January 20, 2010 08:46 AM UTC
What should Democrats take from Massachusetts?
34 Comments- by: ace41
As any follower of politics or football will tell, the fine art of Monday morning quarterbacking (or Wednesday morning quarterbacking in this case) is a much loved pastime in Washington DC.
I am sure that before long, the media and the talking heads will appoint someone the scapegoat of the whole Massachusetts Senate Special Election mess. Whether it’s the candidate (who showed a stunning amount of tone deafness in her public statements in the last few weeks), her campaign team (who apparently forgot you have to win both the primary AND the general election to get all the way to the Senate), the White House and the President (who have seemed to abandon the tight message discipline and aggressive style that suited them so well during the campaign) or the national Democratic agenda – conventional DC wisdom says that SOMEONE must take the blame.
Don’t get me wrong, the Democratic Party needs to evaluate what happened here and take a good long look at what went wrong. Ultimately my own humble opinion is that this was due to a variety of factors and that this defeat did, in fact, have many fathers (and mothers). I also think Coakely ignored the most fundamental rule in politics – you must ASK people to vote for you.
But of all the things that disturbed and angered me about this loss – this little tidbit from Politico burned me the most: http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0110/Dem_GOTV_picking_up_Brown_supporters.html?showall
“A Democratic operative familiar with Martha Coakley and the DSCC’s massive get-out-the-vote operation says that outreach workers in and around Boston have been stunned by the number of Democrats and Obama supporters who are waving them off, saying they’ll vote for Scott Brown.”
Here in Colorado we have a significant unaffiliated/Independent vote. And I understand that those independents are often just that – independent. And Republicans in Colorado have never been shy about telling us where they are at on the issues.
But let me speak to the Democrats for a minute…what the hell is going on out there? Have we forgotten what we had before 2008? Do we not recall the administration that led us down the path of financial ruin? The folks that rushed to make sure Terry Schiavo would not be taken off a feeding tube but couldn’t muster a half hearted response to the mass devastation of Hurricane Katrina? The Party that wouldn’t vote to approve Children’s Health Care? The ones who never let the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Bill see the light of day? The crowd that shamelessly blocked stem cell funding for over a decade – putting advances in a field that could one day heal spinal cord injuries, Parkinson’s Disease and Alzheimer’s unforgivably behind the times?
Have we all really forgotten what it was like? Because of all the unforgivable mistakes made in Massachusetts that is the most heinous.
I come onto this website, and several others following Democratic politics across the country, at night and inevitably there is some post blathering on about “conservadems” and the oh-so-hated Blue Dogs. And I read the likes of JeffCo Blue, and David Thielen and RedGreen and Pols himself pretty valiantly trying to make the point that governing is much harder than campaigning and if Dems are ready to throw the baby out with the bath water every time they encounter a policy decision they don’t like…well then we might as well just hand control back to the Republicans.
Frankly…I’ve had it. Policy discussions are one thing. We can argue…robustly…the way we should handle a complex and difficult issue like health care. We can discuss the best manner in which to deal with the tough social issues. We can go ten rounds on when and where and how we should deal with immigration and other concerns.
As long as Democrats remember one thing – at the end of the day, even the most moderate Democrat is infinitely preferable to abandoning the Party and turning government back over to the hands of those who would drive it into the ground.
The President and Congress have had their missteps over the past year. But they have had some great success as well. And generally we are asking them to change 12 years worth of self destructive governing – policies that it really will take a decade to reverse – and make everything better in a year.
There is irresponsible governing. There is also irresponsible citizenship. And I think there are many folks guilty of the latter. We are ALL part of this Democracy. And our system is messy and difficult to manage – it was set up that way on purpose.
In 2008, Democrats said they wanted leaders who would work hard, who would tell us hard truths and ask us to sacrifice, who would never give up despite the obstacles ahead, who would work to put partisan differences aside to try and get things done. By and large, we have gotten what we asked for. Our President may not always tell us what we want to hear, but he is always honest about the obstacles ahead and he cannot be accused of trying to take the easy way out this past year.
