Deliver the Goods

Rather than being an overwhelming sweep, most elections are a mix of good and bad news for each political party and the progressive and conservative movements in our country, and the 2009 off-year elections certainly fits into that category.

In the category of the expected, both parties had easy wins: Bob McDonnell won the VA Governor's race in a blowout, while progressive Democrat John Garamendi easily won the Congressional special election to replace Blue Dog Ellen Tauscher. In the more competitive races, the Republicans won the NJ Gov race, and the Republicans/conservative movement lost the special Congressional election in NY 23rd. And in the saddest news of the day for progressives, the Maine ballot initiative to strip marriage rights from gays and lesbians narrowly won, although progressives won some other initiative battles like the fight against the highly regressive TABOR initiative in ME.

Republicans, conservative Democrats, and corporate lobbyists are all eagerly lining up to spin the losses in the two governors' races as evidence that Democrats should become more cautious, go slower with change, pull back on their ambitions. That is the worst possible thing Democrats could do right now. It's a little like conservatives saying that the problem in NY-23 was that Republicans just weren't conservative enough, which you know they will be somehow trying to spin.

Let me try to explain this to the caution captains in my party. There are two reasons we lost those Governors' races yesterday, and they are closely related: voters are in a foul mood, and base Democrats - young folks, unmarried women, minorities - didn't come out.

Let's just spend a minute talking about the economy. Unless we start to produce a whole lot more jobs than even the optimists are projecting right now, voters are going to be in a really foul mood a year from now when they go to vote. Going back all the way to the recession of 2000/2001, economic conditions for most Americans have not been particularly rosy - even in the best of the Bush years, job creation remained too slow to keep up with the new people entering the work force, and wages stayed flat even as expenses on basic necessities like health care, groceries, gas, housing, and college tuition spiked ever higher.

Then the new recession started in late 2007, followed by the financial panic and much deeper economic crisis of 2008. By November of 2010, we will have had the middle class going through seven years of a financially squeezing stagnation followed by three years of economic hell. So most Americans are going to walk into the polling booth a year from now feeling - well, how do I put this in the most analytical way? - really, really pissed. They are going to be looking at taking out their anger on someone, at sending a message that can be clearly heard.

And for the young people who haven't found decent jobs, economically struggling single women, and minority voters who overwhelmingly voted for Obama and other Democrats in 2008 and 2010, they could well be feeling that they haven't seen change they can believe in, that they haven't seen the Democrats they voted for and in many cases worked for delivering anything that matters to their lives, and that will make them very tough to get out to vote. That's what happened in NJ and VA this year, and it is incumbent on Democrats to change that dynamic in time for the election in 2010.

In the face of a weak economy, angry voters, and a discouraged Democratic base, Democrats have exactly one chance at surviving the elections a year from now: deliver the goods. You ran on change in 2008, and voters don't feel like things have changed enough. You ran on taking on the powerful special interests and they still have too much power. You can't afford to get even more cautious, to change things even less, to take on the powerful not so much. We need health care reform that checks the power of the big insurers, and banking policy that ends the overwhelming power of the big banks. We need to produce good jobs now, and not wait for the trickle down policy of waiting for the banks to someday lend to business which will someday hire workers.

Fortunately for us Democrats, the Republicans will continue to hand us some gifts like NY-23. They are moving far enough to the right that we will get lucky in some elections we wouldn't otherwise win, and God bless them for it. But that won't happen often enough. We are going to need to craft a strategy for winning that is based on deserving to win because we delivered important, tangible things that mattered to voters, things that make angry voters understand that we share their anger and are doing something to change things so their lives will be better, and things that help Democratic base voters feel like it is worth voting again.

Now is the time for Democrats to stop listening to the whiners who counsel go slow and be cautious on change, and to deliver on the change they so boldly promised.

 

Comments

[Hempy]

Feudalists, AKA Republicans, conservatives, Libertarians, are not going to change.

The prophet Jeremiah asked, "Can a leopard change his spots?" (13:23)

The obvious answer is "no." The same holds for Republicans, Libertarians and conservatives. Their economic, social and political philosophy is rooted and grounded in feudalism. They care not one whit for the serfs. They are the vassals who owe fealty to the lord of the manor.

