Politics The Donkey in the room...the Democrats today

Does anyone else think the Democrats have a big problem that they aren't addressing correctly?

I hate to bring up the 2016 campaign season already, but what are the Democrats going to be running on? Besides proving that they are good about sending out hundreds of e-mails begging for money with no substance, suggestions, or policy proposals for making America better. Who is even going to run? Will the conservatives have such a big lead getting their message out there that the Democrats will not be able to catch up? Minimum wage isn't going to be a big issue now that Wal-Mart increased it and other companies are following suit that can. Gay marriage will probably not be an issue once the Supreme Court rules on it this Summer (Far right social conservatives will still vote on this issue though I bet). Immigration doesn't affect that many people around here. But, if the 2016 election is about gun rights, middle class tax reform, business tax reform, and foreign policy... The Democrats and Liberals/Progressives have no chance in 2016. I'm sure healthcare will be a big issue, and I have no idea what either party will come up with as a plan.

Then you have the far left wing who are upset with the Democrats, probably correctly, for not doing things like breaking up the big banks, prosecuting Wall St., Gitmo/War policy, not gutting the private health insurance cartel, not protecting the environment from oil spills, fracking waste, and coal waste water/pollution. Now, they have done some good things or at least decent things, and have prevented the bad ideas of the right wing in some cases, but the Democrats have a problem with the base being anti-corporate, while there are still lots of middle class people working for corporations, union members who count on corporations/governments for their paychecks, and there aren't very good options for dropping out of the current fiscal structure easily. There doesn't seem to be a grand plan, and there is little media coverage of their ideas.

Where are the conventions to hash out left wing policies and ideas among somewhat agreeable people? Why does it seem like the right-wing candidates go to "freedom summits" and "CPAC's" every week then get more media attention then the left wing ones?

I get that the Democratic party might want to conserve money and not take away from what Obama is doing by needing to give their opinions on every decision Obama makes. And I'm not sure what Hillary will decide to do, but maybe it's her decision they are waiting for. I'm just not sure how effective of a campaign she will run. I can't defend all the dirt the right will throw at her. If she were to win, she might be more forceful when in office, but the extreme conservatives will still work against her in government, try to destroy the ability of government to get anything done, and spin any good result as their own. The right wing media will be all over her, and they have plenty of talking points already to go.

What do you think? Are Democrats in a good place? Do they need to hash out their plans and policies for the future? What will they do to deal with the media issue and the conservatives who feel no shame for posting whatever they feel like? What should the Democrats be doing in the next few years to run an effective campaign and connect with the general population again?

 

One small point: announcing detailed, specific policy plans has never been good for winning national elections.

 

I am a registered democrat, admittedly more conservative than most. I voted for Obama, but I wonder if the party has gotten too beholden to its new coalition.

I am not African American, Hispanic, (legal or otherwise) gay, lesbian, transgendered. I'm not a public employee, not a union member, I mostly ignore the language police, I'm white, I'm affluent, and I despise the dishonesty and opportunistic ambitions of Hillary Clinton.

I come from a family of small (actually, micro-small) business owners and farmer/ranchers, that live in "fly-over" country and are sagging under the burden of increasingly burdensome regulations, reporting requirements, and a tax code so Byzantine and complex that even the highly paid lawyers and bureaucrats who crafted the code don't understand it.

I wonder if the Democratic Party really has anything to offer me in 2015?

 

As a woman probably a lot more than the Republicans.
Considering that there first order of business has been womb control the minute they got into power, their people babble about things like "legitimate rape", that they all opposed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and in general the party has proven to be consistently hostile to woman's rights in general the Democrats are wind up being the only choice.
Not a great choice mind you but unless you want to go third party, their it.

 

I agree that the biggest problem for the Democrats is a failure to communicate and articulate a clearer vision for the county.

What they dont need are circuses like CPAC and Family Values Summits that appeal to the extremists. What they do need is to more effectively continue to broaden the tent in a manner that goes beyond the traditional base described above.

