You frequently hear Democrats talk about how, in the past six presidential elections, the Democrats have won five out of the six popular votes, and Democrats cling to this fact with all their might. However, there are a few rain clouds attached to this fact. For starters, we still lost two of those presidential elections. Secondly, two of those "majorities" were actual pluralities. Third, we've also lost four of the past six Midterms, which has severely hurt our chances to actually govern. And fourth, and most critically, the two best performances we had were based on the excitement around one individual (Barack Obama) that will be extremely difficult to duplicate.
Therefore, I think it's time for the Democrats to start taking a serious look at how they can fix this problem going forward, and as is my want, I have put together a ten-point plan to address such a problem. Let's dive in...
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| Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) |
Listen, I get that the news media's job is to sell the biggest story there is, and they are absolutely right that it isn't a cold, constant hard fact that the Democrats always do poorly in the Midterms (2006 being the clear exception to the rule). However, the Democrats have to admit that this is probably their biggest issue in getting real change done. The reality is that you cannot keep losing double digit House seats and every red/purple state every time the White House isn't in play. The media has started to say that the "Blue Wall is broken," as if this is new news (the presidential race in two years will be competitive-shocking!), but the reality is that in 2010 the "Blue Wall" got cracked pretty hard with Senate losses in swing states like New Hampshire, Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, only to watch all of those states bounce back two years later for President Obama. The Democrats need to figure out a way to get their voters out in strong numbers when the President isn't on the ballot-end of story. The next nine points should help with that, but first they need to admit the problem, and also admit that it isn't a lost cause. There is no law in this country that states that we have to have lower turnout in the Midterms-it's just that it's usually what happens.
It's time to fight fire with fire. Democrats frequently can do this-the money game in 2014 was spot-on, very competitive with the Republicans in a way I never would have expected. Now, though, you need to make voter suppression something people care about in a real way, and to expand early voting. This is something that should be a winner-air commercials with war veterans who can't find a birth certificate or single working mothers-find people who resonate in a way with the national electorate so that there is sympathy for the Voter ID laws being swept across the country (if you can't find an easy answer to "but we all have driver's licenses" you need to go back to the drawing board), get same-day registration across the board (it seems silly that you can't register on Election Day), no-excuse absentee ballots (makes complete sense), and find a way to push for early voting in all states.
And then take advantage of the early voting. People like Charlie Crist, Kay Hagan, Bruce Braley, and Mark Udall clearly needed better turnout in early voting. Yes, in some cases (Hagan's, in particular), the early voting looked great on-paper, but this is the time to push for every person to vote: likely, on-the-fence, registered, likely-but-unregistered. You just need numbers, none of these "we're getting people who didn't vote in 2010, not just votes we'd get anyway" excuses. Organize "Souls to the Polls" for Sundays and scour college campuses to get votes. Part of the problem, especially headed to Election Day, is you want people to feel like their vote matters, like they're going to vote for a winner. I kept reading in every article I could find that Mark Udall was behind in getting his votes in, and the campaign's excuse was they were going to get a rush at the end. However, you cannot tell me that the constant deluge of 'Cory Gardner is winning the early vote' stories didn't hurt Udall's enthusiasm. The same goes for Braley/Ernst in Iowa. You need to get early voting in all states, and then run up the total as high as you can, so you can spend more time focusing on any votes that you haven't landed yet on Election Day.
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| Sen. Kay Hagan and President Barack Obama |
Honestly, this is probably moot when it comes to President Obama. Hillary Clinton is enough of her own person that she'll be able to have a line between herself and the President, and give Democrats someone to cling toward. However, Obama will still factor into 2016, and it's time the Democrats realize that part of why Obama has failed is because our party was too quick to throw him under the bus. At the end of the day, many aspects of the Affordable Care Act worked. People celebrate that so many more people have access to healthcare and the pre-existing conditions clause is widely celebrated. The reality is that if, from the get-go, they had gone with that strategy (again-war veterans and single mothers in campaign commercials), they would have been fine.
Instead, they put a thick line between the President and themselves, and that cost them with the base. The base likes the President: that 40% of the electorate that keeps saying they approve of the President? They're the ones that are going to vote for you in a Midterm election, not the flighty periphery voters who change with whatever is on television. Granted, you need some of those voters, and I'm not pushing for someone like Mark Pryor or Paul Davis or Alison Lundergan Grimes to be out trying to get Obama to stand next to them (though at least be civil enough to admit you voted for him), but Mark Udall? Bruce Braley? Charlie Crist? You should have been trying to get him in town as often as you could. Have him say the Elizabeth Warren line, "we don't agree on everything, but I know that Candidate X is a fighter who can work with both sides." It will help to show that you're not just going to abandon the Democrats when the tough gets going. And for the record, Democrats did this with Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Pelosi, and Reid as well-it NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER works. People know you're a Democrat. Stop running like you're a Republican.
