dog whistles” emanating from their opponents and the president. Ms. Abrams refused to shirk from condemnation of racism and condemned the ways in which honoring racist imagery like the Confederate monument at Georgia’s Stone Mountain monument-- called out by name in Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech-- undermines democracy and distances entire groups from being part of the body politic. Mr. Gillum offered one of the greatest lines in the history of American politics when he offered, about his opponent, Ron DeSantis, during a debate: “I’m not calling Mr. DeSantis a racist. I’m simply saying the racists believe he’s a racist.”

Notably, this approach of tackling racism head-on is also the best way to woo many white voters. According to the exit polls, both Ms. Abrams and Mr. Gillum received more support from whites in their states than either Mr. Obama or Mrs. Clinton did. White people-- all people-- want to believe in something. Challenging them to reject racism and embrace their highest and best ideals is the most effective way to secure their support.

Yes, the strategy of mobilizing voters of color and progressive whites is limited by the demographic composition of particular states. But what Mr. Obama showed twice is that it works in enough places to win the White House. And that is exactly the next electoral challenge.

Democrats can go the old route that has consistently failed to come close to winning and demoralized supporters down the line, or they can do the math and follow the example of Ms. Abrams and Mr. Gillum and Mr. Obama before them. Invest in the infrastructure and staffing to engage and mobilize voters. Stand as tall, strongly and proudly for the nation’s multiracial rainbow as Mr. Trump stands against it. And mobilize and call forth a new American majority in a country that gets browner by the hour and will be even more diverse by November 2020.

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7 Comments:

At 2:48 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wrong lessons learned.

early mobilization and contacts only make your loss a little closer... IN THE FUCKING SOUTH YOU IMBECILES!!!

Put your best possible candidates (not saying much) out front, give them nearly unlimited funding and organizations, even reaping free national media, lure out more and more voters than ever before... and all you'll get is a closer loss.

BECAUSE IT'S IN THE FUCKING SOUTH!

The south suppresses voters, goons vote counting, does real-time adjusting to its fraud schemes depending on how the numbers are developing... and they have a president and court system on their side.

Face it. You burned hundreds of millions of dollars just to make the predetermined outcomes closer. The recounts will either not change or will be stopped by courts... as happened, well, EVERY time before.

Maybe try better candidates. Maybe try really good candidates but not in the south.
But they can't. Their donors would abandon them if they put really good candidates up front. They will never displease their donors. They sell out the young, old, poor, women, gays and workers for their donors. They won't abide 535 candidates like the AOCs or Jayapals. They won't even allow the party to help one.

The sooner voters figure this shit out, the sooner they can find another, truly left, movement to get behind. But that assumes voters in this cluster fuck of a shithole CAN figure. It's an unproven theory since the '70s.

Reflecting the above, why can't anyone on the left understand the wisdom of Harry Truman? (please don't ask who is harry Truman... it would validate my previous paragraph) He said that voters will elect a real republican over a fake one every time. He said this 60-odd years ago and it is still validated every time.
In the south they'll elect a shitty republican over a (relatively) good democrat every time.

 
At 5:54 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Democraps will continue knocking on GOP doors until the Republicans take them into the Party. But they will have to turn over large sums of cash on a regular basis to remain.

I'm thinking about asking Canada for asylum.

 
At 7:08 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Howie, what's your beef with Buttigieg?

 
At 8:48 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

How could even the dumbest hominid-ish voters to ever live prefer biden over Bernie?
Are americans truly that fucking stupid? Why yes, of course we are.

That list has nobody I'd ever vote for. Maybe they can pay Oprah a couple billion to run. I only PROBABLY wouldn't vote for her. The rest I'd never, ever vote for.
And I won't vote for Schultz nor Bloomberg either. Neither one is a democrap. they're both opportunistic fascists posing as democraps (who are fascists masquerading as Democrats for the past 40 years).

 
At 10:34 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The reason for running people like Abrams was noted in the piece. Her coattails helped McBath win her seat. Beto lost in the statewide election, but his energy help rid us of Pete Sessions. Allred probably isn't going to be the face of a progressive Democratic majority, but better him than Sessions. How many first time voters and first time primary voters did they bring out? Texas and Florida could be won, not because Dems outnumber Republicans, but because a solid candidate could get more Dems to the polls. Even if it doesn't win the electoral votes, it could win a few more house seats or state-level seats and turn thousands of non-voters into voters. What are the magical third parties doing to make this happen?

The problem is the idea that the target should be to flip Republican voters rather than focusing on what keeps a plurality from not voting at all. The DINOs of course want to move right and claim that will net them GOP voters, but like trickle-down economics it has proven to be bullshit. Get non-voters to the polls and you can win, even in red districts or states.

 
At 12:29 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

10:34 repudiates his own points.

"What are the magical third parties doing to make this happen?"

"The problem is the idea that the target should be to flip Republican voters rather than focusing on what keeps a plurality from not voting at all."

The real question for 10:34 is this: what do the democraps ever do to keep all those new/dormant voters engaged?
The answer: not one single thing.

The '18 anti-red wave brought out a lot of dormant voters plus about 5% of the millenials who wouldn't have otherwise. Certain candidates (the ones that the DxCCs couldn't abide) brought out some more.

But after 2 years of 'paygo' and nothing else, how many of those are going to decide to stay home? For a point of reference, I'll remind you that 15 million of obamanation's 2008 anti-red wave stayed home in 2010 after not one goddamn thing was DONE.

The 'magical third party' that you mock, provided it was honestly left, is the ONLY hope to both keep these voters engaged AND reverse our goose-stepping march rightward.

Your beloved corrupt fascist elitist democraps will never, ever do either. They'll only ever enjoy success when the Nazis puke up a cheney or trump or worse. They haven't earned an election since maybe 1976, which itself was an anti-red reflex to Nixon/ford.

 
At 1:34 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The magical third party doesn't exist, so until it is no longer magical, you aren't making any reasonable arguments.

There is a better chance that the Democratic voters strong arm the party leadership and take back some control of the party. This 2018 group won't accomplish anything, but ideally they make some symbolic votes on some bread and butter issues (Medicare for All, tax hikes on the rich, jobs bills that that include more than just infrastructure, etc.) that the 2020 Presidential candidate also runs on. Then we see if they do something. None of this is a sure thing and perhaps is even unlikely, but there isn't even a 0.001% chance a third party comes into being, wins the presidency and both houses of Congress in the next 2 years.

 

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