Respectfully, to some posting here, I would argue that it’s not just the economy or swing vote, its more like, the stupid – for willful ignorance is a dangerous thing. The majority of the electorate, for apathy or disdain, refuses to do their homework. They are ignorant of past voting records of incumbents, never mind pending legislation. And, here we go again, because Party leadership did not foretell the possibilities, nor did they push…correction, shove back on their ring-wing opponents for solid, alternative solutions and remained largely on the defensive.
“If, realistically, taxes cannot be cut, exactly which programs will you target to suffer revenue ‘adjustments’?”
“How is Federal spending reduced without affecting an infrastructure that supports over 310 million people?”
“Why won’t Republicans work with the President and other members of Congress to expedite job growth?”
Reasonable questions all, but no doubt the next sound one would have heard was crickets, because the right either doesn’t know, or will not tell. On November 3, 2008, had President-elect Obama forewarned the recession might last three to four years, would yesterday’s result have been different? Hard to say, but such a declaration right out of the gate may have at least mentally prepared the country to hunker down, and, suck it up. A cynical, even defeatist stance to some, but I prefer to think a sooner recovery would have made Mr. Obama wrong, in the most positive light.
America, divided again in 2010, is obliged to suffer a government that for pride and power – cannot get out of its own way. It is necessary for Massachusetts Dems to network with colleagues throughout the country, beginning now. What works in here may not in fact be effective everywhere, but communication inspires ideas.
Voters have to be educated, and Dems must do whatever necessary to encourage them.
My motto: Engage, not enrage.
People SHOULD take the time to seek out legitimate information. Listen to NPR; read the good papers and news magazines; look at the candidates’ websites; read the Secretary’s red booklet for information on question. Yes, there’s a lot of media noise, but there’s no reason why most people can’t spend a little time to do their homework. It is IMO an obligation just as fundamental to democracy as the act of voting itself is fundamental as a right.
It’s human nature.
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p>The Right has figured this out, and have invested heavily in talk radio and other media used as background noise.
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p>We on the Left need to understand and embrace human nature, or suffer the consequences.
If you’re a working stiff with a family, the odds are you don’t have time to blog or seek out information on the internet. You listen to your peers, you listen to talk radio, and its easily-digested sound bytes. This is what the Republicans count on, so they control the airwaves, and with the exception of MSNBC, the mainstream media.
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p>Most people are busy just trying to make ends meet, trying to keep their jobs in a bad economy, and taking care of their families. This is why the Democratic Party has to hire a PR firm to develop sound bytes that stick with people, and unfortunately also have to stoop to astroturf and other quasi-legal strategies to drown out the noise from the Right.
Why Patrick was able to engage the voter despite his “popularity” being affected by the economy and the bad press about the trivial things he might have screwed up (or rather, screwed up the PR on, since most of the stuff isn’t even bad in context).
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p>Patrick has a way of looking you in the eye (at a house party, a big rally, a debate, wherever) and giving you a quick synopsis of why. Why do we need to consider what we want government to do then decide how to pay for it. Why we need to invest via government in biotech, green energy, etc in order to succeed in the private sector. Why we need great education and when we get it, to not be satisfied with that.
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p>He says it quick, he says it pithy, but he also says it with great meaning.
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p>More Dems need to learn to do that – and we need more people like Patrick to step up to public service. Dispassionateness and over-intellectualizating might be the marks of a smart progressive who can form great policy, but it doesn’t connect to voters – as Baker found out.
What about “astroturf” do you believe is “quasi-legal”?
In no way am I defending these strategies, but I believe that the Dems have to begin organizing along these lines to win. The wingnut noise machine has the Koch Brothers-I hope that some liberal billionaires will see the importance of fighting this tooth and nail.
We (Democrats and liberals) already do plenty of “quasi-legal” (I’ll accept your term if I can put it in quotes đŸ˜‰ astroturf.
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p>We have George Soros, Peter Lewis of Progressive Insurance and Oakland, and ProPublica (the new project of banker Herb Sandler). Eli Broad is a big political donor (and has done great things with his foundation for education and for biotech here in Cambridge.)
