There’s going to be a long, sad, and ugly discussion about this election, but I think we all have known and will know the essential problem: Democrats do not turn out in off-year elections. Here’s one example from my neck of the woods. In the NY-25 race, Democrat Louise Slaughter is fighting for her political life in what should have been a gimme race. At this moment, Louise is up 605 votes of the 190,697 votes cast, with 2,500 absentee ballots left to count. In 2012, 322,760 people voted — 120K more voters than in 2014. There was one interesting down-ticket race, which was for State Senate. In that race, the Republican won by 15K votes with a total of 89K votes cast. In 2012, the Democrat won a close race where 134K votes were cast.
I’d consider this election a worst-case for my area. There were no interesting national elections to turn out Democrats, but Republicans were energized to win back that State Senate seat. So perhaps in a more normal year only 1/3 fewer voters would turn out instead of the 37% fewer this cycle. Still, I’m looking at a House race where in 2012 the Democrat beat a well-financed, popular Republican by 55-45, and she’s barely winning against a no-money nobody today. So unless your Democrat wins 60-40 in a presidential year, don’t expect their off-year race to be a no-brainer.
PsiFighter37
I wake up and find that Paul fucking LePage won.
Good God. Last night was just about as bad as it can be. We have to do something to fix our voting deficit, or else we are royally fucked in the long term.
Brian R.
Democratic voters don’t turn out because Democratic politicians don’t give them any reason to do so.
It’s hard to rally around someone who’s in a defensive crouch, pissing themselves in fear.
WereBear
Precisely. The Republicans have crafted their ideal politicians: loud and proud low-sense jerks who push for the punishment of everyone but their own demographic.
Not that we should go the same route. But we should likewise mirror our electorate.
Another Holocene Human
I think a lot of the post mortems are wrong. They aren’t evidence based. There’s a lot of data out there but instead everybody is flogging assfax pet theories. Case in point, mistermix, NY was a race where the top of the ticket did just plain ugly. Pretty classic case of a governor hated by the base dragging the party down.
I am wondering why, in the end, with all the people doing phone call GOTV and stuff why I got so many fundraising calls from out of state but not one call here reminding me to vote. Kind of says it all.
PsiFighter37
There is so much to rant about, but really it comes down to this – a lot of these shitheels passed awful legislation, and they got reelected.
Me personally – I’m going to be fine. My family will be fine, and living in the dark blue city of NYC, so the damage will be limited.
But everyone who lives outside of big cities – in the suburbs, in rural areas – I hope they really enjoy what they have coming for them. If Sam Brownback can win reelection after torching his state’s budget and education system, there’s not really any hope left.
Baud
@WereBear: j
So why don’t we. I keep hearing this complaint, but why aren’t there people who can do something? Primaries are extremely low turnout elections. Why aren’t the “right” people winning them?
Not trying to pick on you, but I’m getting tired of repeating old memes.
Another Holocene Human
@Brian R.: What’s your explanation for weed and min wage plebiscites getting clear majorities while the same voters choose Republicans?
Because I don’t see an answer to that that doesn’t go through racial anxieties and/or resentments. And no macho newfangled oldfangled Dem politician posturing will change that.
Buddy H
I (white guy) voted earlier in the day on Tuesday. Nothing out of the ordinary in the experience. I signed my name and was given a ballot. Everything went smoothly; nothing weird.
Later in the day, I walked back to the polling place with my wife (black woman). I waited in an outer room while she voted. When she came out, I asked her if everything went smoothly. She said while she signed her name, a lady sitting next to the election volunteer asked the volunteer “Is she on the list?” The volunteer said “no” and my wife was given her ballot.
I wish I’d walked in with her. I would have asked “exactly what list are you talking about?” When we got home, I asked her again what she thought the list might be. She had already forgotten the incident. I’m still running it over and over in my mind. What list?
My wife told me that’s why some people suffer from ptsd and others don’t. People who constantly replay events over and over, versus people who let it go and move on. My wife tends to move on, I obsess over every slight.
Next election day, I will be standing right next to her when she signs in. I want to know if someone asks if she’s on a list.
SiubhanDuinne
My first smile in 12 hours:
“If you can’t make the time to get out and vote and wait? We better not see you out at Walmart on Black Friday.” — Jimmy Kimmel
Brian R.
@WereBear:
The Daily Show had a great segment on Pryor, Grimes, Nunn and others running away from Obama at full speed. “You gave them healthcare, not herpes!”
Minimum wage raises passed in bright red states like Nebraska and Arkansas. A full-throated case for making the economy fairer — like Elizabeth Warren does so well — would’ve worked in a lot of these close states.
Another Holocene Human
@PsiFighter37:
This. Pissing on organized labor gets your reelected in this country. However, min wage measures win plebiscites (if not in legislatures, where the lobbyists get to work). Organized labor needs to shift gears here.
beltane
@PsiFighter37: Americans like to worship the boot that kicks them in the head. They think this is what freedom is. Once you leave the big cities, the vast majority of white people you encounter are irredeemably stupid and mean.
WereBear
Also, there’s one vital thing that has to happen for sweeping change to occur.
People have to die.
And I’m not advocating violence. I’m just pointing out that a LOT of people make a lot of decisions in adolescence and young adulthood, then stop. Freakin’ stop.
The whole thing was so fraught with angst and sweaty with assertion and forced by hormones and external circumstances that it was a distinctly unhappy time, one they don’t want to repeat. So they choose their clothes, profession, favorite bands, and political party, and hang on like grim death.
Sure, some of the Republicans I talk to are crazed racists, but at least as many are completely clueless about what the party does and says now. Because it doesn’t matter. They are keyed into the Republicans being the “grownup party” because that’s what they internalized when they first started voting. And that’s how little attention they pay now.
Another Holocene Human
@Brian R.: Yeah right. They would still be Democrats. (“Demoncraps”)
The party that gives “stuff” to “those people” and wants to give healthcare to illegals so they can have anchor babies and fraud up all the elections.
All the research in the world showing how much party polarization is going on and yet I hear Democrats proclaiming Green Lanternism. SMDH.