Our members of Congress work hard. They might not vote how we would like them to every single time, but then again, we asked them to be different from their predecessors – to put aside Party and just work to do what is right for the country. Marilyn Musgrave would not let a Democrat or Democratic cause step foot in her office. Betsy Markey meets with everyone. It took years to get Wayne Allard to even agree that saving the Rocky Mountain wilderness was a good idea. Michael Bennett has been vocal on support for clean energy from day one.
And yet there are quite a few who would sit there and hem and haw about making sure we primary the “DINO’s” and pledging not to work for those who don’t agree with them 100% of the time. “Being true to who we are is more important than winning!” they proclaim. But let me ask a pretty fundamental question…doesn’t some part of being true to who we are also involve having the pragmatism to get it done? We were true to who we were for a decade…and the Republicans drove this nation into the ground while we were soul searching.
I am fed up with folks who worked so hard to bring change in 2008 and then turned around in 2009 and said they had lost “hope.” Why? Because it was harder than you thought? Because half of the country disagrees with us half of the time? Because everything didn’t happen immediately? Get over yourself. Nobody said this would be easy – in fact, I distinctly remember them all saying it would be hard.
It’s time to stop the hand wringing. Time to put down the guns that are firing in a circle. Time to stow away the overwrought statements about party purity. Martha Coakley was full of party purity. She also ran a terrible campaign that sacrificed pragmatism to complacency. And that approach was so healthy for the Party that we lost Ted Kennedy’s seat because of it. It was so healthy for the country that health care reform may go down because of it.
Here in Colorado, we have Democrats running up and down the ticket who work incredibly hard, who ask for every vote, who never take anything for granted and often sacrifice their own idealism for a healthy dose of pragmatism. That’s called good governing. And what do they often get for their work? A lot of talk from the base about how they may stay home on Election Day.
Tomorrow will be a hard day. But this weekend, I am headed to my local Democratic Party headquarters and am getting back on the phones. I am going back to knock on doors. And I am going to give what I can to every Dem running up and down the ticket. It’s time to wake up and get fired up again. It’s time to stop the sulking and get back out in the rain and snow and remember that nothing worth doing has ever been easy.
If we lose this November because we worked really hard and there was segment of this country and our state that refused to be convinced, then I can live with that…no matter how hard.
But if we lose because the Democratic base decided they were going to school their elected leaders on being loyal to some vague party platform, or because everything they wanted didn’t happen quick enough, then we deserve everything we get as a result.
First, and most importantly, the candidate was terrible, and deserved to lose. No time on the ground, out of touch with the people, etc. She seemed to think it her right to the seat, having won the primary.
Second, Coakley’s campaign was almost as bad as Beauprez’s was here. They took the seat for granted, they waited far too long to raise enough money to poll properly, etc.
Third, the national party did not take the race seriously enough and did not put enough money into it.
The lesson for Colorado? All the people whining about how various Dems here are not doing what they want, and threatening to stay at home in November, should re-examine that idea, because they will hate the alternative more–a return to Republican control, and an effective endorsement of the far-right views represented by those who are running.
if not more than half of the country thinks what happened is great. The high and mighty Dems lost one, with much more to follow soon.
What the country will watch now with great interest is what Pelosi and her ilk try to do with their laugh of a health bill. If they back door push this thing through against the rising will of the people, the Dems will be the vast minority by the next big elsection.
If they grow some balls and start this process over again, listen to the people and the other side, then blend a bill leaving the wacko far lefties and righties out, they can save their spot in power. Anything short of that will spell doom for most any D.
IMHO of course.
What you’re saying is akin to us Dems saying Colorado is Democratic because of the Beauprez & Schaffer losses. Those loses happened in large part because both ran terrible campaigns.
in the correct direction.
Last night the most liberal state in the union sent a message to the D’s and the Messiah. I bet they don’t listen.