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p>Then we have the other Microsoft executives (Paul Allen, Steve Ballmer) who give more too Democrats and have been reliably liberal with the notable exception of their opposition to the millionaire’s tax initiative defeated in WA this year. Finally, for now, there are all the Hollywood folks (David Geffen, Oprah, and those two nice young boys from Boston who made that Good Will Hunting movie).
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p>You’ll see here that there are plenty of liberal billionaires supporting Democrats: http://www.newsmeat.com/billio…
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p>We’ve begun! And there’s nothing “quasi-legal” about it.
Yes, we may have these people backing the Dems, but they are not nearly as effective at the spin, and the organization of the far right. Where is the liberal equivalent of Freedom Works? What about an equivalent of a Rupert Murdoch staring a media empire? Sorry, but liberals are too damn nice. I am an aggressive progressive, and know we have to play dirty now to win. Sorry.
15 minutes per day with a decent source is good. I even think local Boston news did a pretty good job sounding out candidates and letting voters hear from them directly. It may require a little effort to make it a priority in your life, but I really don’t think I’m asking much.
paying bills, etc., it DOES take considerable effort. I travel 100K miles a year for work, and I don’t get to news sources everyday. It’s especially difficult, as someone mentioned above, because most of our mainstream news sources are now ‘Infotainment’. The average media consumer knows more about Lindsey Lohan than Congress.
OK, so you don’t get to it every day. That’s not the issue. You are, however, despite your protestations above, very active on this blog and clearly do know what you are talking about. We’re all busy, which ironically is an argument I make against direct democracy in favor of legislation by people whom we pay to really study the issues and make decisions on our behalf.
so using me as an example doesn’t really prove your point.
There are plenty of parents(probably most parents) so incredibly busy that they are lucky if they can even sit down to eat dinner. Yes, it can be very hard for many folks to find the time to know what’s going on. Besides, if they are flying blind, they could very well end up on a Fox News website or RMG and then never search further for the truth.
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p>It amazed me how many people I spoke to this election cycle who are as angry as I am and for the same reasons. They were quite confused about which party to turn to and felt like it didn’t even matter. They know something isn’t right. They just don’t exactly understand what’s going on.
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p>It takes a lot of time to visit all the news sites,
read some blogs, search out opinions and the history/ background of those who wrote them. It can leave you feeling exhausted and frustrated. I’m sure many people try it a time or two and are just left more confused.
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p>But it does make me angry too that these people then go out and vote, and often for the candidate who does not support their interests. It’s a hard battle to fight against.
Which sort of brings in the “money in politics” issue because it’s often the ones who are swimming in lobbyist money that get the airtime and are then the ones who are heard by the busiest people on earth. It makes me angry, but I know it’s not their fault. They really do want to know the truth.
<
p>By the way, for those of you who think that many people can sit at their desks at work and peruse the world wide web and blog and all of that sort of stuff, that’s just not the case. Many companies have strict policies against it.
If you can be an active Democrat and involved despite being busy with other things, others can too.
I takes about 15 minutes to read a newspaper. That’s the problem. You have to dig deeper than that. It’s often a hit or miss with the news. They have one candidate on Tuesday night and another on Thursday night. You get through page 3 in the newspaper and Charley starts screaming in the bathtub that he lost his rubber duckie. That article that would have informed you was on page 5.
You try to watch the debate and within 10 minutes David and Bob start throwing cookies at each other and then the phone rings and it’s your mother-in-law, she needs your help immediately. Really, Christopher, have you ever lived it?
…and even after it became more common I almost always found a way to get news from more traditional sources. It’s a matter of prioritizing and I sometimes get interrupted too. A big pet peeve of mine is reading even a one-day old paper so I go back after being interrupted. Just about anyone who has their basic life necessities met can do this IF they choose to make it a priority.