Today, the lords of the manors are financiers, CEO's of large corporations, hedge fund managers, Wall Streeters, the private sector health insurance and pharmaceutical drug cartel, the illicit drug and the fossil fuel cartels.

If Democrats who are more aligned with the American values of our founders are going to get a public option healthcare bill passed, they're going to have to ramrod it through and to hell with the Congressional feudalists.

Feudalism and bipartisanship is a contradiction in terms.

[codycap]

If I lived in Virginia I wouldn't have showed up to vote for Deeds either, and I have not failed to vote Democrat since 1967.

Why would any democrat vote for someone who promises to fight anything his own party is for?

I live in blue dog Boren's district in Oklahaoma and if we can't defeat him in the primary I will make a write in vote for Mr. A. Yellowdog.

Republicans plus dinos equal the true majority.

What good is our majority when we are forced to forget about or water down progressive policies?

If we agree to a watered down (Conservative bill) it will fail. That is the whole point of watering it down, come election it will be the democrats blamed, not the republicans.

Republican will regain majority, they already have it, just not in name, and castrate further whatever piece of junk they allow us to pass now.

All or nothing is what the democrats should fight for. That’s what the GOP does. If we do the Democratic Party would grow stronger, while the GOP’s failures would be wholly theirs.

[dieselis]

The republicans are back and those spineless democrats are on the run after two lost governorships in states known to carry repug governors. Jersey and Virginia are notorious for going both ways. Yet all is lost to Obama and the democrats. What is this a Pop Warner football game where your kids fall to a safety on the first drive so you forfeit the rest of the game. We need some congress people with some steel in their jewelry that will earn their keep and serve the masses. Perhaps the masses might want to think whose ideals and policies got us in this mess. Not just Bush jr. he was a reverse Robin Hood or maybe just a hood who pulled off the greatest heist known to modern history leaving the American public with the bill and Obama with the blame. However, the democratic party does need to return to its roots. It's the blue collar working class party with a huge tent for all. The loud mouth lefties are going to put us back in the weeds. Thats life though winning is mandatory for progress. Some will never adjust to this fact of life. We all have beliefs and convictions.

[DarkandStormyNight]

Thank Mike for a very insightful look at what needs to happen during the next 12 months. Taking stock in what has happened and what needs to happen and how to convince people to be more patient seem daunting, but if Obama was able to win in spite of mean rethuglican machine, then there is hope for 2010.

BTW, your book has given me a second look and a new perspective on what it means to be progressive and inspires me in the face to believe when everything seems so wrong. Thank you.

[vippy]

This election had everything to do with Obama. Most people have jumped ship already who had supported him. Putting the foxes in charge of the henhouse just did not make sense. Giving money away to ruthless banks without stipulatiions was and is insane. Notice how the stock market jumps when there is nothing for the consumer and it has a set back when congress passes a bill that does a little something for the consumer? However, I just don't get when the people go back to the very party that got us into this mess. Fact is, no one knows the state of our economy and where we are going. We never had this happen before and we are just like England, in the same boat. Hail to the other Europeans that had foresight and did not have to lie the people into war.

[Sundialsvc4]

What you might not be considering, Mike, is that real people outside the Beltway do not make life-decisions based on what color of T-shirt they wear: red, blue, or white.

The fundamental problems that face our country right now are caused by the fact that the Government, itself, has been rendered dysfunctional: by money. By bribery. By the millions-of-dollars a-day thing that even The Huffington Post merely calls by euphemism: "lobbying," "campaign contribution," or now, "corporate freedom of speech."

Yes, the sum-total of the EFFECTIVE response even of this well-known website is ... "to keep score." To estimate the value of the pieces of furniture that are being hauled away (doing so, of course, using long lenses from a safe distance). To count the bodies that are being hauled away: perhaps to assemble lovely looking charts and graphs of their demographics. My analogy is apt, because thousands of people each day really are dying as a direct result of the incessant bribery of their supposedly elected leaders.

It is not a random choice of words that prompted the authors of our Constitution to put two words adjacent to one another (and to choose them at all) in the solitary, pivotal sentence that comprises Article 2, Section 4.

Those words are: "treason" (the Enemy Without), and "bribery" (the Enemy Within).

