Of course we lost the midterms.
We lost them badly. We lost them completely and we set the progressive movement back significantly in the process. We lost them because you need a message and you need a vision and we provided neither.
We are at the weakest point we have been in state legislators since the 19th century and we have a GOP House majority that is the largest it has been since the 1930s. We will have only between 15 to 17 Governors' mansions.
The idea behind the DSCC campaign strategy was smart but it was flawed from the beginning: it believed that you would assume the approval ratings of the president and that you would seek - as a candidate - to exceed those margins by running away from the president. It believed that you could not remind voters of their momentous acts in electing and reelecting Obama and that you must instead over-perform a flagging president's position. We had a serious opportunity in 2014 and we wasted it.
Instead of spending their time pretending that they didn't vote for him, candidates should have taken the campaign season and made it a campaign to restore Barack Obama's image. They should have tried to remind voters of our successes and try to tell a different story than the one the Republicans told. They should have tried to remind voters of the immense activity and positive change that happened in the first two years of Obama's presidency that was stymied by an invasive, desperate and destructive GOP-led House and Senate minority - one that ended our legislative brilliance in that era too early. Candidate's should have squarely placed the blame on the Republican Senate minority led by Mitch McConnell and the Republican House of John Boehner while emphasizing our goals of infrastructure investment (and other specific, universally beneficial policies), equality of opportunity and personal freedom. This should have been reverse nationalized.
We had a huge opportunity that we blew. If we had been able to keep the Senate with roughly the same numbers that we had prior to this rout, we would be looking at a potentially filibuster-proof majority in 2016. That's never going to happen now. If the House had retained it's prior position - the one it had when seated today but won't when seated in January - we would have been potentially in a good place to take it back in 2016. That's not going to happen now, either. The DSCC failed in this election as did the individual Senate candidates themselves in taking the avoid, diminish and reduce Obama pathway. Candidates that run from the executive lose all of the benefits of a relationship with the presidency and gain all of the disadvantages of that relationship.
We CAN win in 2016 but it will be much harder now. The GOP funding machine that has been in full gear since Citizens United would have been crushed if they didn't take back the Senate. Funding for 2016 would have dropped against a seemingly inevitable Democratic nominee (whoever that was). No more. They will fight hard and they think they can win because they can. We gave them an opening.
2016 will be difficult. We start with an advantage on the map but a decisive disadvantage in the national mood and the mood is stronger than the map (this midterm showed us that clearly). If we jettison Hillary, I do believe we will not win in 2016. With Supreme Court nominations coming and full control of government in the hands of the GOP if we lose in 2016, that is not an option.
That being said, Warren's role in this next stage is vitally important. Warren needs to either be elevated in the Senate or chosen as the VP slot for a Hillary presidential ticket with the express purpose of focusing on economic issues because the Democratic position packaging needs to much more heavily (for both reasons of political gain and for reasons relating to the struggles of the current times) weight towards focusing on average Americans' wage increases and reducing income inequality. This isn't identity politics, it's a question of what your government can do for your nation.
Republicans must be portrayed as the obstructionists that they are and Senate Democrats must spend the next two years making that very clear. Hillary's job will be to craft a campaign themed around income mobility, full employment and rising middle class wages along with security at home and presence abroad. This is a winnable election if we approach it correctly but we must understand and fully appreciate the CLEAR lessons this last election provided us. One candidate out of all of the Senate candidates won on election day (not including the one who nearly lost that was never supposed to) and that one candidate was the only one to express support in any way for the president (THANK YOU Jeanne Shaheen!). We had some terrible candidates this cycle (Bruce Braley, Mark Udall) and stellar candidates (Kay Hagan, Michelle Nunn) but only Jeanne Shaheen won because we did not remind them of the beliefs they prefer, the candidate they preferred and the party that actually cared for them.
Hillary can't run from Obama. Hillary has to accept Obama. Hillary has to tell voters that not everything went the way we wanted it to but that we tried and we were up against a lot. Hillary has to explain the GOP and home the Democratic base and those independents that support her but have fled (with the DSCC's help!) our current president into the argument that our recent lack of success has been because of the John Boehners and Mitch McConnells of the world. Hillary must accept the mantle of history and experience while in turn offering a vision of consistent, pragmatic and realistic idealism. This isn't just a campaign theme either: this has got to be her core presidential message.
If we do this, we keep the White House and we put ourselves on a path towards even greater success in the future (think of it, the Obama years were our first shot at real, big power in a very long time and we were less nimble with it than we could have been). We win this and move ourselves in the right direction and in 2016 we begin the renewal of our progressive vision and restore the Obama era that has been so damaged by the machinations of the GOP.