4. Nominate Hillary, but Stop the Coronation
Hillary Rodham Clinton is an amazing, accomplished individual. She's also clearly rusty on the stump. She's not her husband, who can connect with any audience he's ever been in front of with ease. She's not Barack Obama, who can inspire any audience he's ever been in front of with ease. She's a very skilled individual, will make an excellent president, but she's not the savvy politician those two men are. She plays it too safe, she is unwilling to be bold, and she's too insular in her approach to how to win.
I think the ship has sailed in a major way on not nominating Hillary-we simply have to do so. But I think it would be healthy to have at least one other candidate in the race to give her a warm-up to the Republicans. Someone like Elizabeth Warren or Martin O'Malley will be able to pull her a bit to the left, have her find her populist roots a bit, and figure out how to craft a message on the campaign trail. As long as it doesn't turn into 2012's Republican Presidential Primaries, this would be a truly good thing.
5. New Leaders in Congress and at the DNC
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| Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) |
Personally, I think that they'd be better off if they discarded all three of the top leaders in the House. We have now gone three cycles without winning the House, and while Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer are magicians with fundraising, other leaders would step up to that plate. Honestly, it might make sense to discard Hoyer and Jim Clyburn this cycle, and Pelosi in 2016 (assuming we don't win the majority then, in which case she earned the Speaker gavel). Reps. Xavier Becerra (CA), Donna Edwards (MD), and Joseph Crowley (NY) all seem primed to move into leadership positions in the House, and would be a solid 1-2-3.
Additionally, and more so, Harry Reid needs to go. I know that this puts his Nevada seat dangerously in play (to the point that we may be handing it over to the GOP due to Brian Sandoval, though sitting governors have a history of losing Senate races they should win, so it's not a completely lost cause against someone like AG Catherine Cortez Masto), but Reid has become too toxic for Senate Democrats. Pelosi remains relatively popular (at least in comparison to every other leader in Washington), but Reid not only is unpopular, his leadership decisions likely cost us the Senate. It has become clear now that he should have allowed the tough votes on a number of issues and shifted the blame from the Senate to the President, considering the President doesn't have to go up for reelection again/has the veto pen and then the senators could claim they have agreed with and not agreed with the president more decisively. Sens. Chuck Schumer (NY) and Patty Murray (WA) seem ready to go and have taken up some of the national spotlight. Additionally, between Schumer, Murray, Becerra, Edwards, and Crowley, you've got a pretty ethnically, generationally, geographically, and gender diverse group of leaders to speak to the gamut of voters on the campaign trail.
Finally, and most importantly, it's time for Debbie Wasserman Schultz to go. There have been too many errors on the campaign trail, too little money raised at the DNC, and she's not a strong enough surrogate around the country. Stephanie Schriock is primed and ready to go-she's been in tough races (the Tester Senate race), has an enormous national fundraising network to tap into thanks to Emily's List, and would be primed to trumpet Hillary going into 2016. Plus, you throw in Hillary on the stump, and have her pick someone like Mark Warner or Deval Patrick as her running mate, and that's a formidable bench of leaders for the Party to trumpet as "the new Democratic Party."
6. You Need to Cultivate a Bench
You want to know one of the most frightening, under-reported things about this past cycle for the Democrats? The amount of state legislative races that they lost across the country. Several state legislatures in states like West Virginia and Minnesota fell out of their hands, and it's quite easy to see that more and more major Republican donors are focusing on these local races (constitutional offices, state legislatures, county commissioners, judgeships) because they are cheaper to fund and because it's a great investment in the future. Look at a state like Ohio, where we nominated a random county executive instead of a statewide official or congressman, and look what happened-we got crushed, and Ed FitzGerald not keeping it in his pants cost us up-and-down the ballot, including in a very winnable Treasurer's race, costing us a strong challenger to Rob Portman in two years.
National Democratic groups need to put harder pressure on state parties to recruit more and better candidates for lower races (this is another reason why Schriock, thanks to her partnership with Emily's List, would be a brilliant choice for the DNC). The reality is that today's city council and school board members go on to run for the state legislature, then Congress and constitutional offices, and then the Senate and gubernatorial races. You need to spend more time growing your base, otherwise you end up with states like Michigan, Ohio, and Florida, where you have to nominate unknowns, recently defeated politicians, and former Republicans because you don't have a strong enough bench to rely upon.
