2014 Midterm - Democrats Postmortem
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Midterms 2014: An Extremely Brief Autopsy
With the dust still settling around the 2014 midterms and so much bloviating commentary inundating us as every pundit in the land tries to interpret the meaning of the elections, we might step back for a moment and try to analyze some of the reasons for this latest Republican romp. I offer below some mercifully brief thoughts about the elections broken down into a few broad categories.
Historical:
Economic:
Political:
Sociological:
Anthropological:
Psychological:
Historical:
Almost any junior high school history or politics teacher can tell you that throughout American history the party in power normally loses seats in midterm elections (unless something very weird is happening). The so-called political geniuses among President Barack Obama's brain trust appear to have been clueless going into 2010 and again (after winning reelection) in 2014.
Midterms are base elections and rather than give the Democratic base something it could really sink its teeth into the Obama people limped into both midterms with milquetoast accomplishments and "messaging" that couldn't rally a wet noodle. Sometimes losing a tough fight can energize a party's base just as much as winning. But the Democrats after accommodating Wall Street and corporate education "reformers" and the military-industrial complex seemed to have lost any real fight in them. In 2010, the Democrats failed to stand up to the big banks like the public wanted or even give a forthright defense of the new health care law. By 2014 the base felt so let down it didn't bother to show up.
Midterms are base elections and rather than give the Democratic base something it could really sink its teeth into the Obama people limped into both midterms with milquetoast accomplishments and "messaging" that couldn't rally a wet noodle. Sometimes losing a tough fight can energize a party's base just as much as winning. But the Democrats after accommodating Wall Street and corporate education "reformers" and the military-industrial complex seemed to have lost any real fight in them. In 2010, the Democrats failed to stand up to the big banks like the public wanted or even give a forthright defense of the new health care law. By 2014 the base felt so let down it didn't bother to show up.
Economic:
Most Americans feel it in their bones that none of the so-called gains of the "recovery" have trickled down to their pocket books. There's a widespread sense of economic malaise and stagnation. Trumpeting statistics about how wonderful a 6 percent unemployment rate is or how terrific it is to see the stock market reach a 17,000 Dow simply doesn't resonate.
Working people know they're working harder and longer hours these days just to get by. Any real economic "gains" since the worst days of the Great Recession have gone to the top 1 or 2 percent of households. The 700,000 or so public sector jobs that Wall Street destroyed in 2008-09 have been largely replaced by McJobs. That's why even Republican voters in Nebraska and Arkansas and other states chose to increase the minimum wage showing that even the Chamber of Commerce types can see that putting a little more money in the pockets of the working poor might generate a few more customers for their vaunted private sector establishments like hair salons or coffee shops. This economy blows and presidents (and their parties) more often than not take the blame.
Working people know they're working harder and longer hours these days just to get by. Any real economic "gains" since the worst days of the Great Recession have gone to the top 1 or 2 percent of households. The 700,000 or so public sector jobs that Wall Street destroyed in 2008-09 have been largely replaced by McJobs. That's why even Republican voters in Nebraska and Arkansas and other states chose to increase the minimum wage showing that even the Chamber of Commerce types can see that putting a little more money in the pockets of the working poor might generate a few more customers for their vaunted private sector establishments like hair salons or coffee shops. This economy blows and presidents (and their parties) more often than not take the blame.
Political:
Even the most cursory glance at some of the states that Democrats had to win in order to hold the Senate majority revealed a tough road ahead. Blue Dog Democrats (or DINOs) like Mark Pryor in Arkansas or Kay Hagan in North Carolina or Mary Landrieu in Louisiana are not the best representatives of what constitutes the Democratic base. And in Iowa, South Dakota, and Montana the retirements of old-school Democrats like Tom Harkin, Tim Johnson, and Max Baucus, who even the states' residents couldn't remember when they were first elected, created a huge opening for Republicans in these rural states. Outside SuperPAC money goes a long way in these states. If the Koch Brothers drop a million or two million dollars in a state like South Dakota or Montana they get a lot of bang for their buck. The states that were in play in 2014 due to retirements, a restless electorate, and low turnout were all states one would expect Democrats to do poorly in.
