“I obviously agree such “fundamentals” as turnout patterns and midterm dynamics and the “presidential referendum” factor and demographics explain most of what happened last Tuesday.”
Oh Lord the fundamentals do not explain the crazies that have been elected.
We can not have Gay marriages, Minimum wage hikes in Red States, in the same year that Dems get clobbered and call it fundamentals.
Fundamentally the Dems have a lose coalition of segregated groups that fundamentally do not work together; that fundamentally oppose the Old White Guy, Christians, moderate or not, Southerners, as if there are not any Old White Democrats, Christian Democrats, Southern Democrats.
Fundamentally the Democrats have narrowed their appeal rather that broaden it.
I for one am looking for something new, something stronger, something that looks like it actually believes what it preaches, and something that doesn’t listen to the damn pundits.
It’s economics. Economics is what concerns the youngest generation, and all other generations.
The R’s keep talking about big gummint in your life. Well how about huge Global Corporate Monopolies in your life? Teddy Roosevelt where are you?
The New Class in Congress wants ‘privatize’ the internet. Whereas in Europe internet speeds are much faster and more open? Why? Because in Europe taxes built the infrastructure so that no private party could have a monopoly.
If you like paying big money for cable TV, go to watch your favorite show and suddenly it is behind a paywall…… THAT is what they are going to try and do to the internet.
If the argument is economics, we can see in the above example that in this case demand, has little to do with keeping the costs down. Or how the Republican ideology of promoting stronger monopolies and more corporate powers flips the supply and demand equation upside down.
Democrats need to stop talking about class warfare in terms of race. We are essentially all black now. Look at all the poor white people everywhere. OH wait don’t look. the GOP does not want to see or hear that.
What I am saying is this younger generation is up for grabs. Older Dems may think they have it going on but the young people want to hear more about economics. The Dems have an argument to make that we are stronger together. Taxes are investment.
Do we really want to see tons and tons of our tax dollars flowing out to fight another war in the MIddle East?
In other words, given the choice between a red Rep and a Blue Dog Rep, Reps choose Reps. And Dems can’t win playing by Rep rules. Have a policy, support that policy, defend that policy. Don’t be a chicken shit.
Generally an excellent piece, but I disagree on the effectiveness of economic populism. Dems seemed unable to reconcile the good news of a growing economy and employment gains with the bad news of stagnant wages and job insecurity, so they didn’t talk about either. Blue collar voters in particular saw no reason to vote for a party that doesn’t seem to be working to help them navigate these uncertain waters, and even if they turned out to vote for a minimum wage increase, they often abandoned the Democrats for vague promises from Republicans who at least acknowledged their situation. There is a perception out there that the Democratic party is only slightly less in the pocket of Wall Street than the Republicans, and in an election where even one third of the Republican vote agreed with the notion that the economy is structured to benefit the wealthy ( according to one survey), the Democrats risk losing their historical advantage of being the party of the little guy if they don’t engage in what Republicans dismiss as “class warfare”. Dems should realize that the right will call them Marxists regardless of what they do. The Dems don’t need to sound overly hostile to the free market, just that they care more about workers than Wall Street, and they need to talk more about proactive measures like infrastructure spending and the abuse of labeling employees as “management” to avoid overtime, than just safety net issues like unemployment extensions. And go on the offense regarding job growth potential. Pound home messages like the fact that more jobs are created in the solar power industry every year than will ever be created building the Keyston pipeline.
Anyone having problems with TPM comments? Some articles have them and some don’t seem to. Not really interested in commenting on post-election navel-gazing.
This is an interesting article but it glosses over a key change from 2010 which is the stability of over-age-60 turnout and the collapse in 30-45 turnout. Overall voter turnout dropped sharply, from 40 to 34 percent, meaning about a 15 percent shrinkage in the electorate. If you calculate out to share of the electorate, that works out to roughly the same level of older voters, a 15 percent decline in under 30 voters, and a one-third decline from 2010 in 30-45 voters. That’s simply an astounding rejection of both parties by an entire generation.
Bingo. They don’t know their history – for ex, the New Deal and 20th C programs like SS and Medicare. They don’t know the voting has consequences. Everything they bitch about – no jobs, high tuition, class size etc are all tied to who voted for whom years, even decades before they were born.
And most are too damn lazy anyway.
Back in the day I could not wait to be old enough to vote.
Other posters here will tell you the same thing I’m about to say. Leadership doesn’t matter if voters don’t turn out. It’s that simple. Voters don’t know who the party leaders are. Harry Reid? He could be some podiatrist for all they know. They know Obama, Biden, and a few other names. It’s policy and principles that must be advanced and forcefully and the names behind them don’t matter. Voter turnout nationwide was a shameful 36.3%, and the most charismatic politician cannot change that.
I think that’s a somewhat unfair characterization. Every generation the “grownups” lament the laziness and “sense of entitlement” held by the youth. Its the “get off my lawn” syndrome writ large. There have been lots of studies, for example, that demonstrate existing perceptions about Millenials are not a reflection of reality.
I strongly agree on the need to find some way to increase voter participation among the base but disparaging their character is not the way to go about it.
If they don’t know their history, we have no one to blame but ourselves for not teaching it to them.
Well there’s a difference with this selection of Inhofe,Bachman was a loon hands down.Inhofe has some juice with his selection and his visibilty will make the remorse even more plain to see.IMHO.
The GOP victory slightly overperformed (if at all) what you’d expect from a combination of several factors: … [including] a strongly “wrong track” public opinion profile reinforced by negative perceptions of the economy.
Also reinforced by a media complaisantly hyping GOP fear-mongering memes like ISIS and Ebola.
Actually, the FL governor’s race is a perfect example of one of the items Mr. Kilgore is discussing. Namely, that running Blue Dog vs. republican just doesn’t work. The voters will choose the real conservative over the conservative lite, if that’s all they have to choose from.
In Florida, one can argue we went even a step further than Blue Dog…we went with an ex-GOPer. The underlying current of that race was, nobody liked either candidate.
Its supposed to be building off the success of OfA generally, and specifically, its supposed to be an attempt at institutionalizing all the nifty “micro targeting” tricks that the Obama people learned over 2008 and 2012.
This is my take. An awful lot of people, too many, saw 2014 as a do over to soothe their savage feeling of having been “cheated” in 2012. Which is why I also believe that the “white power advantage” that Rs have is probably at an all time high, and will recede to some extent in many states. I wish it weren’t so but it’s hard to ignore.