My favorite proposition to Tea Partiers at their rallies, and I have been to many of their events, is this:
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p>89% of federal money goes to four things:
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p>-Social Security
-Medicare/Medicaid
-National Defense (includes war spending)
-Interest payments on existing national debt
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p>So, if you truly want to cut federal spending, there’s where 9/10ths of the money is being spent. We have to pay the interest on our national debt. If you are serious about spending cuts, choose which of the remaining three you want to cut, where/how within those umbrellas you want to cut, and how much you want to cut by.
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p>If you have a moral problem with welfare, or congressional benefits, or whatever, fine. But if what you’re really serious about is cutting spending, stop wasting your time on that crap. It’s not where the money is going.
Thank you!
… this 89% figure is “truthiness” at best.
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p>The facts (from the liberal Center for Budget and Policy Priorities) are laid out best here:
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index….
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p>Social Security = 20%
Medicare/Medicaid/CHIP = 21%
Defense = 20%
Interest on the Debt = 6%
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p>Together, these total 67% of the budget. And Defense is inflated somewhat in 2010 by the $172 billion to be spent on the wars in Iraq/Afghanistan. It ranges from 15%-20%, going up and down while the other major categories generally continue to grow.
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p>Meanwhile 15% of the budget is other “safety net programs” (the right’s “welfare”) and the remaining 18% is retiree benefits for federal employees/veterans (about 7%) and other “discretionary” spending.
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p>I don’t dispute your overall point (that “discretionary” spending is a small portion of the budget) but let’s not just throw around the 9/10ths “statistic” without any real truth behind that number.
but I’d add one bit:
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p>7% goes to federal retirees and vets. Some portion of that is vets — and anything going to vets (VA hospitals, pensions, etc) should count toward “Defense”.
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p>The numbers you show are 67%… in fact, it’s a smidge higher because of those vet benefits, a portion of that 7%.
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p>Now, if you want to include the welfare benefits paid to NCO soldiers who qualify, you might even argue it’s even higher. My brother in law was an enlisted man on WIC, for example. Underpaying our troops and then using social welfare benefits to help make up the difference… is that “defense” or “safety net programs”?
You may not agree with the number, but I didn’t make it up. I used the numbers found here:
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p>http://www.npr.org/blogs/money…
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p>The first seven line items represent the four things I have listed above. If you total the “bill”, and then look at the percentage that the first seven line items represents, it’s 88.9%.
You relied on a third-party posting of a think tank’s posting and then did your own math?
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p>Here’s where you went wrong:
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p>1) You didn’t go to an original source of analysis on the federal budget. I prefer the CBPP (since I’m a liberal) but there are others out there.
<
p>2) You didn’t go to – or read carefully enough? – the original source for the chart you relied on:
http://content.thirdway.org/pu…
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p>3) Most significantly, largely because of the first two errors, you made the assumption that this chart represented 100% of the money spent under the federal budget.
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p>In reality, this chart lists only 25 (the top 25? It doesn’t say but appears that way at first glance) categories of government spending. There are dozens more in the general “discretionary spending” category. The spending listed in your chart represents only a portion of the federal budget and fails to list the many, many things that the average taxpayer spends less than 19 cents a year to pay for,
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p>It is these assumptions/errors, that results in the difference between 67% and 88.9%.
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p>And the reasons why I don’t “believe” in your number.
Point number three without all the attitude would have sufficed…
And already tried again below to explain the error in recognition that my first attempt was a tad snarky. My second attempt probably fails to be fair enough as well (reading it again now).
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p>But, I do have real issue with the use of faulty numbers and over-blown arguments based on truthiness. Even more so when I agree with the underlying argument (entilements, defense and debt payments do make up a large proportion of the federal budget). By saying 9/10ths, we start of on the wrong foot in making an argument about spending cuts that is of utmost importance.
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p>Point heard.
You did the math wrong.
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p>Adding up these 25 items, it shows a “taxpayer reciept” of only $3,191.87. Not the $5,400 implied by the re-posting and which you seemingly assumed.
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p>So, yes, the first seven items add up to $2835.13, which is 88.9% of the total.
<
p>BUT, you/this chart are missing all sorts of spending in the dozens of other parts of the “discretionary spending” portion of the budget.