Sociological:
The electorate that votes in midterm elections is older and whiter and looks more like the viewership of The O'Reilly Factor than anything that accurately reflects the true racial and ethnic diversity of this country. This trend held true in 2010 and 2014, in part, because the Democratic establishment failed to give non-white and youthful voters anything substantive that might energize them.
Anthropological:
Anyone who sees the recent successes in the courts and at the ballot box legalizing gay marriage or the use of marijuana as indicators that the "culture wars" of the last thirty years have receded is in store for a big surprise.
In both the 2010 and 2014 midterms where Republicans succeeded fabulously most GOP candidates did not shy away from taking strong and open stands against abortion rights. Brent Bozell of ForAmerica and Marjorie Dannenfelser of Susan B. Anthony List and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and Jenny Beth Martin of the Tea Party Patriots were all instrumental in getting the Christian faithful to the polls and they're expecting congressional action on cultural issues. It should come as no surprise that the 113th Congress spent oodles of time passing anti-abortion bills knowing they had no chance of clearing the Senate. Now that they have the Senate too, we'll see a slew of bills attacking women's reproductive rights. Just because they failed to get personhood laws passed in Colorado and North Dakota this time around doesn't mean that the culture warriors won't take them up in the 114th Congress. These foot soldiers among social conservatives who lick the envelopes and knock on doors and give money to anti-choice Republican candidates have high expectations that their hard work will be rewarded by policy.
In both the 2010 and 2014 midterms where Republicans succeeded fabulously most GOP candidates did not shy away from taking strong and open stands against abortion rights. Brent Bozell of ForAmerica and Marjorie Dannenfelser of Susan B. Anthony List and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and Jenny Beth Martin of the Tea Party Patriots were all instrumental in getting the Christian faithful to the polls and they're expecting congressional action on cultural issues. It should come as no surprise that the 113th Congress spent oodles of time passing anti-abortion bills knowing they had no chance of clearing the Senate. Now that they have the Senate too, we'll see a slew of bills attacking women's reproductive rights. Just because they failed to get personhood laws passed in Colorado and North Dakota this time around doesn't mean that the culture warriors won't take them up in the 114th Congress. These foot soldiers among social conservatives who lick the envelopes and knock on doors and give money to anti-choice Republican candidates have high expectations that their hard work will be rewarded by policy.
Psychological:
Some surveys indicate that as many as 37 percent of 2014 voters couldn't tell pollsters which party controlled Congress, but they all knew President Obama was the "true source" of what's wrong with Washington.
Congressional leadership is diffuse; few people even know who John Boehner is or anything about the Senate filibuster or Mitch McConnell's obstructionism. But Obama is front and center because the presidency is a highly personalized office. Obama's face is on the front page of the newspapers a lot. The Republicans have even manufactured a narrative that it was Obama who shut down the government, not them. Chief executives, especially charismatic leaders with a bit of a cult of personality surrounding them are easily vilified and blamed for everything that's going wrong, whereas the congressional leaders can blend into the background. Mitch McConnell and Reince Priebus and Karl Rove understand this psychological phenomenon. They knew they could duck responsibility for their own obstructionism. It's relatively easy to focus people's wrath on one famous individual. It's the same phenomenon that sometimes toppled highly personalized dictatorships like Ferdinand Marcos or Anastocio Somoza. Toss in some visually powerful ads scaring the crap out of people with Ebola and ISIS and blaming Obama for their fears and anxieties and the emotional equation is complete.
