If Democratic pollster Celinda Lake’s research with focus groups can be believed, the average disengaged Democratic voter isn’t that easy to mobilize. The best way to turn them away from their apathy is to give them a complicated message that turns on getting them to understand both why control of the Senate matters and that control of the Senate may be determined by the outcome of the election in their state.
That’s challenging enough, but it doesn’t work very well in states that don’t have Senate races because, in those cases, the messaging isn’t even true.
How do we get Democrats in California to turn out?
It looks like the two strongest messages are related to funding of education and the War on Women. I know that those two issues are absolutely sinking Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett’s reelection prospects, so it may be that it can work in other races, too.
But how do you do that in Illinois when it’s the Democrats doing it(Quinn and Emanuel)?
Link is broken (404) but I’d ask if nationalizing the election is wise when local parochial issues usually trump national issues.
A novel idea. How about Senate candidates learn some diplomacy and adapt to the people in their state? Don’t count on some DC jerkoffs to tell you how to handle business in Iowa. Damn a focus group. What happened to politicians having political instincts?
Those politicians rarely lose elections where they are heavily favored and have the inside track to the nomination…
When big money took over US elections, there was no longer a need for elected officials to seek the consent of the governed through their own words and deeds. With time that component of politicians’ skill set withered as old politicians retired or died and were replaced by new ones that develop fundraising skills and spend their time collecting big checks.
With Koch, etal. freely flowing into local elections there’s even less reason why such skills would be developed early in a politician’s career. Should note that Koch, etal. is only new because they have a 50 state and national agenda, but other “big money” has been a feature of local and state elections for decades.
The problem is that Obama exposed them as failures by winning the primary and getting elected twice. The thing to do would be to build on his model; that depends on appealing to the people. I see openings for making the Democratic Party more people centric. If the ones on top are too stupid to do better, it’s time to force retirements.
Disagree. The GOP exposed itself as failures and lost Congress in 2006. Team Pelosi did help themselves by promising a minimum wage increase if elected. Delivering on that promise kept them in the game for the next election cycle and they gained a D/I sixty seat majority in the Senate. (Not into DEM Party apologists that claim it wasn’t really sixty seats
That left the failure GWB to deal with in 2008. That POTUS election cycle was practically a DEM gimme for a decent enough nominee. Obama gained more from engaging young and minority voters than he lost to old, white racists. While I would also have expected a Hillary nominee to win, doubt her winning margin would have been as strong because she’s a weak campaigner.
At the most simplistic level, candidates and political parties that they are representatives of, need to promise something that is widely appealing if elected, deliver some of all of the promise, then promise more if re-elected. Obama had the luxury of keeping it vague in 2008 with “hope and change.” Delivering bank bail-outs instead of jobs didn’t inspire his winning coalition enough for enough of them to show up in 2010. 2012 was back to the “lesser evil.” As the GOP has become so dreadful, “lesser evil” or status quo is likely to prevail again this year. But more of the same for the next two years is going to leave all national DEM candidates vulnerable in 2016.
I’ll blame the whole party for what happened in 2010. If you’re scared of Roger Ailes, you’re a punk and shouldn’t be holding office. Whoever advised Obama to talk to Bill O’Reilly should be taken outside and pistol whipped. Never mind the consultants that haven’t been fired after decades of incompetence. With 2012 Obama was running against Mitt Romney. If you can’t beat Romney, politics isn’t your thing. All you have to do is look at John McCain’s opposition research.
Link is fixed. Thanks, Oscar.
I know there’s probably a dollar figure attached to such requests, but I would love to have access to the data from which these people draw their conclusions.
To those reading this site, help to GOTV in your area for Democratic candidates.
Well, Franken is up by double digits here in MN, due to us commie pinkos here in the metro.
Don’t try to give people something to vote for, try to give them someone to vote against.
Democrats are pretty dense if they don’t understand that this is how politics should be done.
I’d say give me a point, any point to care at all to care or vote.
I listen, read, watch almost no news now. Your article below this one is a great example why.
Completely fabricated news. Completely fabricated lies and know nothing pandering obstructionism from the right.
The left completely unable to do anything but the smallest thing and even that isn’t worth celebrating.
