Because they know that the real battle will be in the states. And the Republicans also know that they don’t need the White House.
While the Democrats must win the presidency to act as a stop-gap against an overwhelmingly conservative Supreme Court that could last for generations, the Republican Party doesn’t have as much to gain by controlling the White House. Control of the Supreme Court and every other rein of federal power is firmly in Republican hands right now.
The 2010 gerrymandering of congressional districts makes it almost impossible for Democrats to win the seats that would truly represent the votes they garner. The Senate is not likely to change hands during 2016—at least not enough to give Democrats the filibuster-proof majority they would need to accomplish anything. The Roberts-led Supreme Court is perhaps the most flagrant, politically partisan court we have ever seen.
So the Republican Party is free to let the circus clowns provide the entertainment its base wants, ensuring that they will send in their contributions and turn out for the primaries as well as the general election. It doesn't matter much whether Ben Carson or Donald Trump runs as their candidate. If a candidate with independent appeal takes the nomination, well, that would be fine too. Not only is a win not absolutely essential, but if they did take the White House, then who would veto all their grandstanding about the Affordable Care Act?
They have already proven that they can prevent a Democratic president from governing. And that is all they want to do on the federal level, keep the government from actually governing. Oh, and transfer as much wealth as possible to the top one percent and to the corporate oligarchy. But the real action is going on at the state level, where not only does the GOP need to maintain majorities to control the 2010 redistricting, but all of the coffers have not yet been emptied.
The Republicans have spent years building up their state operations. They did not just start in 2010. The Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC), set up by Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie, according to Politico, has been in operation since 2002, slowly gaining control of individual states:
The RSLC has more than 150,000 donors in all 50 states. Additionally, Republicans saw net gains in 62 chambers and picked up six lieutenant governors, leading to 31 total Republican lieutenant governors, along with holding a Republican majority of secretaries of state, now at 28. The RSLC successfully expanded the Future Majority Project and “Right Women, Right Now” initiative, spending more than $6 million in direct support of Republican candidates of diverse descent and women, leading to the election of 181 new candidates. Last cycle, the RSLC also launched the Judicial Fairness Initiative and the new top-level domain for the Republican Party, ‘.gop.’
If you want a nightmare, click on this link which will take you to a map of the United States, showing state control before the 2010 election and after the elections in 2014. The gif displays the 15 states that were controlled by the GOP, eight states that had split control, and the 27 states that were run by Democrats prior to the 2010 election. The map then shows that after the 2014 election, the GOP was in charge of 31 states, and control was shared in eight states, leaving the Democrats with only 11 states.
How did they do it? In a word, money. Yes, they inflamed public fears of an undocumented Kenyan Muslim in the White House and the horrific concept of health care being available to everyone, but mostly, it came down to money. And organization. The Republicans knew that a census would allow redistricting and it was imperative that they be operating the levers of power in as many states as possible when the time came to gerrymander their districts. And we were distracted by the townhall hoopla over the Affordable Care Act.
Operation REDMAP damn near swept the table—not just in congressional districts, but in state legislatures and governorships, as well as secretaries of state, who generally administer elections. Created in 2010 by the RSLC to subvert the will of the voters, they boast of how effectively they have done so. In Ohio:
Republican redistricting resulted in a net gain for the GOP state House caucus in 2012, and allowed a 12-4 Republican majority to return to the U.S. House of Representatives – despite voters casting only 52 percent of their vote for Republican congressional candidates.
That is on their own website, published with no apparent shame nor any realization that what they are doing is wrong. They don’t even pretend that the people of Ohio wanted the GOP to represent their interests, but boast instead of how effective they were in gaining seats in spite of the vote.
From the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee website:
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) works to win state legislative seats and chambers for Democrats.
The DLCC's mission is to build and maintain winning, state-of-the-art campaign committees through a continuing partnership with legislative leaders, professional staff, and supporters. Since its inception in 1994, the DLCC has been an integral part of the success that Democrats have had winning at the legislative level and has worked to protect and pick up legislative chambers and seats in states across the country.
...
In the last 10 years, the RSLC has spent $160.4 million on state races. During the same period, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) has spent $73.2 million, according to The Center for Responsive Politics.
