In his diary The electoral boom-bust cycle, and why parties have no incentive to change Kos writes:
[The] cycle won't be broken until 1) the Democrats figure out how to inspire their voters to the polls on off years, or 2) Republicans figure out how to appeal to the nation's changing electorate.
And given that each party is validated every two years after a blowout loss, the odds of either happening anytime soon? Bleak.
In the comments, jabuhrer
objects to the premise:
I think almost everyone is making a huge mistake in the way they are interpreting "presidential years" and "off years."
Younger and more diverse voters came out in such numbers in 2008 and 2012 because of Barack Obama, not because it was a presidential election year.
I'm quite sure that, unless something changes, the next non-Obama election (2016) will look basically like the last couple of non-Obama elections (2010 & 2014)...the Democratic edge we saw under Obama will be gone.
But they're both right. Democrats have bad odds of winning in the low-turnout midterms. And we only have so-so odds of winning even in higher turn-out presidential elections, when we don't have the benefit of an extraordinary candidate like a Barack Obama or a Bill Clinton. (Consider the fates of Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry. Yes, I know Gore actually won, but not by terribly much. And they were facing lightweight opponents.)
The solution lies in what Kos says will end the cycle; when
Democrats figure out how to inspire their voters to the polls
If the message of the party is clear, simple, consistent - and inspiring - then our chances of winning won't be so dependent on whether we have rock star candidates, or what year it is.
It kills me that, during election cycles, the advertisements from our campaign committees never promote the Democratic Party's achievements, never espouse a guiding principle, a reason for being. It's one of the reasons the meme thrives that there is no difference between the parties, and our candidates nowadays tend to run just as "leaders" rather than clearly identifying their party affiliation.
I can well understand why Republican candidates rarely use the word "Republican" in their ads - their brand has pretty much been in the toilet for the last 100-plus years. They aren't the party of Lincoln anymore, and everyone knows it.
But there's no damn reason for Democrats to hide from the legacy of FDR and Truman and Johnson and Kennedy, and more recently of Clinton and Obama.
One of the few Democrats I've heard who speaks often of that legacy, and how it personally affected his family, is Al Franken. Relating how Democratic programs like the G.I. Bill have affected ordinary Americans for the better doesn't require being in a blue state to resonate with an audience.
Sure, gadflies can pooh-pooh Democratic achievements, highlight the inadequacies, failures, and horrors (internment, atomic bombing, Vietnam, et al.)
But the underlying righteous principles of the party, ever since FDR, still exist today. Just consider one policy area, health care. Truman, trying to continue and expand on FDR's New Deal progressivism, was the first president to advocate the establishment of universal health insurance. His proposal was quashed by conservatives (mostly Republican), but it set the stage for a continuing Democratic effort. Johnson succeeded in covering all seniors under the Medicare system. Clinton spent tremendous political capital on his Health Security Act, which met the same fate as Truman's grand proposal. Nonetheless, Clinton's Family And Medical Leave Act has been a great boon to working people, especially working moms when they need to take time off after giving birth. And Obama has practically staked his presidency on the Affordable Health Care Act.
Of course it's not only health care Democrats have fought for. Civil rights. Social Security. Environmental protection. Unemployment insurance. A minimum wage. The weekend!
The weekend.
The formation of unions helped to strengthen the idea of working five days a week as well. In 1937, auto plant workers staged a sit-down strike in Flint, Michigan, to protest bleak conditions at General Motors that included no bathroom breaks, no benefits or sick pay and no safety standards.
The negotiations between GM and the United Auto Workers ultimately improved working conditions. The federal government would show its support when Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, a key part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.
Many historians credit Roosevelt’s labor secretary, Frances Perkins, for championing the cause. Perkins was in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village in 1911 on the day of the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. Almost 150 garment workers, mostly women and immigrants, were trapped and killed when the building caught fire. The exits had been blocked — a common practice at the time.
“She saw the young girls jumping out of the window,” Santomauro said. “This, I’m sure, opened her heart about the plight of the workers. That really stayed with her.”
Aside from the 40-hour workweek, the Fair Labor Standards Act also included several reforms in place that Americans can appreciate to this day — establishing a minimum wage, overtime pay and putting an end to "oppressive" forms of child labor.
I think the Democratic campaign committees wouldn't have to have a multimillion dollar advertising budget - or the talent of Ken Burns - to be able to vividly present the history of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Nowadays I'll bet you a bright junior-high school kid with a computer could put together a compelling presentation.
And facts are facts. Comparing Democratic to Republican administrations, there has been on average under Democrats more economic growth, more bullish stock markets, smaller government size, smaller deficits, lower unemployment, more reduction in poverty. (Unfortunately, a lot of the links in my old diary on this subject are dead, but it's worth a read, if you're interested. The poverty numbers were of particular interest to me. At the time that I did the analysis, I found that, on average, each year under Democratic presidents, more than 800,000 additional Americans rose above the poverty line, while under Republican presidents, each year more than 400,000 additional Americans fell below the poverty line.)
The only way that the truth about the difference in results between Democratic and Republican governance has a chance of SINKING IN with the electorate - is if these facts are touted, over and over and over, by Democrats. Because if Democrats don't, who will?
I don't expect these facts to sway Republican voters - they are impervious to emperical evidence; indeed, the worse off the country becomes under Republican policies, the more convinced they become that Repulican policies are the cure for what ails us. But the majority of Americans are not Repulican ideologues. Continually educating Americans about the superior results of Democratic policies should be a perfectly obvious role of campaign committees. Is there any successful company in America that doesn't put effort into publicizing the superiority of its products?
The Democratic Party, despite its flaws, is a party that should be proud to tout its accomplishments. Its candidates shouldn't avoid the party label - they should proudly wear it on their sleeve. Because if they don't show they are attracted to the brand, if they can't articulate why everyone should be attracted to the brand - why the heck would the electorate be attracted to the brand?
It's as if the president of Apple, and Apple employees in general, were to purposely avoid being seen using I-Phones. How effing stupid would that be??
Democrats must embrace the brand.
So what's the simple message? What's the party's fundamental principle, its reason for being? I would put it this way:
The Democratic Party is the party of Better Government.
Its driving principle is to make Government do better for our country.
The results of better government are things like Social Security and safer food and cleaner water and better access to health care. Less hazardous work environments. A better economy. More jobs. Less poverty.
The Republican Party is the party of Less Government.
It's driving principle is to make Government do less, or nothing at all. The results of less government are things like the Katrina disaster. Government shutdowns. Unsafe food. Polluted water. More hazardous work environments. Fewer jobs. More poverty.
Less Is Not Better.
I'm not in advertising. I don't know how to sell a brand. How best to take advantage of traditional and new media channels. But surely there are lots of talented folks on our side who do. It just seem crucial to me that we should be promoting the Democratic brand, not just promoting our individual candidates.
We need something like "Rock the Vote" - but not a non-partisan organization. We need a very partisan effort to promote the Democratic party, its past and continuing achievements, its fundamental principles.
Such a wholehearted advocacy effort wouldn't just stand to motivate more folks to go to the polls to vote Democratic. It would also stand to remind Democratic politicians of their party's legacy and purpose. To make them proud of it. Such an effort could therefore re-invigorate the very progressivism which so many people on this forum point to as the best hope - the only hope - for Democrats to win elections.