“No” all the time again? Yeah, that’s a good idea. . .
offered something reasonable, I bet the R’s would listen. But both sides are so stubborn and pig headed, nothing good will come out now.
For you, what should be in the new Health Care legislation? What should be excluded?
but I do know a couple of things that would help.
I am in the process of selling my house and moving cross country. My wife now lives in Wisconsin but her new employer does not offer insurance so she is treated like a sub contractor. I have health coverage here in Colorado with half being paid by my employer. So now my wife has had to buy insurance on her own, paying a pretty hefty price, so that she is covered. I also have to have insurance so in effect we are paying twice as much as we should if the D’s listened to the R’s and let insurance cross state lines.
Nobody here has ever given me a reason why this is so taboo to the D’s.
I think eliminating the clause where insurance companies can deny someone coverage based on pre existing conditions should be tweaked so that people could be covered, but they would just have to pay more. If you flat out tell the insurance companies that they just can’t deny them, they will say fine and raise their price ten fold on everyone.
Another thing would be to chop the lawyers legs off some and do something about TORT reform. Everyone should have a right to sue for malpractice but there should be extreme limits.
What’s the matter with some of these ideas?
Why keep putting patches on the patches?
Where did I post about those suggestions recently…
There is no reason – in fact, no explanation – for your statement that you cannot cover your wife on your own insurance. She’s your wife, and should be covered under your policy.
Now, your policy may not have service in Wisconsin and you’d have to pay out-of-network costs for any care she receives, but that’s not going to be solved by opening insurance to cross state lines. If I had Kaiser, I could go to any Kaiser facility in any state where Kaiser exists, and they’d cover me in-network. In fact, I’ve done this in the past when I was covered by United Health; the affiliated service in western Utah charged in-network co-pay and that was that…
Yes Coakley was a terrible candidate. But she would have been a reliable backbencher – she wasn’t espousing views anathema to the party. In this case we Dems do need to support who we end up with (that’s why I supported Milquetoast Mark in ’08).
You’re 100% right – we need to work our ass off for our candidates and we won’t be 100% thrilled with any of them. (Maybe not even 95%.)
Of this I am certain:
Any candidate/elected official with whom I agree 100% of the time doesn’t stand a chance of election/re-election.
(Hell, I don’t always agree with some of my own decisions! Sometimes it is necessary to accept that only partial measures are possible at a given point in the space/time continuum.)
and welcome to the diary-iea. uh… diary page.
Do “Democrats” come down on the side of consumers or of banks? (“Cramdown”)
Do “Democrats” demand a robust consumer financial protection agency, or do they insist on a watered-down policy that, supposedly, some Republicans can back?
Do “Democrats” demand that government guarantee health care for everyone, or do they back away from government programs in favor of mandatory payments to private providers of insurance?
Should voters rush down and start phoning on behalf of any and all candidates who proclaim “I Am a Democrat,” even while cashing mega-checks from corporate lobbyists to pay for their campaigns?
FACT, unfortunate as it may be: For whatever reason–I’d nominate “fundamental shift in America’s economic prospects as demonstrated by decline in industrial production” –the cozy Middle, where everyone rubs noses and coos at one another, has disappeared. Republicans have long ago (c. 1980) recognized this; some (many?) Democrats have not. And until Democrats get their Class Warfare act together, they’re going to have more and more trouble signing up recruits–to make calls, ring doorbells, or even just to fill out ballots.
Short version: was Michael Bennet a Democrat before January 2009? How do we know? What makes him a Democrat, exactly? Does it really make sense to put forward a creature of Bill Ritter as the Democratic nominee for Senate?
If I had a hypothetical choice was between Ben Nelson, Scott McInnis, and not voting, I’d still vote for Ben Nelson. He at least votes for Democratic leadership, has a majority Dem voting record, and won’t join the GOP Senate Cult who votes according to the leadership’s desire whenever they say “jump”.
