Chuck Schumer doesn’t have any control over who our presidential nominee will be, but he does have a responsibility for recruiting candidates to run for the 21 Republican-held senate seats that are up for re-election in 2008. And I have some advice for him.
1) The Democratic Party needs a message that can resonate in the south, the prairie states, and the mountain west because that is where the vast majority of the Republican held seats are located. Insofar as possible, the message should be unified so that it works in all regions, but there may be differences in emphasis. It should also be consistent with core Democratic values. The party suffers when it tries to be all things to all people and forgets to stick up for its core constituents. Meeting all these somewhat divergent requirements is a difficult task and begs for a transcendent campaign that moves beyond the kind of blue/red strategies that have been employed in the last two presidential elections. It will help if Barack Obama is our nominee. It will prove extraordinarily difficult if Hillary Clinton is our nominee. Regardless, it must be attempted.
2) Some of the successful memes from the ’06 elections will be available for re-use. Corruption and ethics continue to plague the Republicans and will be an important factor in the Alaska and New Mexico races. We should poll test a truly progressive platform of election and lobbying reform to see how it plays. What do people in Oklahoma and South Carolina think about publicly funded elections and free television time for candidates?
3) Not a few Republicans have left the party during the Bush years over issues like Terri Schiavo, unilateral foreign adventurism, too much religiosity, and the deterioration of civil liberties. With seats up in Alaska, Idaho, Wyoming, and Colorado, there is a real potential to reach out to libertarians. The dual message is that we will keep the government out of their bedrooms and out of their private information and correspondence. The model here is Jon Tester’s response that he didn’t want to weaken the Patriot Act, but get rid of it.
4) Another major weakness of the Bush era is in the core competence of government agencies. Nowhere was this more evident than in the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina. We have to defend seats in Louisiana and Arkansas, and we are challenging seats in Mississippi and Alabama. Our candidates should emphasize the importance of confirming well qualified people to run FEMA, the Army Corp of Engineers, the EPA and other agencies. This also ties into the politicization of the Justice Department, and other departments.
5) Competing in red states requires a somewhat macho message on military affairs. But this doesn’t mean pandering about how big, bad, and mean our military should be. Bush has so weakened our military forces that our message should be about fixing a broken system, making sure the guards and reserves are not abused in the future, improving veteran’s services and benefits, etc.
6) As part of an appeal to restore governmental competency, we need to emphasize the importance of science as both part of public education and public policy.
7) Finally, we need to use a populist appeal. The wealth disparity in this country is reaching pre-Depression levels. People feel as if they are getting ripped off. History has proven that we cannot compete in the south without an economically populist message…although the corporatist line works well nationally in the suburbs and exurbs. If we are going to break through in places like Tennessee and North Carolina, we need to talk directly to people that have been losing ground in the global economy.
So, how does this relate to candidate recruitment? On one front, it makes candidates like former astronaut Jay Buckey in New Hampshire and Nobel Laureate Dr. Peter Agre in Minnesota more appealing. (As an aside, physicist Bill Foster is running for Dennis Hastert’s seat). Recruiting scientists, rather than lawyers, into the Senate is good politics and good for policy.
On another front, it will not do to recruit more candidates like Pryor and Landrieu, that are corporate lackeys and soft on civil liberties. The message needs to about preserving the American way of life, bolstering the middle class, and creating effective, responsive, and ethical government. We need stark contrasts, not Republican-lite candidates that fold in response to terror talk, waffle and pander on core Democratic values, and vote the Wal-Mart party line.
In some cases, a candidate can be recruited for the specific vulnerabilities of an incumbent. This is certainly the case in New Mexico, where former USA Attorney John Kelly is ideally suited to take on Pajama Pete Domenici and in Oklahoma, where Andrew Rice is perfect for taking on the religious extremist, Jim Inhofe.
Whomever we recruit, they should attempt to stick to a core narrative. Effective and responsive government, less income disparity, more upward mobility, a dedication to science, commitment to civil liberties and privacy…
In short? Making America work again.