Edited for typos.
I read xaxnar’s diary, “Here We Go Again — “We Couldn’t Have Won Anyway”, as well as the post-mortem articles he referenced, one by our own David Nir and the other by David Atkins (Washington Monthly). I started a comment on xaxnar’s diary that rapidly grew into this rant — my 10 cents on the special elections.
I. am. so. tired. of this dead-as-hell campaign strategy the party keeps following — we’re campaigning ourselves into irrelevancy so fast it’s frightening.
What’s it gonna take before the centrists wake up? REPUBLICAN LITE DOES. NOT. WORK. FOR. US.
We have no message, no stances, nothing to offer voters, except “the GOP is too extreme, the DEM leadership is corporate-friendly and center-right, we’ll throw the left a bone every now and then but they don’t lead — you can trust us. We’re with you. The Romney voters STILL don’t think much of this, they don’t respect the Democratic party AT ALL for saying it — they know they are being played and pandered to. And they don’t care.
Atkins knocked it out of the park, in my opinion.
That said, I am encouraged at the Ossoff — GA and Parnell — SC results, especially for those obtained by Parnell. He did a damn good job — he was aggressive in his messaging up front, definite, and the results in SC were MUCH MUCH better than Ossoff’s, who towed the party line at the end. And boy, could you tell it by the last week before the vote.
DISCLAIMER: I had no skin in either SC or GA — no real reason to support either other than supporting down-ticket candidates wherever I can do so.
I heard a couple of Ossoff interviews between last Friday and yesterday — he didn’t engage or convince me either — in fact, he bored me. I think he was better early in the campaign, in truth. His messaging changed drastically to become generic and vague — “all things to all people” — full of national party non-committal drivel. By Sunday, it was difficult to tell WHAT he thought, or what he stood for — something that wasn’t true even two before the election. His message started degrading about then, though, and got worse by the day ...
There was one question where they asked him about his fiance and his choosing to support her then move back to the district when she finished med school: what should have been his strongest and best opportunity to show what his values were (family, supportive of women, willing to give), he turned into a weasel moment and sounded as if he were ashamed of choosing to support his wife-to-be’s education and ambitions while pursuing his own. I just couldn’t believe it — the waffling.
So how long before the Party gets it??? Turning, once again, to chasing the mythical moderate republican voter to get them to vote democratic while ignoring the traditional base and progressives has not worked, and isn’t EVER going to work to give the Democratic party enough bodies to get a seat at the table, never mind help us make meaningful contributions or gain control anywhere at the city, county, state, or national level.
And I personally don’t think that there any moderate republicans left.
I really fear that the democratic party’s been devoting copious resources, time, and energy over the last 35+ years to chasing unicorns. Statistics tell you that you will, occasionally, catch a white horse with a glued-on horn, (and we have — Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, for example), but THERE ARE NO UNICORNS.
And as long as the Democratic party leadership and operatives continue following the same policies that have effectively brought us to 35+ years of overall losses in elections across the board, we’re going to keep losing — a little, a lot — it doesn’t matter. We need a change of strategy, new blood, new plans.
Our professional politicians’ idea of political strategy DOES.NOT.WORK.
So, I hark back to a few things my grandfather taught me:
1. The definition of insanity is the same as the definition of failure: doing the same thing over and over and over again when it isn’t working. Result” Don’t be surprised when you get EXACTLY the same result, and/or fail every time. You can only learn, and succeed, if you change things up, try something new, take a different path. To do anything else is STUPID.
2. Say what you mean, and mean what you say — if you confuse people, or change your story to suit your audience, THEY. WILL. NOT. TRUST. YOU.
3. You will NEVER get what you want, if you don’t say what you want, and ask people for their support or help. Worst they can do is say no, and they might say yes. But you gotta ask, and be clear about what you’re asking.
4. Being ignorant means you still can learn. Being stupid is assuming you are always right.
Democrats pay heed to and act on NONE of these things — our leaders speak mealy-mouthed half-truths, commit to nothing, take no stands on anything (except capitalism) unless FORCED to, spend all their time chasing moderate republicans, and eschew populist and progressive positions in favor of nebulous, ill-defined talking points chosen to appeal to republicans, corporations, and banks, and piss on their own base.
Republicans, on the other hand, effectively use rule 3, and lie like rugs. But they clearly state their lies, and stick to them. They may piss on their base, but their base knows what they think — they lie to the rest of us. They don’t really care about anybody but themselves and their corporate owners, but you can never claim you don’t know what they stand for.
Democratic leaders stand for whatever they THINK moderate republicans want to hear. This has got to stop. The party, for once, needs to be flexible enough to adapt to its constituents and unzip the tent flap so we can all come in, and stop trying to force supporters and candidates to adapt to them. Centrists don’t make up the bulk of the party, centrist messaging is NOT resonating with the base OR republicans.
NOTE: I’ve got to run an errand, and will be back around 6 cdt — and will respond then. Thanks :)