Bennet has been better than that, tied for 42nd in party unity with Casey (PA) and Begich (AK) according to VoteView.com. Mark Udall is only two spots higher; Salazar was one spot lower. He fits the state profile of a moderate Democrat.
On the other hand, we can speculate about the MA outcome, and whether some crucial number of Democrats there sat out the election as a means of expressing unhappiness with the deviation from Democratic principles exhibited by the leadership in DC, both White House, Senate, and House. Highly unfortunate if that’s what happened–but easy to understand.
Yes, Coakley was a lousy candidate – but that does not explain losing in Massachusetts. It would explain a lower winning margin, but not losing. I think we lost for a couple of major reasons – that we must address ASAP.
I think what we Dems (and be we I mean Congress) need to do is very simple.
1. Change the rules in the Senate. Cloture existed to stop federal civil rights legislation and continues to let the Republican party freeze government. It may be a tradition but it’s a tradition like blacks being slaves and women being second class citizens. It’s time for it to go.
2. Move forward many small bills quickly. They craft these gigantic all-encompassing bills and that requires a lot more time and they get larded up with a million favors and details. Break them up into each specific piece and move those pieces forward – now.
You can’t change the rules in the Senate without changing the rules of the Senate.
I support returning the filibuster to its pre-1973 rules, but with a 60% of quorum cloture requirement instead of 2/3. (The old rules based cloture votes on quorums; the new rules base cloture votes on total representation. The effect of this is that the minority can object to cloture and so long as they maintain 41 votes, most of them can go home and rest while a few maintain a filibuster – assuming anyone actually calls them on it. Make ’em stay.)
And I 1000% agree on your second point. Many small bills, each clearly understandable and each hard to vote against on their individual merits. If the Republicans want to filibuster them, let them explain their positions.
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winning is all that matters.
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In a two party system it is undeniable that parties matter, thus to that extent, yes, party before principle applies up to a point. However, whenever a party veers too off its core ideological principles it faces internal strife that must be reconciled lest the party fractures and lacks the cohesion to must a coherent message and muster the type of support necessary for sustained electoral success. This has happened to both parties throughout their respective histories (read John Gerrings book – Party Ideologies in America). At some point they go through a transformative recalibration of their core values – either reaffirming them or shifting toward a new center. Either way, the party over ideology paradigm only holds as long as party members feel connected to the party’s core values.
And though you probably don’t mean it this way, it’s instructive to the current situation.
The Republican Party has solidified around a more extreme core; the moderates who’ve left are now stuck looking for a party, and many have settled on the Democratic Party. At the same time, the Democrats have picked up a number of previously inactive people looking for a more responsive, responsible government. The Democratic Party is now torn between the corporate moderates, the moderately libertarian, and the progressives (who often have a libertarian bent). There are a few ways to forge a coalition there, but the Senate (and to a lesser extent the White House and House) have chosen is to meld corporatism with progressive causes. That’s not a winning formula IMHO; too many progressives resent corporate power, and the libertarians don’t like the “big government” feel of such a deal. A moderately libertarian progressivism seems a more likely long-term governing strategy.
How Democrats react to the election will be key to where our country turns for the next election and beyond.
You may very well be correct in your analysis with respect to the liberal caucus. I do, however, disagree with the notion that the republican party has solidified over an extreme core. The republican party is in fact a faction of four core constituencies – traditionalists (social conservatives), neo-cons, moderates and libertarians. McCain was the most high profile of these moderates and was unable to garner enough support within the party, so he had to seek out someone that could appeal to other parts of the core – namely, social conservatives. This left many libertarians disenchanted with the ticket as McCain is by no means a true libertarian and Palin’s social positions left them queasy. But, that did not necessarily translate into a mass exodus from the party nor did they break heavily for Obama (some did obviously – along with some moderates). What carried Obama was a very motivated base and a lot of independents who arguably have libertarian leanings as well – which, may explain why they’re now trending away from the dems. Interesting discussion.