[ncmom54]

This is significant for North Carolina http://www.charlotteobserver.com/431/story/1036333.html
'don't think he's related to NC's infamous Virginia Foxx.

voters are fed up with self-perpetuating politics as usual, like Wall Street bailouts while Main Street dies and preferential treatment for Health Insurance companies at the expense of people who need health care.
with 60 votes in the Senate and a 78-seat majority in the House; Democrats need to do something right by the voters... NOW!

[sonoffestus]

It will take a further decline, a conservative revival, another conservative decline and much more damage, before the country evolves into a progressive society. The party in control is taking half steps and the opposition is trying to obstruct all progress. Little will be done, until it gets much worse. In the meantime, other parts of the world are moving forward into the 21st Century. The country is a mirror image of the auto industry. A radical new approach is required if you want to save the beast.

[iridium53]

I largely agree.

I think, however, that you underestimate the vast reserve of anger that already exists.

Obama and the Democrats continue to work on behalf of the executives of the largest corporations - and force (yes, force) the rest of us to pay.

They give the bankers so much deference and support, at the expense of the American taxpayer that it is shameful. $Trillions without controls. And, the result is the banksters use that taxpayer money to build their profits, gouge profits from consumers, leave nothing for Main Street - and the bill goes to generations of taxpayers. Unconscionable behavior by the bankers - and legislators that are paid so much by these companies.

Now they are doing the same for healthcare executives. The proposed legislation uses the power of the internal revenue service to drive customers to healthcare companies - without concommitant controls over their monopolies.

[FearlessFreep]

It isn't fun watching the Obama administration repeat many of the Clinton administration's mistakes.

[JoBangles]

The answer is indeed jobs. Think about this for a moment: To destroy the "welfare state", dry up the tax base. That's what deregulation and "get government off the backs of business" was all about. End restrictions and free capital investment to fly to the greatest return on investment, and business has to follow. Factories close, taking jobs to offshore places, and jobs end and so does tax base which supports the "welfare state".

The rest is simply drawing the noose tighter and tighter until anything labeled "public" is gone. Yep, jobs are the key, alright. But, how to get them back is the question, and who we have to overcome to get it done.

[DIAGUY]

I believe if the dems "deliver the goods" Americans may take another 40 year break from anything considered 'progressive". If we pass health-care it will be accompanied by 400 billion in taxes that will certainly be shared with the middle class, not to mention the medicare cuts that are going to inflame our seniors. Then the "cap and trade" policies may add a few thousand dollars to each family for driving and heating their homes. But, the bottom-line to everything is JOBS, with these 2 huge initiatives staring businesses square between the eyes, it is very likely that very few will be created in the all important private sector.

[AxelDC]

Deeds was the most conservative Democrat that Virginia could find. He not only failed to win over moderates, but he failed to energize the base.

Warner, Kaine and Webb found the proper formula for winning in Virginia as a Democrat, and Deeds ignored them.

If Democrats want to follow the Deeds model of competing with the GOP on the Right, then their base will sit on their hands next year and in 2012.

[johnsonc20]

MIke,
You are so right. It is all about reality and actually helping the average person. Eventually reality bites you on the @$$ as the Bush folks found out - and the public turns on you. I am extremely concerned about 1) how health care turns out for the average American - it will matter, folks; 2) whether Obama completely bends over with his friends Geithner and Summers and allows the Wall Street casino to once again crash our weakened economy.

[Anthony Sturgeon]

Conservatives have been painting themselves into a corner since they lost the majority in the house and Senate,, as they've allowed the more extreme voices to asist them in a strategy to block any and all policy or idea the dems have put forth.

i believe since Obama started making speeches these public conservatives have lost their voice and have had to rely on the Becks and Limbaughs of the airwaves to defend their limited and very narrow minded ideas by denouncing the perspective of Democrats that represent a more diverse America.

An idea that includes the poor in solutions is so new and threatening to the right of this country, it's no wonder their only plan is to become the party of "No" as their debating ideas have led us down the road that leads to racism and intolerance of those w/o means.. that's right,, it's not a black and white issue its poor and rich, and any idea that is about includiing the poor isn't in their vocabs..