History tells us we can expect 38-40% turnout for the upcoming mid-term election. For both parties combined. That accounts for all the GOTV efforts we can reasonably expect. It does not necessarily account for ever-increasing voter suppression, founded firmly upon two rounds of the most egregious gerrymandering imaginable.
I see nothing on the horizon to alter the coming results. All the horserace tracking is focused on what is mostly predictable. No doubt there will be a few upsets, but basically everyone sees the Senate balance being a nailbiter and the Congress firmly in the grasp of the Republicans.
No one is proposing anything to radically upset expected outcomes, which are all based on traditional approaches to elections.
In our elections, virtually nothing is guaranteed. There are promises and little else. And most promises are either not fulfilled or are delivered with some form of poison pill (i.e., some form of benefit to the general population in exchange for something far more beneficial to the wealthy).
If the Democrats offered a Contract for Democracy with a compelling list of legislation, and guaranteed their passage if the Party gained control of both chambers, I'd be willing to bet we'd see an enormous increase in turnout. Perhaps a list something like this:
1) Minumum Wage increase to $10.10 (2/1/15), t0 $11.35 (1/1/16), to $12.50 (1/1/17), then tied to COLA.
2) Pathway to Citizenship
3) Equal Pay
4) Serious Student Loan relief
5) Serious Foreclosure relief
6) Block Corporate Inversions
7) Eliminate Foreign Tax Shelters after 1-yr amnesty with 10% repatriation cost. Thereafter, 100% and jail time. Enforced.
8) Buffet Rule
9) Overturn Citizen's United, McCutcheon, etc.
10) Greater protection of voting rights
11) Serious jobs program including infrastructure and green jobs.
12) Serious jobs program for young adults.
13) Greater protection of reproductive rights
14) Path to public option
15) .5% financial transaction tax to reduce high-speed trading.
16) Eliminate banks front-running on customer orders.
17) Ban dark pools.
18) 3 yr. phase-out of fossil fuel subsidies.
19) Guarantee NET NEUTRALITY
20) De-militarize the police
21) End mass surveillance
22) End forfeiture laws
23) Kill TPP
Do something like that and watch fanatic voters GOTV.
Now, some will argue about whether or not a Contract is a good approach for a variety of reasons, but none I have heard yet addresses the fact that what we ARE doing will not materially change turnout. IMO, this is like dispensing with Affirmative Action because you don't like certain aspects of it without putting something better in its place. If you can't come up with a better way to radically increase voter turnout, um, what's your point?
Others will argue that the list should be 3-5 items, in the KISS model. The Republican version 20 years ago had 8-10 categories with multiple items each, and it successfully flipped both chambers. The advantage to a long list is that it can address many different constituencies. IMO, the list should be large enough and each item crafted to be compelling enough, that everyone can identify multiple reasons to drop everything and GOTV.
Others will say it's too late in this electoral cycle. Maybe true. God knows if it enriched our representatives further it would take no time at all. I believe there is already legislation on the shelf, in the can for many of these issues. So I think something like it could be put together. And if it's compelling enough, word will spread like wildfire. And, again, nothing else is going to radically change the outcome, nor would this approach endanger 38-40% turnout, so what's to lose?
And still others will argue that a Contract such as this, laden with mouth-watering legislation, is unrealistic. Well, this much is true: 38-40% turnout using promises, the current GOTV plans and badger-and-blame-the-voter methods is very realistic. So we got that pre-programmed reality going for us.
In lieu of something like this Contract for Democracy, we can expect that the Democratic Party will continue to struggle to compete with batshit crazy for a long time. Even with changing demographics, I'm confident it will be long enough to relegate the world to climate hell indefinitely, that's for sure. We can either blame the voters and embrace assured climate hell or give them an offer they can't refuse and give ourselves a fighting chance to avoid the worst.
Please proceed.