As the Democratic Party’s leadership ponders the future, many hope it will change political strategies. Since 2009, under former Pres. Barack Obama, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former Senate leader harry reid, Democrats have lost about 958 state legislative seats. Democratic U.S. Senate seats plunged from 55 to 46. U.S. House seats dropped from 256 to 194. Republicans now control the White House, both houses of Congress, and are in the process of changing the Supreme Court’s make up for many years.
All politics are not local
In politics, state legislative seats are the league farm teams that prepare candidates for the U.S.
House and Senate, not to mention the presidency. The DNC diagnosis is simple, but finding the cure will take years. Party messaging from leaders help drive voter turnout for local candidates. All politics are not local, regardless of what former Democratic Speaker of the U.S. House Tip O'Neill said. While the quality of individual candidates varies, a seven-year drought, during which nearly 1,000 state seats were lost, says more about the party’s message than the quality of its candidates.
Democrats' bad policy, worse messages
Years of bad policy and worse messages is the real problem for Democrats. Let’s begin with two-term Pres. Barack Obama. While he is likely a hero to anyone truly confused about which restroom to use at a public venue, his administration left millions more confused about his personalized venture into the intimate realm of public toilets.
In short, there was little confusion about where to go before Mr. Obama stepped in. While economic growth under Obama was extraordinarily low, the president’s gift to Iran’s ayatollahs of billions in unmarked taxpayer dollars (to spend on terrorism) didn’t add up. The federal deficit increased by $10 trillion under his watch so why would he give Iranians billions in cash that we have to borrow to pay back?
This was worse than his Iran Deal, assuming that it wasn’t part of it.
Eight years, few accomplishments
Add to this his bungled handling of Arab Spring, including those meaningless red lines in Syria, deteriorating race relations, downgraded US relations with the world and a lack of major accomplishments and you can see why voters aren’t chomping at the bit to elect Democrats.
Likewise, Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton have Palinized and polarized the party. They represent the fermenting political stench emitted by wild-eyed hateful rants that have branded the Democratic Party. While President Donald Trump is talking about and instituting policies to make America great again, Hillary calls Americans deplorable, Warren is sticking to her story about being Native American and Pelosi tells blatant lies such as “ObamaCare is lowering costs and the deficit."
For his part, former Senate leader Harry Reid got out after a self-inflicted knock out. Before exiting the Senate, Mr. Reid had become an angry caricature of obstructionism. One of his more famous gaffes was to compare opponents of Obamacare to those who opposed the abolition of slavery.
Democrats need different leadership, vision
Reinstating the Democratic Party as a pro-American political organization will take years. For starters, Tom Perez and Keith Ellison are basically organizing the DNC leadership into a rent-a-mob franchise serving the militant left. Divisiveness is not good policy or messaging -- it’s just divisive. Party leadership must somehow make peace with all segments of American society and stop herding them into opposition pens for political expediency. As a political strategy, race-baiting, dictating restroom protocol, slicing and dicing people into opposing opposition groups and hating Pres. Trump is poor political strategy because ultimately all of these groups turn on each other.
To begin the climb back to relevancy, Democrats will have to jettison their mean-spirited leadership and seek leaders with vision capable of unifying the majority, not a minority of Americans. Years of surveys and elections have shown the Democratic Party to be in rapid decline that started long before Trump was in the picture.
For Democrats, Hope And Change is no longer a slogan but an absolute necessity as the 2018 midterm election season approaches. Americans tire of catchy slogans in cheesy television commercials. Think of voters as the collective remote control for politicians.