Althea
“Let all the poisons that are in the mud hatch out”
beltane
@Another Holocene Human: White supremacy is encoded into this country’s DNA. It was with us from the beginning and it will ultimately, perhaps sooner than we think, lead us to our decline.
Another Holocene Human
DELUSIONS DON’T WIN ELECTIONS.
Note to white men: Only 33% of white male voters in this election voted D. The rest? They hate us and you because we’re the ******* party or maybe the ******-****** party. They won’t change their mind.
We lost Latinos this round. They are the ones who didn’t show up. So stop whining about Pryor who was going to lose anyway, or Grimes who was a longshot anyway, or exaggerating about who else denied (fill in the blank hobbyhorse). Maybe I’m cranky, lotta exaggerating on GOS last night. Or you could be blunt and say making stuff up. Assfax. Just because. Anyway, stay on topic and ask yourself why Latinos stayed home. Blacks were pretty persistent about voting. Unfortunately, so were whites 40-49, and whites 65+…
JPL
The repubs are better at scary ads. While the anti-Obama ad about ebola, deficit, and Isis aired, wouldn’t it be nice to point out that 7 million more people have health care in America today than a year ago. Wouldn’t it be nice to point out that the yearly deficit is falling faster than ever. Wouldn’t it be nice to point out that unemployment is low and gas prices are dropping.
Yup, I’m still pissed.
Botsplainer
@beltane:
So you’ve met my mother?
ETA- She’s a city dweller, but comes from an undistinguished line of Central Kentucky white trash, and those values were encoded in her and have even successfully drilled in by daily contact with my grandmother over the last 45 years.
Another Holocene Human
@beltane: I thought that happened in 1980. Reagan, Philadelphia, MS. 81, air traffic controllers and we’re on. Time for pendulum to swing the other way, dammit.
beltane
Andrew Cuomo deserves some kind of credit for singlehandedly destroying the New York Democratic party. This took some rare skill.
Sherparick
@Brian R.: There is something to this, e.g. if the Democratic advocated tangible programs for economic improvement (not just a minimum wage increase), a full-throated defense of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act (instead of basically conceding the Republican arguments about affordability and being “broken”), and making the argument for environmental reform.
Brian R.
@Another Holocene Human:
Not Green Lanternism.
But Grimes campaigned in a state where Obamacare worked, and she never made that connection for her voters. She didn’t have to embrace Obama himself, but the policies work there and people know it.
Pryor waffled on every answer on every question. Who would vote for that mealy-mouthed lump? The minimum wage hike passed by a 2-to-1 margin. Did he run a single ad linking himself to that popular idea? Not that I ever saw.
Don’t tell me Democrats can’t do well in those states, because that’s defeatist bullshit. Democrats have dominated Arkansas and Beshear rules Kentucky because they make a fucking case for voting Democratic. They lay out the arguments, they lay out the reasons, they show facts and figures.
You can call that Green Lanternism, but it’s reality.
beltane
@Botsplainer: I live in a rural area and have come to the conclusion that rednecks are easily among the nastiest specimens of humanity on this planet. There is absolutely no point in romanticizing these horrible, ugly people who are just as evil towards their family members as they are towards everyone else.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@WereBear: When I started voting, at least locally, the Republicans were the grown-up party. And this song was on all the radio stations. I still remember the words.
maye
— pub·lic re·la·tions, noun — the professional maintenance of a favorable public image by a company, organization or a famous person. the state of the relationship between the public and a company or other organization or a famous person.
Gene108
Makes me scared about the 2016 Presidential election. Unless there is a Democratic Presidential candidate that can inspire the way Obama did in 2008, I now have a terrible feeling about holding the White House.
The Republicans that won or held onto office have done terrible, unpopular, things and had low approvals.
@Brian R.:
So what hot button issues will turn voters out for Democrats?
Universal healthcare is a loser. Obama did it and it was used as a cudgel against Democrats this year.
Gun control is a bigger loser. The gun nuts will crawl over molten hot lava to make sure no “gun grabbing” legislator (ie Democrat) gets elected.
Abortion. It has some value, but the anti-abortion nuts are made up of both men and women, whereas the pro-choice appeals only seem to be targeted at women.
The Democrats do not have a slate of hot button issues that have conditioned people to rise up and vote for them.
There are a bunch of things people think are good ideas, but do not care passionately enough to vote to see them happen.
Also, too money in politics has heavily tilted the field to favor Republicans, because most of the outside money is from Republican friendly groups.
Alex S.
Really depressing. I also think that it was a turnout problem. There was no discrimination between good campaigns and bad campaigns, Democrats just didn’t vote. Hagan should have survived, Crist should have won, LePage in Maine,….
The whole democratic concept of bringing the less engaged people to the polls has failed. It only worked with Obama on the ticket, but that’s not enough to run a party machine, let alone defeat the Republicans. For the Democrats, it’s all going to be about Queen Hillary now. I’m glad Mark Warner apparently survived. Hillary/Warner should be the ticket in 2016. It’s got to be all about winning, and winning big then.
The Obama coalition was a wonderful idea. But I fear there are going to be internal conflicts now. I mean, I often wonder how Obama himself feels. His party is running away from him, he can’t complain about the republican Southern Strategy because of his race, I think, he’s very disenchanted with the electorate now. There is too little unity on the democratic side. The Obama approach works in the presidential elections, but in the midterms you need to mobilize YOUR forces, not the ones you still want to recruit. I guess Obama himself isn’t free from blame, maybe there should have been that executive order on immigration.
I’m ready for the Clintons now. They have their enemy lists and all that. Bring it on. I hope they learned from 1994. I hope that once Hillary is elected, their shift into midterm mode will see them defending every single position with maximum force. I want the drama.
Brian R.
Polls showed that voters overwhelmingly believed three things:
(1) the economy is rigged to benefit the wealthy
(2) the Democrats are currently in charge
so
(3) the way to fix things is to change who’s in charge
http://ourfuture.org/20141028/polling-irony-people-think-economy-is-rigged-trust-republicans-to-fix
Now, obviously, that’s idiotic if you’re paying attention, but most voters aren’t. So Dems need to do what Elizabeth Warren says over and over again: “The game is rigged, and the Republicans rigged it.”