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p>Your 9/10 figure is truthiness, seemingly based on faulty assumptions, inaccurate math and a not toally-misguided “sense” that entitlements and defense make up “most” of the federal budget.
Creating these sorts of statistics is not my forte. What actually happened is that I heard the 9/10ths number used by someone else, investigated it, found this, did the math as described, and came up with exactly the same number I had originally heard.
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p>I appreciate the correction, I honestly do.
I’m glad to help.
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p>And I do, honestly, urge you to continue to spread the underlying message that Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Defense really do make up the majority of the federal budget. So, indeed, if you do really want to cut federal spending that’s where the money is. This is a very important debate.
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p>While I’d like to think that I have a pretty good head for statistics (and know enough about the details of government to sense when a statistic like 9/10ths seems off), I certainly don’t have the stomach for debating Tea Party types. I’ve never attended one of their rallies. And, in any case, I don’t have the charm or patience needed to really debate the right wing on something so fundamental and complex (the role of government).
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p>It’s good to know that you and others do reguarly accept this challenge, and I’m more than happy to help arm you with accurate numbers to frame the larger debate.
I completely disagree with the idea that the voters were stupid. The voters followed their own bottom line, and most voters in swing states and swing districts looked at their wallets, saw their tax dollars spent on stimulus and health care reform, and wanted to do more with less. I disagree with that, I rarely think voting should be an act of self-interest but a question of how to better one’s entire community. That said, I understand the anger. The biggest mistake the President made was forgetting about jobs. Jobs, Jobs, Jobs. Thats what the message should have been. I saw zero ads in Illinois, which had a hot Senate race, talking about how many jobs the stimulus created. Friends in NV, OH, CT, and PA also did not see any ads talking about job creation or what the Dems have done and what they will do. Nearly every Republican incumbent, including Kirk as a House incumbent, voted against COBRA, voted against extending unemployment, and voted against job creation. Nowhere was this mentioned in attack ads. Most focused on tea party extremism, most of the IL incumbents focused on social issues and how moderate they were vis a vis the Republicans, and the Senate ads were on character issues. I think had the suburban Democrats outside Chicago and Alexi focused on hitting the GOP on jobs they would’ve won.
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p>Working people don’t care about social issues one way or the other, they vote with their wallets. Calling the ignorant, calling them fundamentalists, calling them uninformed, is not the way to go. Somehow main street was convinced that the bailouts, which have made profits for the US government and are being paid ahead of schedule, were an insiders scheme to benefit elites. The cultural elitism and the indifference the President paid to this section of the electorate until recently, are the main reasons this message was able to stick. Democrats need to forget about social issues and focus on the economy and jobs, and hammer this radical Congress for every anti-worker vote it is bound to make on a host of important votes.
My promotion comment was about the quality of much of the media. Most people tune in to the news to get, well, news. And what they generally get is useless, uninformative schlock.
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p>I’m not asking for everyone to tune in to dense, hourlong interviews and seminars. I think that media could present punchy, informative, accurate, bottom-line, useful information. But they don’t.
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p>News became entertainment years ago. Newscasts became sound bites and photo ops, along with weather and traffic. Talk shows became talking head shoutfests. Blogs are replacing newspapers and magazines, which are becoming stripped down dumbed down versions of themselves to survive.
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p>I see little real old fashioned reporting anymore. Look at the Globe, most days it’s pretty thin and mostly a collection of AP wire stories wrapped around opinion pieces; without much weather and traffic. Most of their local political reporting is about polls, fundraising, and commercials; or simply quoting candidates and campaigns.
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p>John Walsh and others have figured out what the rest of the political and media world need to understand. People are tuning out all the flash and bang, shock and awe of polls, commercials, fundraising, robocalls and mass mail. The political discussions in the coffee shops, dumps, soccer fields, bus stops and grocery stores are where people are getting there (dis)information, where the elections are being won and lost. It’s always been how you run for selectman, now it’s how you run for governor.
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p>When we work this way we win. Coakley and Baker ran the same top heavy media driven campaign that doesn’t work very well anymore. Scott Brown out worked, out organized, and out coffee shopped us in January. This time we out did them.