Black men beaten, choked and shot by cops again and again and at least 35% of America is absolutely sure it is a good thing. Same for gun violence in general.
I heard today that for $800K some guy will guarantee your kid gets into an Ivy League school. Chinese parents are all over it. The 1%, and now the world’s 1%, are blocking yet more off from the rest of us.
No matter how important an issue is it will be usurped in a second by some tweet or youtube moment of the moment.
I was a pretty politically engaged guy from the age of seven. Literally my first fistfight was in the fourth grade with some kid who thought Nixon would make a great president.
But right now I will need to muster a ton of energy to vote for Hillary or any Dem. I actually care little what Christie or even the wacko right does any more. Nothing they do surprises me. Too few people are afraid or outraged anymore and I just need to worry about my own knitting now.
You make a good point. Take the $15/hr. thing in Seattle. The phase-in is so long it dilutes a lot of the effectiveness and still leaves people far behind. Why should people vote for Democrats if they won’t stick up for the people?
With respect, cuz the other guy is sending you back to the stone age faster than you can say “greed is good”?
That doesn’t get voters excited, especially Democratic voters.
Phil, that may very well be true and, to this old coot, very frightening.
Actually that is not how politics should be done. That is how marketing and advertising is done–grabbing the gizzard.
How politics should be done results in people who understand that they in fact have shaped the direction of society based on accurate information about the issues facing that society. This is, in fact, a fairly long and painful process just to get to a baseline understanding of the common reality that a polity faces. Moreso if you encounter multiple hidden agendas wanting to short-circuit the process to gain some advantage or another.
USians have not matured to the point of figuring out that locally ordinary people need to get together and determine the agenda and then find a candidate who understands that agenda and will carry on a two-way mature conversation with those voters. And political consultants, media consultants, lobbyists, advertising agencies, and most candidates have a vested interest in seeing that that maturity never happens. Passive voters, reactive only on election day, are exactly their favorite thing.
There’s no way they’ll be in power with a mature electorate. There are people out there sharper than Obama all over the country. Those shmucks aren’t trying to deal with that possibility.
If there are no US Senate seats (and even if there are), the concentration of Democratic strategist needs to be on retaking legislatures. If you turn out enough geographically spread voters to take back legislatures, in most states the top-level offices also are easier to win.
In California, the emphasis needs to be on widening the Democratic grip on the legislature. Education (like the fact that in the 1960s California had the best education system in the US and it doesn’t now) would seem to me to be a likely issue. Issues that backfoot the Republican members of Congress would also likely be winners. Increasing the minimum wage is a winner, but it threatens the flow of big money into campaigns. The GOP plan to steal public lands for the ranching and mining interests would be a winner in suburban areas.
Why has the Democratic Party been in search of “gotta find an issue” to attract more eligible disengaged voters every election cycle since about 1978? Why does the Party only do well when the GOP fumbles and hands them them the veneer of the “lesser evil?” Then they’re shocked, positively shocked, that the veneer doesn’t last longer than one or two election cycles.
Education works for Corbett because he was responsible for a sudden and dramatic decrease in public school funding in PA that was not supported by a majority of PA voters. That process began in CA decades ago and funding as been at such a low level for so long that it’s normal and all the promises from Democrats haven’t amount to much money when they get elected because they won’t deal with the underlying issues as to why the funding is limited.
Could the Democratic Party use education as a winning issue for several election cycles and at both the local, state, and federal levels? Sure. But it would have to jettison the privatization and profiteering of public education. But that’s not how Arne Duncan and Obama roll.
Right as rain, Marie. And what Rahm Emanuel has done to the schools in Chicago merits lynching.
Honestly, if I had money to burn, I’d get people to vote through ratfucking Republicans. All day, every day.
I’d put TeaPartyTM candidates in every perceivable race. You know who they are going to draw votes from.
I’d be mailing out incendiary information on behalf of the GOP.
Listen. You want to get people to be motivated to vote? Give them a devil to vote again, with a decent candidate on the other side.
A lot of the problem with the Democratic party is they don’t stick decent candidates into races.
Or any candidate for that matter.
Look at Kansas for an example. We are supposed to hope that the less crazy Republican wins and becomes a Democrat instead of running a strong Democrat in the first place.