MikeBoyScout
You nailed it mistermix. Citizens get the government they deserve when they fail to work for an election, which means showing up to vote at the very minimum.
It wasn’t all bad folks. Look at the 3 states on the Pacific coast. In my state of Washington it wasn’t all rainbows and ponies, but it was nowhere near the crazy it was elsewhere.
Did you GOTV all of your family? Neighbors? Friends?
Did you add 2 or more GOTV helpers to the cause and your address book this cycle?
Winning requires fighting year in and (especially!) year out. Hard work. Pity dumbass Republicans beat us at this basic premise.
Mustang Bobby
With one exception — Gwen Graham (D) beating Teahadist Steve Southerland in a congressional race — every race here in Florida sucked dry green donkey hooters last night.
This is what happens when you have no state Democratic Party to speak of and have to get a leftover from the other guys. And it’s even money that Charlie Crist will try again for the Senate against Rubio the next time around.
MomSense
@PsiFighter37:
If you really want to be pissed, read Cutler’s non apology from last night.
This is one of those nightmares that you only experience if you are awake.
beltane
@Sherparick: The Wall Street funders of the party, who also have considerable ownership stakes in the media, hate Social Security, Medicare, and just about anything else which improves the lives of non-rich Americans. The people who care about these issues have been too impoverished by decades of neo-liberal economic policies to compete with those who have benefited from these policies.
A lot of scabby, diseased chickens came home to roost last night. Things will get worse before they get better and there is no guarantee they will ever get better.
MomSense
@Brian R.:
The problem is that as Dems we stand on our soapboxes and preach on internet street corners. The Republican message, untrue and cynical as it is, is amplified by the media. They have television, radio, and print (with a few exceptions).
They have NPR FFS. Driving to work, cooking dinner, they hear that god awful both sides blather.
Brian R.
I keep mentioning Warren as a model to follow. This piece gives a good example why.
Gene108
@Brian R.:
The minimum wage is extremely popular, but by putting it on ballot referendums Republicans are absolved from having to vote against it and therefore no connection can be made that Republicans want to gut it. Piney can work in the background, while the people get what they want.
beltane
@Gene108: Pro-choice appeal are ineffective. Most politically disengaged women are not going to be all that motivated to vote to protect a right which they hope to never have to use.
Botsplainer
@beltane:
Oh, but we have to romanticize them as Authentic True Americans. Quirky, but with good hearts, and we have to smile adoringly on them when they spew stupidly about their fealty to their filthy apocalyptic death cult, their deliberately ignorant xenophobia and their heritage of labor theft and their propensity for installing a cruel and abusive theocracy. We have to not talk about misogyny, substance abuse and rage themes in both kinds of their music (country AND western) while they bitch about rap.
Brian R.
@MomSense:
That’s certainly a problem, but if the Democrats had a clear message they’d be able to claim the microphone too.
And the “both sides are the same” garbage would be easier to dismiss if Democrats made sure they stopped sounding like the other side.
Davis X. Machina
@MomSense: Apparently about 9% of Maine voters, together with Eliot Cutler, are simply too good for this world.
Brian R.
@Gene108:
That’s an excellent point. But it wound up on state ballots because Dems in Congress chickened out on the issue at the federal level.
Gene108
@Brian R.:
KyNect is popular. Obamacare is unpopular.
Polling showed linking KyNect to Obamacare would have caused people not to sign up.
The Republicans control the media. They decide what info filters into people’s minds. And that info is terribly misinforming people, at best.
Botsplainer
@Gene108:
Pointing out the folly of not engaging men in what is a truly libertarian issue was what finally drove me from Kos.
Too many feminists failed to see the broader appeal of Blackmun’s penumbra opinion on the things that government should never be able to intrude on; an early sensible embrace in support would have had a profound impact on everything from gay rights to surveillance dating back to the 80s.
Chris
@PsiFighter37:
@Another Holocene Human:
I’m kind of surprised that I haven’t seen this quote anywhere yet:
“The salient fact of American politics is that there are fifty to seventy million voters each of who will volunteer to live, with his family, in a cardboard box under an overpass, and cook sparrows on an old curtain rod, if someone would only guarantee that the black, gay, Hispanic, liberal, whatever, in the next box over doesn’t even have a curtain rod, or a sparrow to put on it.”
NotMax
Repeated, as it is one small candle of light from the election results.
Wowzers. The ballot initiative on Maui about a moratorium and studies on genetically modified plantings, into which Monsanto tossed millions urging a No vote, had the Noes well ahead in the early results and completely flipped in the final printout to the Yes column, so has passed.
That’s even with blank votes, which by state law are automatically counted as a No (don’t ask), factored in.
Now, the initiative is horribly written (the courts will have a field day with it) but that Big Money and the Powers That Be* were in effect trounced by the DFHs is nonetheless uplifting.
*Typical ad begging for a No vote: “Your grandmother will be tossed in the slammer for having a papaya tree!”
Davis X. Machina
@Another Holocene Human:
18-29 voters, who are similar in number to 65+ voters, will turn out to have voted half as often.
MomSense
@Davis X. Machina:
Did you read Cutler’s statement? He’s pissed at Angus for leaving his campaign at the end. Jeez, his polling didn’t budge from the Summer of 2013. He wasn’t viable at any time the entire campaign.
Kay
I think Democrats should be really concerned about the governor’s races. Holding the Senate had more to do with the map and the year, but that’s not true for the governors.
We have something like 25 states with far Right governors and they’re winning second terms. That’s what will change the country. That’s what’s going to cut into voting rights, end reproductive rights, destroy public schools, end environmental regulation and consumer protection legislation and a whole host of other things that affect people directly.
They’re losing the whole upper midwest at the state level.
beltane
@Gene108: Yes. And the only mode the media has besides “both sides do it” is to paint the Democrat as “extreme” and “too far to the left”. The American media has always been extremely hostile towards anything bearing the slightest whiff of Left-leaning economic policy. This innate hostility has only gotten worse over the past few decades.
Davis X. Machina
@MomSense: Yes, but when you worry about mundane, practical things like viability, and tactical voting, you’ve already sullied yourself with the taint of politics.