On issues like income inequality, the message should be more oriented towards economic growth for all (as opposed to simply lessening the income gap that translates into income redistribution) and much more on Main Street v Wall Street.

On issues like womens reproductive rights and real family friendly policies, the stark differences and the current threats need to be emphasised even more.

On environmental/energy issues (ie climate change), they need to push back harder against the deniers.

On foreign policy, they need to make it very clear that the US will not send husbands/wives, sons/daughters and brothers/sistners into foreign wars based on ideology but that pose no direct threat to the U.S.

 

Five years ago I would have said the Democrats' problem is that their base is so wide, they're trying to appeal to so many demographics, that they're winding up unpalatable to all of them and succeding more because of people voting Not-Republican than anyone actually voting for a Democrat. Today I think the problem is exactly the opposite in the worst way possible. The Dems have seen just how effective the Tea Party was and decided they can do it even better...

And the Democrats have nothing to sell women but fear, lies, and hate; seeking a control no less abusive in outcome or effect. They're being consumed from the inside by a cancerous growth of sex-negative fear-driven censorious authoritarianism that is so indistinguishable from the radicalized right as to make discerning the two's rhetoric is impossible with the giveaway nouns removed. We've got a choice between two flavors of Taliban; One insisting on forcing us all to conform to a prudish anti-sex censorship riddled morality based law where dissent is crimethink and our rights come in a distant second to corporations and churches Because Jesus, and one insisting on forcing us all to prudish anti-sex censorship riddled morality based law where dissent is crimethink and our rights come in a distant second to corporations and cults of politically correct personality Because "Equality".

The Left isn't Left anymore, it's the Right rewrapped and resold with new and improved artificial liberal flavoring. Paternalistic, sex-negative, hostile at best to debate, and utterly intolerant of ideological diversity; Dissent is crimethink, arguments are soldiers, and feels are more important than reals. The Right may have tried to bring about a police state by force and through fear of terrorism but it's the left that has managed to successfully convince people to willingly fight against the very concept of innocence until guilt is proven, and indeed innocence itself. The Right tried to ban and censor in order to force its radicalized christian morality on others, but it's the left that has convinced people to willingly burn books and ban media. The Right has railed against sexual liberation for decades but it's the left that's brought sex-negativity and paternalism to the point of infantilising women before the law. The Right may have tried to uphold outdated ideas of race relations and gender roles but its the Left that's thrown roses at the feet of rich white men (and a few tokens) who loudly and proudly tell all other women and non-whites what their place is and what they should think. The Right has long tried to shame or silence anyone they dislike but it's the Left that's become so adept at their modern auto de fe's that even a women's rights activist, a victim of genital mutilation, whose partner had been murdered in broad daylight and had a threat to her staked to his corpse, can be successfully transformed into a pariah.

I want a true liberal party. Sex-positive, pro-debate, dissent loving, pro-science, pro-facts, with an unshakeable foundation in the principles of rational thought and a knowable objective reality, liberal values of justice, and objective truth.

The problem with the Democrats is simple: They're becoming better Republicans than the Republicans. They're just not liberal anymore.

 

Yeah pretty much. A while back both sides realised they can get filthy rich by playing the same game with different verbiage and just horking down corporate money while their respective constituencies are busy falling for their respective moral panics. The real problem is both sides got taken over by people that actually believe their own bullshit.

 

On the one level I agree that the two parties are seriously broken on another I know that I have to go with the lesser of two evils.
You still get evil but it's not as awful.
Foreign policy, spying on our own people, trying to control information, in making war without Congress having the guts to actually debate on the subject, not fixing our crumbling infrastructure, both sides are bad.

For example I think we can safely say that without Republican presidents Citizens United wouldn't have happened.
For me that's a major change in the way politics works and has screwed us for a long time to come.
Corporations as people and money as free speech --- ARRRGGGHH!!!!

