Let me state right up front that I agree with those who believe that the Democrats continued embrace of neo-liberal domestic policies and neo-conservative foreign policies are contributing to their "shellacking" at the polls. They seriously need to abandon the third way DLC nonsense. But that's another diary for another day.
For this diary, let us assume that one agrees with the policies pursued by the President and the party leadership. Let's assume, for instance, that the ACA was the best we could have gotten in the area of health care and insurance reform. (I don't agree but let us assume that for the sake of argument.) Despite it's flaws, there are some good features in the ACA. For instance, one can no longer be turned down because of pre-existing conditions.
The Republicans had no problem airing political ads featuring people who allegedly suffered because of the ACA. Yet I am certain that there are people who are alive today who would have died without Obamacare. Couldn't the Democrats have found a few of these real people and featured them in political ads? Did anyone see such an ad? Anyone? I certainly didn't.
The incumbent Republican in Michigan's first district is a physician by trade. His ads continually disparaged the ACA as hurting citizens while portraying the candidate as the kind and caring "Doctor Dan". Would it have been difficult to find someone with pre-existing conditions and ask the the good doctor if he cared about that person? Most people know someone who has survived life-threatening illness because they had insurance and someone who has died because they didn't. The Democrats could have made a very personal connection with voters by pointing out that the ACA saved lives. They chose not to do so. Why?
And then there is the issue of economic recovery. It has not been anywhere near as good as it could have been, but enemployment is down and the stock market is up. I saw no ads by Democrats that mentioned the positives.
Here in Michigan, the recovery has been rather tepid at best. Yet Republican Governor Rick Snyder continually featured ads that focused on the economic turn around and gave Snyder credit. There were a few ads that attacked his opponent but most of his campaign focused on what a wonderful job Snyder was doing. Despite the lukewarm recovery, the taxes on pensions and the tax breaks for the wealthy, Snyder was re-elected.
It could have been argued by the Schauer campaign that the auto industry was saved because of Obama administration policies. It could have been argued that Michigan's recovery was due more to the President's actions than those of Rick Snyder. It could have been argued ... but it wasn't. Why?
Snyder ran ads asking Michigan voters if they wanted to go backwards to the bad old days of the previous administration. Democrats could have asked voters if they wanted to return to the failed policies of the Bush Republican administration. They could have asked, but they didn't. Why?
It is bad enough that the Democratic Party pursues a third-way neo-liberal agenda, ignores it's base (or in the case of educators actually attacks them), and directs it's advertising toward the mythical centrist voter; but then they refuse to promote the successes they do achieve. In fact, it appears in many campaigns they actually seemed to repudiate these successes.
From my perspective, the Democratic election strategy failed miserably. Perhaps someone with better understanding of political campaigns than I can explain the rationale behind this seemingly flawed messaging.