But this is Maine, and a lot of us are above all that tawdry stuff.
Plato’s Republic is located somewhere in Cumberland County, or on the Mid-coast.
JMG
It was always going to be a bad year for Democrats and turned into a very bad year. So it goes. It’s futile to predict what will come next, which of course everyone on earth will do until we all forget it and turn to football and the holidays in pursuit of our sanity. But I would suggest it might be worth studying the relatively few Democratic successes rather than dwell on the failures. How come Tom Wolf won big while all the other Republican governors survived? He must’ve done something right. How did Jeanne Shaheen win? How did Oregon remain relatively immune to the Republican tide? Somewhere in there are some answers.
MomSense
@Brian R.:
Obama is a democrat with a clear message–if you listen to him without the media filter. The media blurry up his message without fail. Every time he spoke about the ACA he spoke clearly and yet death panels. government takeover, socialism, and giving free health care to “illegals” somehow was broadcast everywhere. Chuck Todd famously said it wasn’t his job to correct the misinformation so he just “reported” on what some said about it.
In all my persuasion calls, I had a very direct message. I was patient as hell as I tried to answer questions and walk people through the issues but I was trying to counter what they heard on the “news”.
Gene108
@Brian R.:
The Senate passed a bunch of stuff that should have motivated “the base” only to see it die in the House, such as immigration reform.
It did not motivate people to vote against Reoublican obstructionism.
In the end the Democrats have a few issues that matter to specific groups, but no slate of issues that unify “the base”.
Immigration reform is a big deal for Latinos, but not for anyone else to any appreciable extent.
Abortion is a big deal for women, but not so much for men, especially white men, who vote more for a Republucans.
Gun control is a niche issue for some folks, but not so much for the folks who do not own guns.
Republicans have drilled this trinity as issues their base cares about as a collective whole.
NotMax
Can’t quite decide which will come first – the heat death of the universe or Broward County in Florida running an election without irregularities.
Chris
@beltane:
The key part of “both sides do it” is its unspoken corollary, “but liberals are worse.”
beltane
@Kay: It’s almost as though large swathes of the electorate have just surrendered. They no longer believe that their lives and communities can improve so they just tune out and let the wingnuts do their thing. The Emma Lazarus poem on the Statue of Liberty ought to be replaced with Dante’s “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here”.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Holocene Human:
The Silents and Gen-X right there.
MomSense
@Davis X. Machina:
Well I am feeling pretty darn sullied this morning.
@Kay:
I am very concerned about the state level. The misery index when these bullies run state government is through the roof.
Botsplainer
@MomSense:
Which is why I now would have no objection to violence committed toward media pundits. Back them the fuck off with the phrase “Remember Marat!”
They’re no longer bystanders, but are in fact complicit.
Mr. Twister
@Kay: This. Look at Maryland, Hogan ran against O’Malley as much as Brown. I had to sit through the TV ads for weeks. The governors that have truly screwed their citizens were re-elected. The Senate was a foregone conclusion, this was the worst trend of the evening. O’Malley presidential ambitions are now DOA.
Botsplainer
@beltane:
That describes my 20 year old daughter. I practically begged her to vote, and she gave me purity leftist internet platitudes on “both sides are just as corrupt corporatist” and extolling the Green Party while lamenting that it can never win.
By not participating at all, peace, sharing and prosperity will magically appear.
Alicia
@Kay:
Agreed. It sucks we lost the Senate, but I’m more alarmed that utter failures like Rick Scott, Rick Snyder, Scott Walker, Paul LePage, Sam Brownback and others got re-elected despite what they’ve done in decimating their states. These are the people really affecting change nationally and the ones driving the debate(s) on issues. The Senate can usually be held by checks and balances, not so the governors, especially if they have friendly state legislatures.
MomSense
@Botsplainer:
Yup, but violence won’t help. We need to go Gandhi on this.
JMG
When Bush won in 2004, it was very depressing to me, way worse than this election, because it was so clear things would get worse. They did, and people woke up. It’s possible that’s what’ll happen to the states which re-elected Republican governors.
Kay
@Gene108:
I don’t think we can blame national political media for state races. Democrats need a counter on economic issues and it can’t be just the minimum wage.
“Equality of opportunity” is exactly what Republicans argue. Democrats can’t argue the exact same thing, just take the GOP argument and add the minimum wage and sick leave.
Democrats didn’t even do the heavy lifting on the minimum wage initiatives. Labor did. Democrats are failing at raising the minimum wage nationally. Labor is succeeding at raising the minimum wage at the state level. Democrats need something else on the economy. They’ve just latched on to some individual issues that labor was winning state by state anyway (minimum wage, sick leave) and they’re calling that an economic platform. It’s not.
beltane
@Botsplainer: They are propagandists for the ruling elite. No regime can exist without them. If the guillotines were brought into service, the media pundits deserve to be first in line. Unlike the people they work for, we actually know what the pundits look like.
Alicia
@JMG:
I’m hoping so too, but the damage being done by these governors is going to be an uphill battle to change. I’m glad Tom Wolf won, but the damage Corbett did is going to be hard to fix. When the teabagger governors leave, the mess their replacements have to clean up is going to be astronomical.
beltane
@Botsplainer: I am almost certain my 19 year old son didn’t vote yesterday. He is a regular NPR listener and has told me on numerous occasions that while he likes Obama, both parties are ridiculous and unworthy of voting for.
Sherparick
@beltane: Yes, this is very much part of the problem and explains the reticence by some, and the outright hostility of some like Mark Warner to the great social safety net programs. Even the those not covertly hostile don’t want lose their access to fundraising by alienating the Robert Rubin Wall Street and Silicon Valley social liberals. The “war on women, reproductive rights” became such a predominant theme because it was the one thing progressive Democrats and 1% Democrats agreed on. However, the underlying popularity of these programs, and the political danger of monkeying with them has had strange side effect in that the Tea Party Republicans, with older white people as their base, don’t want to touch them.
Obama should come out defiant one one hand and apologetic to the base for not getting them motivated. And basically he should take the action on immigration that he can as he will have nothing to lose.