Research 2000 has polling already on what went wrong according to voters.
Specifically, they polled Obama voters who either stayed home or voted for Brown. The answer from voters: exactly what I’ve been saying.
Note the first two results: Among Republican Obama voters, a majority would support Medicare expansion or buy-in, but a majority say the current (Senate) plan goes too far. And similarly, over all Obama/Brown voters, they’d love a Medicare buy-in, but don’t think the current plan is a step forward.
The same basic results hold across all questions: reform == Good, this current dithering idiocy in Washington == Bad.
Research 2000 post-election poll
One way to read this is that the D candidate’s support fractured because some felt the D agenda goes too, far too soon, others because it doesn’t go far enough fast enough.
It’s possible to do the math and determine if running to either group would have been enough for a D win. Though I suspect in MA it would not have mattered- those who feared “too far, too fast” were voting against Obama, not Coakley.
both groups would have been happy. A lot of this unhappiness comes from the fact that they’re still screwing around.
and that the bill is poorly understaood.
Either bill.
Quick- how does either bill affect you personally?
Your neighbor? the Illegal immigrants in prison?
etc
I don’t think it’s the agenda, I think it’s the methodology. Congressional Democrats have tried to do their work without upsetting corporate lobbyists, and they’ve made some wishy-washy decisions on spending our money as a result.
Hold the corporate types accountable for the problems they got themselves into, and for the excesses they’re still foisting on us as consumers and taxpayers. You’ll get most of the disaffected Dems and Unaffiliateds back, and some of the moderate Republicans will come along for the ride.
No, you can’t appease the corporations and still do the things these disaffected voters expect.
They didn’t like the bank bailout, and they don’t like the fact that these should’ve-been-bankrupted corporations are paying their top executives like it’s 2007, with no significant consequences to be seen.
They don’t like the health care mandate when they see Federal drug price negotiations off the table, weak price controls on insurance, and a 300% “age penalty”. Especially when they could’ve had Medicare buy-in, full-on published community ratings, and so much more.
agenda and process
If the follow-up polls are right, the issue is clarity of vision, not general direction.
Switchers and stay-at-homes wanted reform, just not obtuse reform. They wanted fiscal recovery, just not consequence-free bailouts.
Method seems to be the main problem.
Speaking as a moderately active Dem off and on through my life; worked on McGovern and other campaigns, manned the phones, walked the streets, was precinct captain in Englewood, etc. I don’t think I’ve ever voted for a Republican in the position of making law, although I have for offices like County Clerk.
What I see in the party over the last bunch of years is a fear of offending. Whether it’s a demographic group, or the corporatist influence via DLC philosophies, Dems have become cowards. Traditional Democratic values of having government solve problems bigger than what individuals, states, or business can do seem to be on life support, at best. Our “leaders” seem to be afraid of their own shadows.
My points of reference are two, one historical and well known, one locally. The former is FDR, pointing out how “the economic royalists” screw the common man and woman, who fought the Republicans and the corporations (much less in influence then) to be a champion of the common man. He was brazen enough to point out that not only should we have freedom of speech and religion, but should have freedom from want and fear. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F… Programs like Social Security, the TVA, regulatory agencies, all helped Americans and most still exist. He pushed, he tried, he sometimes took lumps, but he was rewarded with four terms.
The local politician is Morgan Carroll. She has stayed true to her values which are those that would benefit ordinary Coloradoans. When she arrived in the lege, she told the Sargents at Arms to not get her out of session to meet with lobbyists in the back. Boy, did that piss of Colorado’s version of K street. Has any other legislator followed suit? No, they want the $$$$ for re-election by currying corporate favor.
There are other good Dems, don’t get me wrong. And I understand that our tent is big enough for the likes of John Salazar, for instance.
Except for politicians like Morgan Carroll, I feel that voting Democratic now is more like voting Not Republican.
It’s hard to get fired up for a rear guard action.