Why the Democrats Lost: Failure to Be Bold
Heretic that I am, I’m going to take an unpopular position: that the Democrats lost not because they were too bold, but because they weren’t bold enough. As all the “pundits” tell the Democrats (as they always do) to move ever-more-rightward, I’ll say, yet again, that moving rightward and wimp-ward is why they keep losing!
The strength of the Tea Party vote is more than a repudiation of Obama. It’s also a repudiation of the “mainstream” GOP (which was already so far to the right that people like Nelson Rockefeller or Lowell Weicker would have found it very uncomfortable).
The massive switch of independent voters, in particular, was, in short, a continuation of the 2008 Obama call for “change”: a loud cry that people didn’t feel they actually received the change they had voted for in 2008.
And this can be pinned squarely on the Democrats’ failure to make bold policy, and to be willing to tell the story of their success boldly. On health care, on climate change, on the economy…the Democrats whittled themselves down to half-measures. Where was the single-payer health care program that almost every other country in the world has adopted in some form (and why didn’t they position that as the boon to the business community that it is)? Where was the Marshall Plan-scale effort to get us off fossil and nuclear and into job-creating, carbon-slashing clean renewable energy? Where were the measures to hold Wall Street and the GW Bush administration accountable for the mess they made? And where were the visionary leaders who should have populated Obama’s Cabinet?
Despite a huge mandate for change, and a majority in both House and Senate, the Democrats refused to even listen to calls for massive structural reform, and then forgot all the marketing lessons they learned in the campaign and let the other side not just control but completely dominate the discourse—leaving the impression that they are a weak and ineffectual party of favors to special interests who can’t fix the economy or anything else. And failing on three crucial aspects of marketing: to remind people firstly of who got us into this mess, second, of the steps they did take to pull us out, and third, of the policy initiatives where change was actually achieved in the last two years.
Don’t apologize for your beliefs. Three out of the four most recent prior Democratic nominees–Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry–all crawled on their bellies with messages that basically said, “umm, I’m not really a liberal, I didn’t mean it, I’m soooo sorry!” And all three lost because doing that took the wind right out of their sails. Bill Clinton, who is not a liberal, didn’t play that game. Not surprisingly, he won. Obama never apologized, ignored the L-word, and didn’t even flinch when in the closing days, McCain revved it up and actually called him a socialist (traditionally, the kiss of death in US politics).
Monday evening, Rachel Maddow released a video highlighting Obama’s accomplishments. It’s a great video. The Democratic Party itself should have made something like it, six months ago, and worked to get it viral. Released by an outside journalist, twelve hours before the polls opened, it had no time to gather momentum.
Here in Massachusetts, Governor Deval Patrick wasn’t given much chance a year ago. But he ran a positive campaign focused on the slogan, “Optimism and Effort.” He highlighted his accomplishments over and over again, made a case that the work wasn’t done, and inspired audiences with a message of hope, economic recovery, and the rights of ordinary people. In other words, he used the exact strategies I’ve been advocating for decades that the Democrats use. Despite his somewhat centrist record, he was able to position himself as a change agent. I went to one of his rallies and went up to him afterward to thank him for being a sitting governor bold and hopeful enough to go out and make that kind of speech.
He did benefit from a third-party candidate who clearly drew votes from the colorless, bland GOP candidate. But still, he won, and by a larger margin than many pundits had predicted.
You are NOT a heretic; you speak the truth, Shel. ‘Course, I listen to Thom Hartmann, Dylan Ratigan, Ed Schultz, Michael Moore, Paul Krugman, Rachel Maddow, Randi Rhodes, Alan Grayson, Katrina Vanden Huevel, etc. And if Obama keeps coming to this knife-fight only ready to shake hands and be agreeable, I will be apoplectic. I’ve been a Democrat since before birth, but if the Dems keep “refutiating” progressive principles, I’ll be ready for an FDR/Truman-style people’s party.
Thank you so much, Dinah, I rally value your support. Changing the world can feel pretty lonely on a night like Tuesday.
The loss was not just about left/right politics. What has struck me most about this administration was its willingness to appear callous. How many times were we told that employment is a trailing indicator? Or, earlier in the administration, that stock price fluctuations don’t really matter? How much genuine sympathy was directed at people who put their life savings into their house and lost it all? And how many times was the (now, for this president, former) base told that the administration just didn’t care about them? This is not ideology, it is communication.
The other serious weakness was in lack of hustle. How many times were we told that it is to be expected that we’ll lose some seats in the midterm–don’t worry about it? How many times did Obama emphasize that the Senate should take the time it needed on healthcare? After the House passed cap-and-trade, how hard did the administration push the Senate to take it up? This election needed extraordinary efforts, especially in the face of a predictable flood of corporate donations. But it requires leadership to bring out the extraordinary effort. People don’t do this level of work without urging and without encouragement by example.
Much of what will be interpreted as ideology was merely terrible execution, perhaps even terrible execution and communication by people whose hearts were in the right place. We’ll never know, and sadly, they’ll never have the chance again to show us.
Exactly right. This was not a failure of ideology, but ultimately, of marketing–part of which is listening to and addressing the real concerns of hurting constituents.