One very interesting thing not remarked on is that Jefferson Davis Sessions is now going to be Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. He will be working with Paul Ryan on a budget that will be a Koch and Right-wing wet dream, but may be a nightmare for Republicans in 2016. I wonder if they will have repeal of the Affordable Care Act and elimination of Medicare for those under 55 in their budget.
Kay
@Alicia:
It’s nuts how national Democrats are running on voting and reproductive rights and I am watching state after state limit reproductive rights and voting rights.
DC will become all but irrelevant at some point- if 30 states are hard Right we have a hard Right country.
Partly it’s ideological, right? Democrats and liberals have a federal bent because they believe in a strong role for the federal government, but we have to figure out some way to develop a resilient, long term state by state plan, or it won’t matter who is President.
beth
@beltane: My 18 year old voted for the first time and was excited to do it. I asked her if her friends voted and she said she was the only one in her group to do so. Drives me crazy. In her circle of friends are college students, gays, women, minorities and coworkers at the grocery store.. How do we get them to vote? I don’t think hiding away the best campaigner we’ve had in ages (Obama) did any good. They want to be excited about something.
Baud
@Kay:
So what would a winning message look like? I have no clue.
Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim
@Mr. Twister: The big lesson for Maryland Democrats, I think, is you don’t nominate the lieutenant governor just because it’s his turn. Or her turn in the case of Kathleen Townsend, the woman ho gave us Bob Ehrlich.
Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim
@Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim: Obviously that’s a typo for “who gave us”.
Valdivia
@Alex S.:
the Obama coalition stayed home because they were told they weren’t important by everyone running! And because the stupid candidates begged Obama to delay immigration action so they could win. We do well when Obama doesn’t listen to the idiots in the Dem Party. And I already see everyone is learning the wrong lesson instead of making that coalition survive by running like you are a democrat trying to cater to them.
Botsplainer
@MomSense:
African Americans tried nonviolence, and retaining gains is a constant battle with multiple setbacks.
Ghandi’s thing worked because it was an occupation of a much larger population, and the alternative (active street fight) was so much worse.
Ask yourself – after 30 years of trickle-on Reagan white Christian conservatism with only a few brief curtailments of it, what is better in your life? Do you feel like you have control of your own house and destiny? Are you optimistic about the choices that life will present your children and grandchildren? Has trickle-on austerity enabled you to realize a cherished dream?
Has nonviolence made them calm down, or do they see it as weakness?
Chris
@Kay:
I think it’s also a matter of momentum. Between Nixon and Reagan, the national mood shifted to the Republicans in the sixties, seventies and eighties; but at the local level, Democrats were able to hold onto power for much longer, and the politics of Congress didn’t catch up to the politics of the White House until 1994.
Mr. Twister
@Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim: This too. I was visiting some very liberal folks in MD last weekend and 1) they were sick of O’Malley, and 2) didn’t think much of Brown either.
Alicia
@Kay:
Absolutely. I can’t agree with you more.
Democrats really need to start planning state strategies and go back to the Howard Dean 50-State strategy. That wasn’t just about getting Democrats elected nationally, but statewide as well. I know there are some out there who didn’t like Dean, but his strategy worked and it has been abandoned by the Democrats.
We need more Democrats in local government, state legislatures, etc. That is where the real power is.
As others have mentioned, the Dems also need to stop running proven losers like Coakley and other Dem retreads. Go out there and search for fresh blood, people who can energize the base and have solid ideas.
Matt McIrvin
Who should we kill, Botsplainer?
Should we kill their families and children too? Which kids should we gun down while they beg and plead for their lives? Please illuminate me.
I’m getting sick of this.
El Caganer
@Kay: Exactly. Their victories at the state level are what have enabled everything else they’re doing. To take just one example, where is the anti-abortion legislation coming from? Not the US House. The wingnuts pass hundreds of laws at the state level, hoping to chip away at and redefine what most people think are settled questions.
beltane
@Botsplainer: Ghandi also made considerable use of economic weapons like boycotts. Contrary to popular belief, Indian independence was not won by people just sitting passively in the street.
Kirbster
The Republican project to turn the USA into “Americanistan” continues apace — the goal is a weak central government that still lavishly supports the military and secret police, while the rest of the country is run economically by corporate warlords and socially by religious tribal leaders out in the provinces. Whether they realize it or not, this is what the American electorate has voted for.
JMG
I understand North Carolina, let alone Arkansas, is not Massachusetts, but first with Clinton and now with Obama we see that the tactic of a Democratic legislator attempting to separate themselves from the Democratic President just does not work. Politicians are more risk averse than NFL coaches even, but at some point, you’d think they’d figure out that thing about hanging together or hanging separately.
Valdivia
also a million times what @Kay said about the Governorships. The Senate I was afraid of but expected it. The loss of all these states….slays me.
beltane
@JMG: By fleeing Obama they ended up driving his numbers even lower which ended up hurting them, not the president. It’s also far better to appear loyal and courageous than to come across as a fair weather friend, a fake, a coward.
p.a.
@WereBear: Blame the poors: Poor people don’t vote in proportion to their numbers. Poor people in general trend Democratic. And they have always voted less off-year. It’s not always because Dems magically switch between competent to incompetent every 2 years. If anyone here has the answer we wouldn’t be here. We’d be making money running successful Dem campaigns.
Mr. Twister
According to much of the exit polling data, it’s still the Economy stupid. And the voters trust the Republicans to fix the economy and income inequality more than the Democrats. This shows the complete lack of narrative for the Democrats if people voting think the Republicans are going to fix income inequality.
Chris
@Kirbster:
This guy (http://adamcadre.ac/calendar/11/11548.html) had an interesting take on the United States and the “third world nation” thing – more elaborate and spelled out than it usually gets – in the context of New Orleans post-Katrina. Worth the read (skip the first paragraph, about something else).
Though I’m told Canada, his point of comparison, has actually gotten quite a bit worse since 2006.
(Of course, from another point of view it all simply calls into question the usefulness of the “third world” designation).
Botsplainer
@Matt McIrvin:
What would justice look like for those who glibly ruin the lives of others – entire families across generation – with their words?
They understand nothing of what they cost others. Left alone, free to spew on behalf of their paymasters, they don’t internalize a price.