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p>
cute animal stories in every newscast, and the ever present celebrity sighting, along with: “and you can see more on such and such show, tonight on our station”. The Metro looks like serious journalism along side them.
Your other point, about Republicans having taken vote after deadly vote, which they should have been called to account for, is very well taken.
…they might have noticed that there were tax cuts as part of the stimulus and tax credits as part of the health care package. I think it’s $400 per single filer and $800 per married filers, compared to $300 and $600 under Bush. Obama made the policy choice to simply reduce withholdings so people keep a little more of each paycheck whereas Bush made the political choice of writing lump sum checks with his name on it. The former is more stimulative because people are more likely to spend a little more while the latter is likely ro be deposited and saved.
Bush spent millions to send out a notice TELLING people that they were about to get a check in the mail for $300/$600, then millions cutting and sending checks – all so he and his could get CREDIT for it.
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p>Doing the right thing like Obama did, costing the taxpayers less, being more stimulative…only screwed us up politically. Sigh. A lose-lose situation.
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p>(I remember VERY specifically, my dad the libertarian saying how much of a waste of money that Bush letter was…but, he sure knew who gave him that $600 didn’t he?)
I didn’t argue they actually are better off with Republican policies and extending all of the Bush tax cuts. Joe the plumber was a myth, no working person by definition makes more than $250,000 a year. And your point that the Democratic policies put more money in the hands of real Americans than the Bush proposals did or the Boehner proposals will is well taken. Unfortunately it was never uttered this election. And again the Republicans made incredibly suicidal votes in my view, against COBRA, against unemployment, against broadly popular worker relief programs, and nobody turned that against them. The Tea Party is scary not because of the O’Donnells and Palin’s and their wacky social views, but because of their wacky economic views that would severely undermine the ENTIRE legacy of the New Deal. No question the Democrats are wrong when they want to leave Social Security reform along and not make it more efficient and dynamic. But the Republicans now want to undo the political/economic consensus regarding the New Deal that has governed this country since the 1930s. No credible Republican, not even Reagan, every ran against the New Deal to such an extent the Tea Party is now. So thats the message, no better way to revive the blue collar New Deal coalition than by defending what it fought for and making the choice clear.
I have an email list of several hundred people with whom I’ve come into contact over the years. Most, but not all, are close to me in political alignment. The bulk belong to two-worker households with kids in K-12, and frankly they don’t have the spare time I do to dig much deeper than what they get handed to them by the media (Charley’s comment).
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p>So, I send out emails whenever I think it’s necessary to point something out, whether at the local, state, or national level. And especially around election time, I send my picks and reminders to vote. The number of “thank you”s I get is significant.
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p>Every one of us can be a source of information and the catalyst to get people to examine sources beyond what they encounter day-to-day. Use that power.
why are voters stupid when the elect the “other guy”? Voters chose a Democratic House in 2006 and then followed with a Democratic Senate, more House seats and a Democratic POTUS… but I never heard anyone saying the voters were stupid. Now those same voters elected a majority Republican House and they are stupid. Why can’t we believe that voters have biases, they may care about short term issues vs. long term… but why call them stupid? Did the same stupid voters who elected Scott Brown just “smartly” vote for Deval Patrick?
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p>As I look across the ideologic aisle I see many voters who I completely disagree with and I know many of them are very smart, so I wouldn’t drop down and start calling them stupid. We just think differently.
Voters aren’t stupid for electing one candidate over another. Voters are stupid when they vote for a candidate based on demonstrably incorrect facts. When someone says “I’m voting for so-and-so because Barack Obama raised my taxes” (which he actually cut with a one-time $400 reduction), that’s a stupid voter.
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p>I rarely hear people saying “I’m going to vote against Barack Obama because, in my opinion, the economic benefits of the upper-class tax cut he opposes will shift capital in the correct position in this country in a way that results in higher investments in our national economy”. No, they say “I’m voting against him because when you cut taxes, tax revenue increases and when you raise taxes, tax revenue goes down”.