Although we have always been outspent by the Republicans, in the three years prior to the Citizens United decision, the RSLC only outspent the DLCC by 173 percent. In the three years since the decision, they have outspent the DLCC by 251 percent. Because while the DLCC appeared to remember that 2020 is another census year, and created Advantage 2020 in 2014, the RLSC has never forgotten. And they will fight to retain their gerrymandered gains.
This chart shows how well-prepared the GOP was to take full advantage of the Citizens United decision. It is almost as if they knew it was coming. Although they outspent us in the prior three cycles, the percentage of outspending doubled in 2010. And this spending does not take into account spending by other outside groups like CrossroadsGPS, which has clearly violated FEC regulations but has been protected by a 3-3 split on the FEC and an IRS that has been cowed by partisan congressional investigations.
There are a few rays of hope, including the better-late-than-never formation of an organization, Advantage 2020, specifically tasked with working on getting Democrats in position to have a voice in the redistricting that will follow the 2020 census. Another creation of the DLCC is the Grassroots Victory Program:
The Grassroots Victory Program (GVP) was created by the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) in 2012 to further our mission of winning state legislative seats and chambers for Democrats by building and maintaining state-of-the-art campaign committees.
The GVP works with committees to implement field strategies that are centrally-organized, volunteer-based and data-driven. The program focuses its resources on key battleground states, as well as on states the DLCC considers to be emerging battlegrounds where organizers can make a major impact.
But more exciting perhaps, is the community organizing that is going on right here at Daily Kos. Founded by navajo, a new group called Crowdsourcing the 50 State Strategy is already up and running:
We as a party and a movement need to reflect on the fact that we actually need candidates on the ballot to win elections at the local level. Many offices run unopposed. One of Daily Kos's greatest strengths as a community is to serve as a collective-think-tank-activist platform. Join us to document the Congressional candidate filing deadlines in your state and to propose who we can recruit. We can crowdsource this. Let the research, brainstorming, and outreach begin. Who wants to join us in organizing this?
Diaries have already been published by evcoren and Chris Reeves outlining what needs to be done and how you can help. Diaries in the series include:
The threat posed by Republican rule of the individual states is greater than unearned congressional control. From
Politico:
With strong, deep-pocketed assistance from ALEC and its allies, Republican lawmakers in dozens of states in recent years have pushed legislation to roll back union power and enact voting restrictions that disproportionately affect African Americans. ALEC also helped craft GOP base-revving legislation like the controversial Stand Your Ground measures, which are now law in 30 states.
As the Koch brothers and others use ALEC to write their greed into law, we see states like Kansas driven to the point of financial ruin so the wealthy can receive tax cuts that are essential to their well-being. In Ohio, cities have to cut back on infrastructure maintenance and repair, as tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy have resulted in budgetary shortfalls which are passed on to the local governments. In each Republican state that has cut taxes, money has poured into the pockets of the wealthy.
Meanwhile, Charles Koch is holding back contributions to any of the Republican primary candidates even though he indicated in April that donations would be made during the primary race.
Billionaire industrialist Charles Koch said Wednesday he’s unlikely to back a candidate in the crowded Republican presidential primary, the latest sign that one of the most influential figures in conservative politics seems less than enthusiastic about his choices.
The editorial board of the New York Times seems to have a great deal of faith in the existence of the “G.O.P.’s more rational voters,” who will do the winnowing of the candidates that the party is refusing to do.
Watching Tuesday’s Republican presidential debate, with the eight prime-time contenders talking over and past one another, the question arises: Should the party show a few of these candidates the door?
Some fret that this mash-up lacks seriousness. The Republican National Committee says it won’t intervene. It is relying on voters to usher also-rans off the national stage, and that may be a good thing.
The National Committee isn’t going to intervene because apparently it doesn’t need to intervene. They want to win the presidency, but their desire to control the states may be stronger. They know that whether we elect Clinton or Sanders, they will remain in a position to just say no to every policy proposal that a Democratic president makes—at least until they can figure out how to gerrymander a presidential election. And chances are, there is already a GOP social welfare organization working that out in some office inside the Beltway.
Either way, Democrats have to start winning local and state races—perhaps with some assistance from the Democratic National Committee, which must bear responsibility for the loss of so many statehouses, and definitely with the participation of activists within local communities.