The boycotts on Limbaugh aren’t working. He just gets louder. Outside a boycott that already isn’t working, what discipline or fear may be brought to bear?
And yes, I’m in a dark fucking mood. I see serious secession problems arising in the next two years, and violence on a widespread basis.
p.a.
Despite my previous comment, I can’t fucking believe Brownback won.
beltane
@Mr. Twister: Maybe the people looking to the Republicans to fix income inequality are hoping for the bottom 99.99% to all be equally poor and miserable.
JMG
Voting is a habit. It takes a LOT to get a habitual Republican/Democrat to change. Kansas is full of habitual Republicans, and in the end, they couldn’t desert the tribe even if it hurts them personally.
Kay
@Baud:
I don’t really know either. I knew it was a bad message. You just can’t go to Cleveland and tell those people to retrain again. Democrats have been telling them to retrain for 30 years. They DO retrain. It doesn’t matter. They’re still falling out of the middle class.
I think they need a platform that centers on economic security. I would have run on Social Security, the health care law (as it relates to health security), consumer protections and regulations and regulatory protections for workers.
It’s not at all sexy and DC strategists would hate it because it’s not “transformational” but I think even young people would respond to it.
Working class and middle class people are economically insecure. All ages all genders all races. I’m convinced that’s the root of all the free-floating angst. Not ISIS or ebola but the fact that they’re falling behind or treading water and they know it.
Don’t tell them to climb a ladder. They KNOW they’re on a ladder. Tell them you won’t let them fall off it and crash to the ground, again. Let Republicans be the risk party, the gamblers, the people who play fast and loose with peoples’ paychecks. Democrats should be the counter to that.not a version of it.
Give labor minimum wage and sick leave. They’re doing a better job with it anyway. Labor STARTED at $15, DC Democrats started at $9.50. In some ways, DC Democrats were under-cutting labor’s opening offer on the minimum wage. They weren’t even really helping. Minimum wage and sick leave are ISSUES, they’re not a coherent plan or theme. I cringed when I listened to national Democrats in this state. Fully one half of their message was “borrow money and go to college”. That’s advice, it’s not an economic plan. They sound like successful people offering the downtrodden advice. It’s just horrible. I don’t know why they can’t hear how it sounds.
raven
Ya’ll gonna argue with someone that’s probably never been in a goddamn fistfight about using violence? Give it a rest, it’s all keyboard bullshirt.
Emma
You know what? I give up. At this moment I am tired of watching family and friends relentlessly act against their own best interests because somewhere, somehow, a woman is having an abortion or a black person has a television larger than theirs or some gays got married to each other. I am deeply sorry for those of you who have children and watch helplessly as those same kids screw it up, or even worse, get it right while their friends push everyone down the crapper. For those of you that are willing to keep on fighting, I admire your energy and your dedication. But I am tired.
(added later) And I am, specifically, tired of the Democratic Party.
Kay
@Mr. Twister:
Democrats didn’t make an income inequality argument, as far as the working/middle class. They made an income inequality argument as far as poor people, and poor people don’t vote in midterms. They barely vote in Presidential years.
They didn’t lose on income inequality to Republicans. They never made the argument. I think they made a conscious decision to do that. I heard it change from income inequality to inequality of opportunity.
They need their own argument. They can’t be “Republican economic ideas plus the safety net for poor people”. That’s not enough.
Tone In DC
I just looked at the Washington Post site.
The results from the Senate hurt my eyes. Almost as much as that photo of Mitch the Turtle. I thought that the Senate results would at least be close, say 51-49.
As for the electorate in the states where last night’s “wave” hit, those folks are going to get the representation they deserve, good and hard.
Someone mentioned that the Dems don’t give some folks motivation to get out and vote. I won’t argue about that right now. Consider the other component in this. Consider the opposition.
To paraphrase Dennis Green, the wingers are who we thought they were. Exactly who we thought they were, they have shown this since Nixon’s run in 1968. Over the last six years, it’s gotten so much worse. After 40 years of their actions, this history, clear as it is, wasn’t enough to get a decent amount of the American electorate up off the couch to vote. There was no coup last night. Jackbooted thugs didn’t round up folks and put them in FEMA camps, and then take these congressional and gubernatorial elections at gunpoint.
I cannot sugarcoat this, after what happened last night. The contempt I feel for “purity ponies” that allegedly are on our side… it knows no bounds.
Only good thing about the situation is, almost every time these wingers are near a microphone or a camera, they feel the need to show all those watching and/or listening that they are who we thought they are. I hope someone like James Carter IV is around the next time one of these guys calls 47% of the country moochers/takers/lazy/unpatriotic.
Kay
The only bright spot to me is the Pennsylvania Democrat ran on public education and won. Democrats might could win on that at the state level, although I have to say I actually donated to the Michigan Democrat (governor) because HE ran on public ed and he lost, so this theory might need some work :)
MomSense
@Kay:
I agree with you about what we should run on but my question is whether the best message would make it through the media gauntlet. The President has been talking consistently about raising the minimum wage. Hell he introduced that issue at his state of the union speech and even went all dictator on the issue and signed an executive order for government contractors.
It was his issue for FSM sakes and it won in red states.
I argued about messaging as best I could given that I’m a grunt in Democratic circles but they felt that they had to work with the media narratives because it is nearly impossible to swim against the current in a stream that big.
beltane
@Kay: Ugh, the term “inequality of opportunity” is like a slap in the face. “Opportunity” has become a Republican term used around here to promote tax cuts for businesses. People want more money to pay bills, to go on vacations, to buy nice things for themselves once and a while. Income is real, opportunity is a weasel word. No wonder people are confused.
I’m already seeing calls for the Vermont Progressive party to run gubernatorial candidates again. People are saying Peter Shumlin almost lost to a Republican nobody because he is too conservative and that’s why they stayed home. When the progs did run candidates we always seemed to end up with a Republican governor. The state that elects Bernie Sanders could easily elect another Paul LaPage given the right circumstances. I feel sick.
raven
@Kay: “Might could”? And here I thought you were not from Georgia!
chopper
goopers vote. progressives stay home and complain.
that’s about the whole thing.