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p>I’d love to see a poll of people who think they’re affected by the estate tax compared with people who are actually affected by it. I bet that 60% of the country thinks that it affects them, and that is why they support repealing it. Those would be stupid voters.
for all sorts of reasons but we didn’t call them stupid.
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p>Also, is the crux of your argument that voters who vote for someone who espouses something that won’t benefit that voter, they’re stupid? Millions of people across the country are supporting extending tax cuts for the “millionaires” even though they aren’t millionaires, are they stupid. People often support a cause with no self interest but I don’t think that makes them stupid. Someone may believe the estate tax is simply wrong and not care about the financial implications, they simply think that concept is wrong.
There are a lot of things Democrats blindly support for similarly stupid reasons. On trade and education Democrats tend to hold the stupid opinions, mainly that free trade is bad for the economy which is just as stupid as saying tax cuts increase tax revenue, or that dumping more money and mandates into public education will fix the problems, which are all structural in nature. Or that single payer is the only/best route to health reform.
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p>In general I tend to believe that ideology of any kind tends to warp truth and prevent people from seeing what the right thing to do is. Clinton was a Democrat so his illegal war on Yugoslavia was a ok. Bush was a Republican so of course the anti-nation building realists lined up with him and the neocons on Iraq. We see it everyday.
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p>I think Democrats tend to blame the voters when they lose, and this makes them likely to lose in the future. We saw it after Coakley, we are seeing it now. These voters were not stupid, and you need to appeal to their hopes and aspirations to win, and the Democratic Party utterly failed at crafting a message that did so. I was really surprised Obama failed especially considering how well he was able to articulate this just two years ago.
Please go lie down for awhile until the nausea passes. đŸ™‚
Democrats need to do a better job, to paraphrase President Clinton, of showing that we “feel the pain” of the electorate.
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p>As suggested in several posts above, most people have more pressing priorities than weighing the pros and cons of particular policy. The information one is able to process becomes narrower when the primary focus is trying to keep food on the table and a roof over your family’s head… all while trying to find a job (or two).
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p>For years the GOP has simply done a better job than we have of giving the impression that they understand voters’ fear and frustration (even as they exacerbate the causes for fear and frustration through their policies).
<
p>Of course it’s easier said than done, but Dems need to approach this as a two-step process: Connect with voters on a human level. Only once you’ve made that first step can you begin to sell your product (particular policy).
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p>Empathy; connection — lead with the heart, follow with the head.
often want to start with the policy and see how awesome it will be and you like it, yes??
<
p>Point taken. Eileen Donoghue didn’t win her race for state Senate because she was the smartest policy person in the campaign (though she was). She won because a LOT of people in the district feel personally connected to her, and that she understands their plight, and beyond that, respect her integrity, which is another big seller in MA given the average headline about politics around here…
A combination of integrity, intelligence and likeability. Can we get her to run for US Senate? Brown did it from the state senate, so did Obama.
Did you read this before you posted your comment? Cuz, if not, you’re at least as smart as George Lakoff!
<
p>
<
p>He says what is missing in the analysis of the voting population – specifically, “swing” voters – he doesn’t touch on the concept of who didn’t turn out this time – that there are two elements that are important to that faction:
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p>1. Communication system to deliver one’s message
2. A message that is about the moral, personal side of policy.
<
p>Being a policy wonk first doesn’t appeal to a group of people who have both sympathies in their heads (conservative, progressive), and vote for morals rather than intellectual-level policy.
<
p>On the first point, we’re far behind the Republicans, except when we mount MA/Patrick/Walsh-style personal GOTV efforts, or Obama’s in 2008. Then we can communicate in person what the Right communicates in thinktanks, media outlets, etc.
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p>Explains why we were so very successful HERE and not nationally.
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p>There’s a reason Glenn Beck so frequently cries.
Nope, I’ve been too busy navel-gazing to keep up with Lakoff. đŸ˜‰
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p>I certainly don’t claim ownership of the idea…. It’s one that should be common sense. (I think I head Leon Panetta — ? — saying something similar on NPR the other day, for instance.)