And I'll go back to Freedom of Choice.
There aren't any sitting Democrats who believe that birth control is a bad idea.
There are Republicans who have published papers saying that.

There is a long list both big and small of things that the Democrats are just a smidgen better at if not a lot.
I still vote on the individual but I have to look at the long term effects of the vote as well.

 

Just learned that I will be in the room with the Donkey in Chief next week. Obama will be speaking at our legislative conference next Monday.

 

The New Democrat Coalition in the House just releaed their American Prosperity Agenda.

These guys are centrist Dems, not very inspiring and the agenda is fine for what it is but nothing very innovative or outside the box to attract much interest.

On the other hand, it certainly wont scare away Independents like the "no compromise" extremist agenda of the Tea Party and/or the religious right.

 

I'm not worried about the Democrats winning the presidency so long as the GOP Primaries continue to be a clown show of fringy nut jobs

 

Here is the map the GOP is trying to get in 2016. I think Walker, Rubio, or Kasich (OH governor) could easily get this outcome if the election was held tomorrow. Rand Paul, Jeb Bush, and Rick Perry might have a little bit of difficulty in some states, but I wouldn't rule them out. Ben Carson and Ted Cruz are just crazy, but are still making the rest of their ideas look normal and rational. Something definitely missing on the Left. Especially with the lack of any type of cohesive plan for the country by the moderate Democrats that hasn't been unified. It seems like they are running this campaign as if it is a second term campaign for Hillary.

And if Hillary does run, do you think she has any chance of winning any of those "red" states in the election?

The GOP has quite a few candidates already in the primary campaign and getting their message and ideas out there, yet the Democrats are too worried about losing or going up against the Clinton's.
Bernie Sanders on 2016: I’d run if I could win - Mackenzie Weinger - POLITICO.com

And I don't see them trying to change their strategy to get back working white guys and religious folks yet.

 

Four states they predict as going Red - FL, NH, OH, VA - all went for Obama in '12. All four (or others) needed for the Republican win. Kasich and Rubio could win their respective home states. Walker wont win a labor state like OH.

Nope. I dont buy it.

 

Obama won't be the candidate in 2016 though. And when the Democratic candidate loses as bad as they did in the 2014 governor election, I don't know where the voters will come from to put Hillary (or Biden/Sanders/Warren) over anyone else from the GOP.

There are 11.5 million Ohioans however, but some are under 18, and some are ineligible to vote. I'm not sure where the 2.827 million who came out to vote for Obama in 2012 compared to 2.661 million for Romney are at. In my part of the state, it is a moderate red area, so I might be a little biased. It just doesn't seem likely that a Democrat could win on the platform they have been using here.

Ohio Gubernatorial Election, 2014[1]

PartyCandidateVotes%​

Republican John Kasich (Incumbent)

1,922,436​

63.85%​

Democratic Ed FitzGerald

989,201​

32.85%​

Green Anita Rios

99,415​

3.30%​

Totals​

3,011,052​

100%​

(It also isn't a "They" who made the map. It is me who made the map. You can go to 270towin.com and make your own too.)

 

I've seen a fair bit of research suggesting that was a race effect helping Obama. I've also seen some research suggesting that Clinton is so distasteful to voters that even racially biased voters were more willing to vote for Obama than for her.

This is "hot coffee" Clinton we're talking about, she's perfectly capable of producing an adequate supply of ludicrousness entirely on her own. She's a female Democrat Dick Cheney.

 

Gubernatorial and off-year (non presidential) elections are not great measures.

If you look at the demographics, race was not that much more of a factor for Obama than other recent Democratic candidates. And the demographic gaps for women, blacks, Hispanics, etc. still widely favor the Democrats, even Hillary . And even more as the Republicans will likely beat up on each other to be the most extreme on immigration, women's reproductive rights,health care, tax policy, etc. to appeal to the more extremist voters during the primaries.