Tone In DC
@chopper:
At this point, I can’t argue with that.
It took me 20 minutes to get to the polls and vote after work last night (though the wait was two hours in 2012). Our precinct only had three machines, or it would have been faster. I am past angry that so many people will not take time to do this every two years.
Applejinx
@Matt McIrvin:
Ask Ferguson.
You seem to believe you live in a society that is democratically represented, where your child won’t be gunned down in the street for no reason by lone-wolf right-wingers or the right-wing police or some combination of these. You seem to believe you won’t quickly just end up licking their boots, as they’d prefer you do.
I’m losing faith in the disarmament option. If you live in Somalia, you have a gun or you fellate the barrel of someone else’s, because the system’s broken down to where raw brutality carries the day. I see that happening in the United States, though I didn’t expect to live to see that.
I’m a reclusive shut-in, but I know a gun nut who’s been posting anti-racism things on Facebook. I’m tempted to ask him if he would arm Ferguson. If his answer is ‘yes, because the government is literally killing them in the streets and this is what we’ve been on about all this time’, I would have a very hard time arguing against that.
I no longer believe in a democratic America. It would take some convincing to persuade me it can be salvaged. I’m strictly in ‘hardcore survival, community style’ except my community is scattered geographically. Point is, we cannot assume our system is not broken beyond repair by essentially ‘social hacking’ exploits, ways to systematically manipulate the masses’ information. Worked for Goebbels, now moneyed interests and corporations are building demographic golems to do their bidding, using these same exploits.
That story never ends well.
Bendal
@Alex S.: @Alex S.: Hagan won the NC cities handily. Where she failed were the small towns and rural areas that are strongly, almost impenetrably conservative. She won those area in 2008 though, so what was different this time?
Oh right, her opponent Thom Tillis described her as a “rubber stamp Obama supporter” that ‘cast the deciding vote for Obamacare’ and ‘never sponsored a piece of legislation on her own’. Then he ran ads of smiling actors portraying NC teachers chirping “Tillis gave us a big fat raise this year, thanks Thom!” and another young couple holding a child saying “because of Tillis our child got the medical help Obamacare wouldn’t give him, thanks Thom!” and yet another one with a couple and a little girl talking about how the woman went into labor really early and she had to deliver a super-premie baby and she was ok and Hagan supports aborting babies like my daughter!
Meanwhile, Hagan runs ads saying she was the ‘most moderate Senator’ in Congress and fought to keep the military at Fort Bragg and how she had NC’s interests in mind, and only later did she start linking Tillis with the terrible legislation he had passed while he was Speaker of NC’s House. Way too little and way too late; the rednecks in rural NC just saw her name tied to “Obama” and “Obamacare” (which our legislature stopped from being implemented here) and “abortion” and that was it.
Kay
@raven:
I have a lot of affection for Georgia. I lived there for a period in my misspent youth. I don’t think Atlanta counts as “Georgia” though. I told you that the Great State of Georgia awarded me my GED! I still have the essay I wrote.
I had a good friend whose name was “Merle” although she was a girl. Her given name. Like Merle Haggard. I had a car that wouldn’t go in reverse, so if we made a mistake and got ourselves into a situation where we had to inch back, she would open the passenger door and push it back with her foot, like the Flintstones. It was a Dodge Dart and I bought it from a shady character in Chamblee, off his front yard lot. Looking back I think he was about 15 years old.
Mike in NC
@Bendal: I told my wife this morning that I’ve had it with wingnut NC politics and there is nothing I’d like better than a FOR SALE sign out on our front lawn. Ready to move back to Maryland or NoVA.
Cervantes
@Kay: Crucial.
Cervantes
@JMG:
Useful questions, well worth repeating.
sparrow
@Gene108: BUT WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE THAT DON’T VOTE? This is what I find astounding. I can even somewhat “understand” the shelfish racists assholes who show up to vote R. The brainwashed Limbaugh voters, sure. But who are these people that like access to healthcare, functioning schools, a government not lurching through funding crises, who are like “meh, not worth the short walk over to my polling place”. SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCK. Especially, especially women and latinos. Only the black people in this country apparently have a clue.
BlueDWarrior
@sparrow: They have been told that no one cares about them, and frankly the fact that Democratic candidates have to go through great lengths to ‘connect’ shows that to some extent.
Democratic Candidates, at least the ones that win primaries, for whatever reason, just show this consistent inability to win the emotional, visceral game of politics.
It doesn’t matter how good your ideas are if you put the room to sleep before you get to them, or otherwise turn off your audience.
Cervantes
@Botsplainer:
Maybe go with her to a couple of local Green and Democratic meetings. She might learn something useful and — who knows? — maybe you will, too.
In any event, you may not like your daughter’s views but at least she has not tuned out. Despite duties and distractions, she’s still thinking about politics and ideals. You can take some pride in that and, if you do, it wouldn’t hurt to let her know. While you have breath left in you, never forget you’re a father.
raven
@Kay: I also know a female named Merle. . . or is it Meryl?
Kerry Reid
@WereBear: Well, maybe Dem VOTERS could start acting like GOP voters and taking victory laps when BIG FUCKING DEALS like ACA go through, rather than mewling about shit sandwiches and sell-outs. The GOP promises a shit-ton of stuff that never materializes, year after year (Human Life Amendment, etc., etc.) But their voters still turn out. Dem voters act like Victorian hothouse flowers who wilt at the first sign of not getting their wish list.
Clap louder. Vote every time. That’s what the GOP voting base does. Try it!
sparrow
@Botsplainer: I usually play the “SUPREME COURT, MORON” card in these situations. It surprisingly works.
Kerry Reid
@Cervantes: Also interesting to note that progressive ballot initiatives, like raising minimum wage, won big even in states like Arkansas that otherwise went GOP.
Cervantes
@beltane:
And even when they were “just sitting passively in the street,” they weren’t.
NotMax
@Cervantes
No slam against Wolf, but Corbett has been, politically speaking, among the walking dead for quite a spell. Anyone short of a gibbering lunatic (and perhaps even one of those) would have shellacked him.
