Why Democrats Lost, and How They Could Have Won

As promised last time, here is my post-election wrap-up.  Republicans won a solid victory in Tuesday's midterm election, adding 9 senators, 12 representatives and 3 governorships to their roster.  But in my view, the bigger story was not that Republicans won, but that Democrats lost, and why they lost.  Democrats lost because they never gave the American public a coherent reason to vote for them.  Consequently, they failed to arouse their own base and to persuade moderates and independents to support them.   

Everyone who follows the political scene knows Democrats have a hard time winning the "midterm" elections, the ones that come two years after the last presidential election and two years before the next one.  The 2014 cycle was particularly difficult because of the 6-year cycle of Senate races.  This year's crop included a lot of Democrats elected in normally Republican states in the 2008 Obama wave election, states that were going to be difficult to defend.  In addition, there is historical precedent: the president's party almost always loses seats in an administration's 6th year in office.  It even happened to liberal icon Franklin Roosevelt and conservative maven Ronald Reagan.

But that is no excuse.  The nation knew exactly where the Republicans stood, and their message was universally communicated by all their candidates across the nation: The nation is in sorry shape,  Democrats, especially President Obama, are to blame, and Republicans have a plan to make things better.  The plan is tax cuts, spending cuts, deregulation, and repeal Obamacare.  No matter who the  "out" party is, the first part of their campaign message practically writes itself.  The "ins" have messed things up and the "outs" have a plan to fix them.

What was the Democrats' message?  Does anybody know?  That's why they lost.  The "in" party's strategy has to be to defend their record.  Otherwise their base doesn't turn out to preserve what they see as the party's accomplishments, and the undecideds see no reason to vote for them.  The opposition defines your record if you don't do it yourself.  The Democrats didn't use President Obama much because his poll numbers have been down of late.  They didn't talk about health care because its numbers are upside down as well, though people like its component parts.  They didn't talk about much that might offend people.  People read that as a party that doesn't have confidence in its own president and its own principles.  If the Kentucky candidate for U.S. Senator herself won't enthusiastically say, "Yes, I voted for the leader of my party and I was proud to do so!" then why should anyone else want to vote for that party?  The figures tell the story: In 2012 20 percent of the electorate was 18 to 29 years old and 25 percent was over 65.  The result was a resounding Democratic win.  In 2014 only 12 percent of the electorate was under 30, and 40 percent was 65 or older.  Wow.  No wonder the Republicans did so well.

If I'd been running the Democratic campaign it would have focused like a laser on the economy.  Every ad, every speech, every surrogate would have delivered a litany like this: The screen begins with the word THE ECONOMY in bold letters.  We see shots of people in unemployment lines, houses with "Foreclosed" signs in the front yard, and scenes of panic on Wall Street.  The spokesperson begins, "When Democrats took office from the last Republican administration America was losing 800,000 jobs a month.  The unemployment rate was 10%.  The Dow Jones Stock Average had fallen to 6,500 and the American auto industry was on the verge of bankruptcy.  In 2012, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney promised that if elected he would get the unemployment rate under 6% by 2016.  Well, under Democratic leadership, the economy has created 10 million jobs, including 52 consecutive months of job growth--that's a record in the entire history of the United States--the Dow Jones Stock Average is at 17,500, the American auto industry is making record profits, and it's only 2014 but the unemployment rate is already under 6%.  We're Democrats, and we're not running from our record, we're running ON it!"  A representative group of about 30 happy Americans of a wide variety of ages and ethnicities comes on and says in unison, "We're proud to be Democrats!  The Democratic National Committee approved this message!"  In this second segment we have been watching scenes of people moving into new homes, workers busy, dynamic bustle on Wall Street, and children playing happily.  The spot ends with bold letters announcing: DEMOCRATS: JOBS, PROSPERITY, FREEDOM (fade to black.)

I would have prepared a similar spot defending the Democratic record on health care, another on women's, gay and minority rights, and a third on defense and security.  I would have used the economic message the most, but they would all have played nationally, and often.       

You can't beat something with nothing.  If you want to win elections as the "in" party you have to control the message and make it about defending your record, a record of accomplishment.  You have to be proud of that record and hammer it home.  If you won't do that, not only will you fail to win, you won't even deserve to.