For the record, if you're a red state Democrat, this is where you can help the most. There are always marginal seats in a state, and every one helps. If you're in Utah or North Dakota, you might not think that you're helping much by adding one more voice in the State House, but that one voice helps to bring more credence and credibility to the party, and you could help to launch a potential Heidi Heitkamp or Jon Tester. The Republicans are doing this WAY better than the Democrats (it's not even close), and we are absolute fools if we don't start pushing this harder.
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| Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) |
One of the big things that Millennials respond to is someone being genuine. We don't give a rat's behind about fake apologies from celebrities or politicians, and don't like that song-and-dance that the political media seems to relish. Instead, we want someone who is willing to tell us something, even if we don't want to hear it. Personally, I think this is true of everyone in America, and it would be a shocking, refreshing change of pace for it to come from a politician.
This is why someone like Rand Paul or Elizabeth Warren plays in such an unusual way with the populace. Looking at their voting records, you assume conservative Republican and liberal Democrat, and for the most part you're right. But look at the way they address crowds, frequently trumpeting up what they agree with, while acknowledging where they differ. Rand Paul shocked the political establishment when he spoke at Howard University, and while it didn't go great, it was an indication that he's a politician that wants to make inroads with all voters. The same is true for Warren, who was quick to point out she didn't agree with Alison Lundergan Grimes or Natalie Tennant on the campaign trail, but that she could work together on things they did agree upon, which is what adults do.
You don't need someone like Mark Udall trumpeting all the ways he supposedly disagrees with the President, when in reality he's a pretty staunch ally to Obama (if you can't tell yet, the Udall campaign bugged me a lot more than any other Senate campaigns this cycle). You need him talking about ways that he's worked with him, ways that he's worked with the Republicans, and ways he'll work on behalf of the state. No one wants their legislator to be an obstructionist-they want them to find common ground. The more quickly the Democrats realize that, the more quickly they will have a leg-up in likability polls again.
8. It Can't Only Be Negative
Listen, I'm a big proponent from a political standpoint of negative campaigning. It has proven time and again to work in driving out turnout. However, it can't all be negative. If I were leading the GOP right now, I'd be in a room with Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, and Reince Priebus trying to find a list of every piece of legislation they think they could pass through the Congress, and start passing it. Why? Because worse than what people voted upon is what they didn't, and in 2016, when Obama won't be on the ballot, the anti-Obama sentiment may have transformed into the anti-incumbent movement, which will cost Republicans dearly in 2016. Plus, they've done such a fantastic job of not passing bills (admittedly Harry Reid helped with this, which is why he's got to go), that if they pass a lot of legislation, regardless of its quality, the Republicans are going to look more competent. Democrats can also do this by putting out, with Hillary Clinton and their new leadership team, a contract with America. Have President Obama agree with it (again-stop badmouthing the president), have leaders push hard to get as many parts of it onto a floor of Congress (people want solutions, so don't throw it out just because it might help Mark Kirk or Kelly Ayotte with their reelections), and then run hard on it in 2016.
And add some new things in there. Medical research, transportation infrastructure, renewable energy jobs-find a list of topics that you can bring to any part of the country with relative ease because...
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| Sec. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) |
This is another area where the GOP is just head-and-shoulders above the Democrats. Republicans are awesome at national messaging. Thanks in part to Roger Ailes, they have been able to easily and clearly share a national message. If you looked at the speeches of Joni Ernst, Thom Tillis, Scott Brown, and Tom Cotton, you could switch them up, give them to another candidate, and it would all be the same. That's something that helps the national party as more and more races become about the party and not about the specific person (we saw that with the end of the Southern Democrat this cycle). Granted, the national message hasn't always sold well (2012), but it's been there and it's clearly better than running away from the national party.
10. Appeal to the Base
This is over for now, but let's say that the Democrats manage to pull off the Senate again in 2016 and Hillary Clinton wins the White House. It is going to be pivotal to start passing laws to appeal to the base. The GOP does this (you think they do those "corporations are people too" lines because they are popular with swing voters)? ENDA, immigration reform, equal pay, voting rights-you have to give a reason for the base to turn out in a midterm. I'm not saying you should throw the Joe Manchins of the party under the bus, but Nancy Pelosi did a fantastic job of balancing getting bills passed while she was Speaker while not endangering too many people. It's time to start doing that again.
And those are my ten ways to fix the Democratic Party. Which do you agree with? Which would you add? Share in the comments!
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