BlueDWarrior
@Kerry Reid: It goes to show some things, when we start yelling for our audience to CLAP LOUDER, half of ‘us’ yell about this that or the other and why are we supporting this half-right-wing corporatist sellout.
A lot of the game of politics is about the optics and the vague feelings you have, and not wether or not you’ve done stuff on a policy checklist. And yet some activists don’t seem to get that.
Kerry Reid
@Kay: Rauner won’t be able to do much in Illinois. Mike Madigan, the speaker of the General Assembly, is a rat bastard. But he’s OUR rat bastard, dammit!
Kerry Reid
@BlueDWarrior: Exactly! I think back to the “townhall summer.” Where the hell were the progressives pushing back and saying “This is a good step in the right direction, just like Social Security and Medicare. Because every horror tale they are telling you about the ACA right now is exactly what was said about those programs, and now almost everyone loves them.”
But nope — too many people were pouring 40-ouncers out for the public option. Which wasn’t gonna be a magic bullet, either — but at least it would have PUNISHED the insurance companies! Thing is, I don’t think most voters give a fuck about the vengeance narratives (perp walks!) that the left fixated on. They just want to know that things will be going back to “normal,” whatever that is.
blackcain
@MikeBoyScout:
I did GOTV on the phone and a small stint walking. If all of us could have participated in voting that would have rocked. I was only able to reach the older folks not any of the younger ones.
NobodySpecial
@BlueDWarrior: What are the optics of not defending policies you voted for? What are your feelings about representatives who won’t justify their votes?
A part of the problem is Congresspeople running away from their record and their party. Another part is people who cover for them.
Kristine
@Kerry Reid:
Hear! Hear! I was depressed about his winning until I saw that the Dems have a veto-proof majority. I think the only one who may get shaken up in Springfield is Rauner.
Kerry Reid
@Kristine: I suspect, like a lot of other swaggering a-holes who promise to “run government like a business,” that he will crumple into despair when he realizes he can’t just fire Mike Madigan and the Dems. (Again — Madigan is a pretty horrible human being, but I will take him for now. His daughter Lisa cruised to re-election as attorney general and is on the top of my list of people who should run to defeat Mark Kirk for the Senate in 2016.)
Rauner can do some damage with executive orders, but limited compared to Scott Walker and Rick Snyder (WTH, Wisconsin and Michigan? No offense to Betty, but I sort of get why Rick Scott won again because Charlie Crist could be painted as turncoat/opportunist/blah blah blah. But jeez – Scott Freaking WALKER?)
Ben Cisco
@Chris: Updated to reflect today’s mindset amongst the electorate.
BlueDWarrior
@Kerry Reid: There is a lot of talk out on the webs that basically the Wisconsin Democratic Party is Madison and Milwaukee patronage operations and that no one outside of those cities really care for who the Democrats put up statewide. It’s a similar argument that was made when national pundits talk about Democrats not being able to win the Presidency without nominating Democrats from Rural-ish states.
Mike E
@Bendal: I agree with everything but your first paragraph. Hagan beat a disinterested legacy hire (Liddy Dole) riding a wave of young, female and nonwhite voters…her margin was narrow nonetheless. This time, a depressed electorate couldn’t save her from herself–I mean, Thom Tillis fercrissake! The rest, what you said.
RaflW
That’s a symptom, not the cause of our losses.
This campaign, nationally, was about nothing except “look how bad the other guy is.” Running that play made perfect sense for Republicans.
But I damn well hope Democrats take the right lesson from this drubbing: running away from the good things you’ve done (hello ACA!), and not bothering to say what you’ll do next is not a way to turn out your base. It has failed. Again. And again.
Playing to mythical centrists is a crap strategy. The persuadable voter barely exists. Stand up, be proud, push a vision for the future, not a sniveling “I’m not the Preznit” strategy.
RaflW
@Brian R.:
And I think this is our opportunity over the next two years. The Republican party clearly owns the nations problems for the tail-end of Obama’s presidency. Let’s pin all those problems on them in exactly the way Warren says. Its much more likely to stick now that the GOP is being paraded everywhere as ascendent.
Omnes Omnibus
@Botsplainer: The majority opinion in Griswold that featured the “penumbras and emanations” language was written by Douglas. Blackmun merely relied on it in Roe.
Elie
@Gene108:
Gene, I do not believe that health care is a loser…. it needs to be remembered that it is still being implemented and now, in red states, it probably will never be fully. That said, there will be no easy way to go back and if they repeal parts of it, or fuck it up, then we have to re-label and disavow it. It cannot then remain Obamacare but must become republicare… My fear is that they will fuck it up and continue to label it Obamacare. Since the democrats were unwilling to defend it, we have to make sure that we don’t get hurt by what it becomes after the Repubs finish destroying it.
If I were Obama, I would be really really angry with the democrats. That won’t help of course. They will blame him back for not helping them and being a liability because he stood for health care and decreased involvement in the ME (the next big deal coming up)
Elie
I am sorry — I can’t stand Elizabeth Warren as a messenger. I don’t think that her message will break past the white liberal middle class… it has no legs to working class/middle class Latinos and blacks. I am not sure it even appeals to working class whites. Its missing relevance to cultures other than white uper class educated east coast liberals.
Ben
@Kerry Reid:
Plus Madigan HATES Rauner, and it looks like we only lost 1 seat in each house of the Legislature.
It’s going to be a fun four years…
Update: We are just shy of 60% in the State House, but well over that in the State Senate. And I know at least one GOP state representative who generally likes organized labor…
Kerry Reid
@Ben: Yeah — other than having to endure looking at Rauner’s smarmy a-hole face for four years, I’m not all that worried about huge rightward shifts in legislation. Of course I can well be proven wrong.
Now we get the fun game of who takes out Kirk in 2016. I assume he’s running again.
Kristine
@Kerry Reid: I would have loved to see Lisa M. run for Gov, but I am guessing that is out of the question until Dad retires because the conflict could rip the family apart.
Kerry Reid
@Kristine: Yup. Definitely a problem. I am normally not a fan of nepotism, but I think she has actually done a decent job as AG without (seemingly) having inherited the Machiavellian slimeball ways of the old man.