Hence that general is skillful in attack whose opponent does not know what to defend; and he is skillful in defense whose opponent does not know what to attack.
-Sun Tzu, The Art of War
If it is one thing that I took away from last night’s victory for Doug Jones in Alabama’s special Senate election, it is the value in Democrats attacking, investing in these deep-red seats, even when they have almost no expectation of winning.
For awhile now, I have thought about the partisan political battles of the United States, more in the sense of a traditional military war. You will see the concept of thinking in terms of war and battle utilized a lot in political strategy and talking points, such as the aptly named Infowars, but I think the rhetoric does not often display much actual military-style thinking. I am no expert, I have never been in the military or anything, but after reading Sun Tzu’s The Art of War long ago, I have found that thinking quite compelling. How then, can we utilize this thinking, in preparing for the 2018 Midterm Elections?
The 2018 Midterms represent many tiny battles — all the seats in the House of Representatives, control of the Senate, as well as state and local elections too many to count.
Much like a conventional war, there are two sides, the Democratic and Republican Parties. Each hold significant ground, but also want to make significant captures of enemy territory. Each side has key weaknesses and advantages. For instance, we can think of the Republican Party as being the larger army, with more resources represented by the dark money that funnels in from their wealthy fundraisers. They hold more territory at the start of the conflict, but that also means they have the most to lose. So, this is the lay of the land, for me.
Being the outnumbered and outgunned side, Democrats should work to even that playing field.
Here are my overall themes of why I think one of the overall strategies of the Democratic Party should be attacking deep-Red seats, like the one that was just fought in Alabama.
Attacking deep into Red territory seems to diverge from conventional political wisdom, as we have seen national Democratic organizations abandon such areas, rather than invest any resources. Obviously not a fortress in a literal sense, as Democrats can most surely send a million dollars to a deep-red district as easily as a deep-blue one. But, these seem like the most impregnable fortresses, where the calculus does not show that Democrats will win very often, if any at all.
Still, I believe it is worth investing into attacking these areas: even if the battles may not result in many Democratic victories on paper, it aids the overall strategy of weakening the enemy.
Being perceived as a strong fortress can be a strength as well as a weakness. Not only does it mean that it is hard for Republicans to lose, but on the remote off-chance that they do lose it, it would be catastrophic.
One need only look at how the Alabama Senate race turned out to see this in action. We also saw similar trends in the special elections in Kansas, Georgia, and Montana. When Democrats threaten these strongholds, it is perceived as an existential threat on the Republican Party itself, and they have no choice but to invest far more than they otherwise would have.
Who would have thought that Republicans would have to spend as much as they did, in what is essentially their own backyard? But invest they did. First, there were the millions poured into the campaign of Luther Strange during the GOP primary. After Roy Moore won, they pretty much had no choice but to back him as their candidate, as awful as he was, and it showed; we saw that the closer the election got, the more national Republicans creeped back into bed with Moore. Moore’s campaign ended up spending a great deal of Republican funds, in what was an eventual loss.
We can think of Republicans and their wealthy backers as having what is perhaps a limitless supply of funds and resources for a race like Alabama. Still, those are funds that would otherwise have gone to attacking Democrats in other races, but it was instead spent on defending a Republican seat, in a state Trump just won by 28 points less than a year ago.
Now, it should be noted that Democrats certainly spent heavy here, too; but 2018 is a whole nother battlefield. Unlike AL-Sen, or GA-6, or KS-4, these types of battles will be fought all across the country, so even they will have to pick where they invest wisely.
But here’s their issue — as much as Republicans need to invest in the key battlegrounds, they must also defend their strongholds like Alabama, even spending big to do so. Because when they lose (such as last night), it demoralizes all their troops. It destroys them. Democrats can spread their resources around, attack as many of these Red seats as possible, without actually any hope of winning any of them, or maybe even one or two. But Republicans can’t even afford one loss. The troops always have to fight harder to defend the homeland compared to a remote outpost, but this is always more taxing on the defenders than the attackers.
Because the GOP cannot afford another Alabama-style loss, they will have to tie up an inordinate amount of power and resources defending these areas, which are resources that can’t be spent elsewhere, such as contesting the Democrats’ Senate seats. It sows confusion and strife, as the top GOP generals will bicker and disagree on where it is best to send their forces and which areas need to be defended the most. Meanwhile, it gives Democrats more flexibility in where to strike, and how deeply. While going after those deep-Red seats may not result in the most victories on paper, as far as amount of power and resources goes, these are the battles which will show the greatest return on investment, towards the overall goal of turning 2018 into a Blue wave year.
We can think of the Democratic Party’s manpower and resources as limited compared to the GOP, but even then, spending some to make sure there are credible challenges in all those GOP-controlled areas, longshots as they are, is probably the most effective money that can be spent next year.