Below the jump I've listed the ten lessons I'm taking away from 2010 and into 2012. As you'll be able to tell, I'm not a fire breathing liberal. I believe that elections matter, policy follows election results, and we should focus to maximize our electoral success. So with no further ado, my 10 lessons.
- Admit Our Mistakes. We overreached our electoral mandate over the last two years. We should admit it. The country isn't as liberal as we are. We were made to pay. Liberal policy is fine, but the country needs to be on board with the ideological underpinnings before that policy is enacted. Not after. A great example is gay rights. Right now, the country still is not with us on gay marriage. But every year, the polls are more and more in our favor on gay rights. We're winning that battle. But its a slow battle. Liberal legislation should get passed when the country is behind us. Not in front of a country that opposes our policies. But...
- In 2010, the Country Didn't Vote for Republican Policy. They Voted Against Our Policy. A corollary to 'admit our mistakes' is to properly interpret the election results, not as an endorsement of Republican policy but as a rebuke of our policy. The sucky thing is that our policy isn't liked. But Republicans are going to incorrectly take that as a mandate for their policy. It isn't. In poll after poll, this election is not about endorsing tea party positions but in rebuking our positions. If we understand this, and Republicans don't, we can absolutely 100% guaranteed sure as death count on #3...
- Let Republicans Overreach. Just as we overreached, Republicans will overreach. They did after 94. They will again. As a party, overreaching is inexplicably part of their DNA. The fact that so many tea partiers won their races just means the overreaching will be that much more drastic. Lets hand them the ammo--because they're going to use it to shoot themselves in the foot. I don't know how they'll overreach this time. But I'm positive they will. Be prepared for the real overreaching. It will happen. And we'll need candidates who can take advantage of it when they do. Which leads me to #4...
- Don't Automatically Pick the Most Liberal Primary Candidate. The party out of power has a tendency to say "we're out of power anyway, we might as well pick the most ideologically pure candidate to advocate for our beliefs". Republicans did this too often. We are very lucky we kept the Senate in 2010. The only reason we did is that the Senate tea party nominees just sucked. Republicans should have won Delaware. Republicans should have won Colorado and Alaska (and still might). Lets not make their mistake. Lets nominate good candidates who can get elected. If its a state/district that can take a liberal, that's great. Not all states can. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Blue Dog Dems in Blue Dog Districts. Joe Manchin was a great candidate for West Virginia, even though he's probably more conservative than 99% of the diarists here. If Barbara Boxer ran in West Virginia, she's get about 12% of the vote. Support our Blue Dogs--because there ain't too many of them left after tomorrow. And we won't take the House or Keep the Senate unless we can win districts that aren't PVI D+20. But not only should we field strong candidates that fit the district/state they're running in...
- Lets field good candidates everywhere. We could have nominated Jesus himself in SC-Sen and still lost. But did we really need to create a one week news story out of a clearly bad candidate? If we have to, we should run intelligent citizen activists. If 2012 is a counter-wave year, some of those citizens activists might win... But they can't win if they don't run. Lets also set up an arm of the DNC to do internal opposition research. We should not be running candidates and be surprised of and/or unprepared for skeletons in their closet (see Scott Lee Cohen in Illinois). Running candidates like Rich Iott (R-OH) is electoral malpractice. Lets never do that again. But not only should we focus on the candidates, we also need to focus on the voters. And that's why we should all...
- Support the NCEC. What the fuck is an NCEC you ask? The NCEC is the single most important Democratic institution that no one outside of professional Democratic politics has heard of. The NCEC are the numbers guys. They know everything about every district. Imagine your geekiest political science professor crossed with Nate Silver, Charlie Cook, Larry Sabato and Stu Rothenberg and constantly on crack. Their voter files and targeting info are the absolute key to figuring out where we might win in 2012. Lets not base 2012 on candidates or even positions we like the most. Lets base it on science and math. Where can we win? What kind of candidate can win there? Elections cause policy changes. Lets win the elections.. because more good stuff will happen than if they win the elections. And now a few general points...
- Let Republicans have their Civil War. And a Civil War they shall have. The pro-Palin and anti-Palin or pro-tea party and anti-tea party forces are about to duke it out. Its going to be fun to watch. Really, really fun. Its going to turn Castle/O'Donnell, Miller/Murkowski, Rubio/Crist, etc. into child's play. And there's one and only one thing that can cause Republicans to unite. Yep, that's us. 90% of my posts on here are in the I/P forums. The only thing that unites the pro-Israel community with those who are nominally pro-Israel but care alot more about criticizing Israel is the fact that when outside enemies occur--Hamas, Iran, etc., we unite. If Republicans have an outside enemy to rally against, they can and will become unified. We should let them have their civil war. Subtly encourage it, even. But don't get in the middle of it. In the long run (e.g. multi-decade view), the Castles and Murkowskis and Crists of the world might end up being Democrats. Or the O'Donnell's, Millers and Rubios might form a third party. I'll take either result quite happily.
- Remember the Presidency. Absent anything else, we're going to start with a nice advantage in the House and a crappy disadvantage in the Senate. There are Republican House members who won in 2010 that shouldn't. After redistricting, some of them will lose. 2010 is our "minimum" year. If we didn't lose a House member in 2010, its going to be tough for them to lose in 2012, absent some really bad redistricting. By contrast, we're fucked in the Senate. Absent anything else, we're probably going to lose the Senate in 2012. That might even be true if President Obama gets reelected. We have 23 seats to defend, many on unfavorable turf. Republicans have 10 seats to defend, all but 3 or 4 are on favorable turf. Our only shot to 'break even' is if President Obama wins and wins with big coattails. That's where the real battle is in a presidential year. We must win the presidency. And a win without coattails will be a pyrrhic victory because of the Senate.
- Its Implementation Time. We actually passed quite a bit of legislation in 2009 and 2010. It wasn't popular. But its the law. The way our government works, passing a law isn't where a lot of the meat is. Its in the regulations underpinning the law. The truth is that no one knows exactly how health care reform or Dodd Frank or whatnot will work until regulations are printed concerning such legislation. And this is actually an opportunity for us to be 'good government advocates'. I promise you--and you'll have to believe me on this one--that if the result of the health care legislation results in a few pages of plain English documents and little bureaucracy, people will eventually feel it is a success. And if you need a PhD in health sciences to figure it out, people will eventually feel it is a failure. A few pages of liberal, easy-to-understand forms will be more successful than thousands of pages of nuanced, complicated forms. Our government has a maddening way of making things too complicated. Thats why idiotic proposals like a flat tax gain traction. Lets do our damnedest to encourage simplicity in the regulations underpinning our legislative hallmarks from 2009 and 2010.
- Tone Down the Rhetoric. If you are a political consultant, you're taught on day one that negative ads are powerful. And they are. They work better than positive ads. But just like a little iron is good for you, too much, and you die. While I don't suggest we all take the noble approach of John Hickenlooper and stay positive 100% of the time, Americans are sick of politics. If we can stay positive and forward-looking while Republicans are aiming their fire inwards, we're going to win in 2012. There's a time and a place for negative ads and angry rhetoric. They do work better than positive ads and rhetoric. But lets save it for when its needed--in 2012. But in 2011, lets be more positive, which itself is a big contrast to what is going to happen to the Republican party.