<
p>Policy is critical, of course, but unless you connect with and engage the hearts of voters, even the best ideas will fall on deaf ears.
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p>Emphasis mine.
Sorry folks, I did not mean to infer that uninformed voters were stupid, I was playing with the words of the old phrase, and it did not execute well. My point was in reflecting on ignorance through the angry masses. Anger should not be the measure of an informed voter.
<
p>However, I’m not sure I agree voters are informed if they merely listen to the media – it’s too broad a statement. Why? Because if they only get their news from one source, there a is a real risk the source is skewed. At the moment, I’m not even sure there’s a bi-partisan place to go.
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p>As far as making time to seek out information, I work, and still manage to not just dig, but go a little deeper. I worry about what this country is going through and believe that while cooperation matters, Democrats will indeed muster to successfully reverse this dreadful economic tailspin. Its tragic (on too many levels) that we must continue to send billions abroad every month to fund conflict, when its so badly needed here.
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p>
There are legitimate gripes to have with the media, with the voters, and with disinformation that hurt the Democrats. But my real frustration is with a politician who had tremendous talents to win the greatest popular vote victory since Reagan’s landslide in 84′ and then abandoned everything he campaigned on and with during his first year. The empathetic and bipartisan Obama became a robotic policy wonk who sounded more like a liberal law professor complaining about the masses not understanding why his policy was good instead of actually convincing them he was one of them and had their best interests at heart. Obama needs to be more like Bill Clinton and a lot less like Paul Krugman.
Nationally the Democrats forgot that they needed to appeal to middle class voters, Alexi ran to the hard left to get the base out, particularly African Americans (who were not his natural constituency) and he lost the suburbs. Sestak and to a lesser extent Feingold fell into the same trap. And other Democrats, mainly Jack Conway and Joe Manchin, ran far to the right and overestimated how much the electoral ground had shifted. Both of those states still regularly elect socially moderate economically liberal Democrats. Conway needed to paint Paul as an extremist, not on social and defense issues, but on the economy. Its not that he will undo the Civil Rights Act, its that he would undo the Social Security Act and fundamentally kill the safety net. Similarly Manchin won comfortably because he fits WVA well, a union member, a Catholic, and a coal booster. But he didn’t need to shoot a cap and trade bill to prove that, and he is also a lot less likely to vote for economically populist programs like health care reform in the future. Unfortunately we need some of that populist Clintonian rhetoric to recapture the white working class, and I am not sure if Obama can do it.
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p>But Deval Patricks campaign proved it is possible. He won back a lot of the voters and communities that voted for Brown, and I have talked to a lot of voters personally who felt that he understood their concerns and anxieties and they wanted to reward him for managing the economy well. My own family was divided between Cahill and Baker and they all came back to Deval because he ran to the center, and he ran on the economy. I think he also understands that tough times force you to give up on the transformational change and focus on keeping the basics intact. After 8 years of chaos Americans just wanted the basics reassured again and stable, and Obama tried to change too much too quickly without realizing the need to sell each change to the public first. That has got to change. I agree with Mark Halperin, bring in an Ed Rendell or a Begala as the next Chief of Staff, it is obvious the Chicago group thinks too similar to the President and is afraid to tell him when he is wrong. Also the Republicans are incorrectly viewing this as a mandate for Tea Party conservatism, it isn’t. And they will overreach, and then maybe Obama can pull a Deval and credibly come back to the center and focus on the economy.
I really respected that Deval owned up to his mistakes and did not make the bold promises he made last time, I was impressed with his ability to be really honest with the electorate and say that he has done the best job he can under the worst circumstance and our state, economically anyway, has survived mostly intact. And he will continue sound management that preserves most of the safety net and the progressive programs we want, without raising taxes too much, and without shifting the burden too heavily on the middle class. It was a great campaign, and the humble Deval showed that he matured in actual leadership of the state, and this voter matured alongside him and recognized that not only was it wrong of him to promise the sky in 06 but it was wrong of me to demand the sky from him in order to get my vote. I used to complain about him a lot, but as far as most governors go, he is one of the best in the country considering the circumstances every state is in.