I knew Florida Democrats were in trouble early when I found a poll worker sound asleep on a bench outside city hall. He woke up with a start and I asked the same question I'd asked at a half-dozen other polling places. "Any lines this morning?" He snorted a laugh and informed me that you could drive a truck through the polls and not hit anyone.
There are few things more difficult to face than a critical analysis of why you got your ass kicked. That’s just human nature; it’s humiliating to get beat up and we want to put the incident as far from our collective mind as possible. So today the Democrats are comforting one another with long-term demographic trends and will no doubt trot out platitudes that off year elections are tough ground, trying desperately to look past the fact that they just got an epic thumping.
Democrats couldn’t even pick off the two least competent and unpopular governors in the country; Rick Scott in Florida, a guy by any measure who should be a convicted felon, and Scott Walker, a sleazeball who is quickly turning Wisconsin from blue to red. In Iowa a Ted Cruz level nutcase, someone who makes Sarah Palin look like a luminary by comparison, will be taking her place in the new Senate Republican majority. If that wasn’t bad enough Democrats fumbled the governor’s race in Massachusetts. There isn’t enough lipstick in the world to touch up this pig and Democrats have no one to blame but themselves.
For the better part of a year I’ve been sounding the alarm about the Democrats dismal messaging. I got a reminder of that dreary spectacle nearly every day in my email box; a daily parade of fundraising pitches, all with a depressingly similar style. First would be the Republican atrocity of the day, followed by a fundraising plea on roughly the same level I get from animal welfare groups. We need money or Rick Scott is going to kick this puppy! The messaging from Democrats was sad and pathetic, an uninspiring waste of time of time that I couldn’t get rid of despite multiple unsubscribe requests.
The first step to solving a problem is admitting you have one and the best thing that could come out of this electoral drubbing is if Democrats wake up to the fact that they have a problem. In their case the problem is a corporate toadie named Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and right now that problem is still dictating the solution. She needs to step up and accept responsibility for the unfocused and anemic Democratic message and resign as head of the Democratic party. Who they pick to replace her will be a major factor in whether Democrats can ever dig themselves out of this pit. Dems can’t afford to keep bringing a textbook to a knife fight.
The polls in Florida were largely empty.
I could outline a messaging strategy for Democrats but, as long as they have the problem dictating the solution, it would be little more than pearls before swine. I can tell you there are no Democrats meeting behind closed to doors to make Mitch McConnell a one-term senate majority leader. There won’t be a parade of Democrats on TV every day blasting McConnell and Boehner for selling out the American people. You won’t see Democrats threatening to shut down the government over chained CPI for Social Security recipients. You won’t see strikes, you won’t see Democrats supporting labor on picket lines, you won’t see Democrats trying to defund Koch Industries or deny them government contracts. You won’t see any of that, or anything like that, and Democrats will keep on losing, always hoping for demographics to ride to the rescue.
Politics is a contact sport and if you’re not willing to play the game, don’t put on the uniform. There are two things Americans hate: Pussies and losers and right now Democrats are showing themselves to be both.