Congressional leadership is diffuse; few people even know who John Boehner is or anything about the Senate filibuster or Mitch McConnell's obstructionism. But Obama is front and center because the presidency is a highly personalized office. Obama's face is on the front page of the newspapers a lot. The Republicans have even manufactured a narrative that it was Obama who shut down the government, not them. Chief executives, especially charismatic leaders with a bit of a cult of personality surrounding them are easily vilified and blamed for everything that's going wrong, whereas the congressional leaders can blend into the background. Mitch McConnell and Reince Priebus and Karl Rove understand this psychological phenomenon. They knew they could duck responsibility for their own obstructionism. It's relatively easy to focus people's wrath on one famous individual. It's the same phenomenon that sometimes toppled highly personalized dictatorships like Ferdinand Marcos or Anastocio Somoza. Toss in some visually powerful ads scaring the crap out of people with Ebola and ISIS and blaming Obama for their fears and anxieties and the emotional equation is complete.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-palermo/
On Tuesday, November 4, 2014, older, white voters — who traditionally support Republicans — went to the polls in droves, while turnout among traditionally Democratic groups — the young, the minorities, and women — was down....
<span style="background-color: #FFFF00"><b>....Indeed, overall turnout declined to an estimated 36.6% of eligible voters, the lowest rate of participation since the 1940s,</b></span> despite the $3 billion spent by candidates, political parties, and super PACs....
....In Georgia, meanwhile, <span style="background-color: #FFFF00"><b>nearly 40,000 new (Black) voters mysteriously vanished from the rolls,</b></span> possibly due to scrubbing by a controversial software system known as Crosscheck. Turnout was only 34%, which is down six percentage points from 2010.
Over the past two years Raphael Warnock, leader of Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, worked with the New Georgia Project to register some 80,000 new and mostly black voters. New Georgia Project’s efforts was the state’s largest voter registration drive in 50 years, according to reports. “It’s a fundamental, basic American right to vote”, Warnock told me. Such thinking explains why he was so angry when half of those new voters failed to appear on the rolls this fall....
READ The Entire Article -How Voter Suppression Helped Produce the Lowest Turnout in Decades HERE
VIEWING THE VIDEO BELOW IS MANDATORY
CROSSCHECK Project removes millions of Black, Hispanic & Asian sounding names from voter rolls
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allowfullscreen="true"></iframe>
READ The Entire Article -JIM CROW RETURNS- Millions of minority voters threatened by electoral purge HERE
Voter turnout in the United States for non-Head Of State (President, Prime Minister) elections is the WORST IN THE WORLD
All of the above being 100% true...
Is the Democratic Party led by President Barack Obama, Leader Nancy Pelosi, Leader Harry Reid and Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz blameless for these November 2014 election results?? HELL NO!! Their election strategy bordered on complete incompetence. 98% of Democratic candidates literally ran from President Obama's achievements as though he had Ebola. The National Democratic Party run by the individuals named above had absolutely NO message at all. The RepubliKlan message simple - let's punish the ****** in the white house, a vote for a demoRat is a vote for the ******; that was their campaign. National Democrats continue to run positioning themselves as "Republican Lite" candidates. National Democrats as we learned from Obama's former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel view the democratic voter base as "fucking retards" - and treat the base accordingly. National Democrats treat the "fucking retards" base of the Democratic party like mushrooms; keep them in the dark and feed them animal manure; but then expect them to miraculously and enthusiastically show up on election day. This is the strategy of the corporate democrats who run the Democratic party; pimp the base. The corporate democrats look at Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren who talks about how the entire political 'system' is rigged against the 99%, and she talks about sharply reducing student loan interest rates, and she talks about a 'living wage' of $15 dollars and hour, and she talks about ending $$Billions$$ in tax credits given to corporations outsourcing jobs to China, India, Bangladesh, et al., and she talks about ending the carried interest loophole which allows vulture capitalist like RMoney to pay a maximum tax of 15%, while a top heart or brain surgeon pays 45% in taxes on his/her income. The National Corporate Democrats look at Elizabeth Warren as "retarded". Why? Because their major dollar funding is from Wall Street, the same place RepubliKlans get a lot of money from. When Hillary runs in 2016 she will try to pimp the "retarded" Democratic base again. Stay tuned?!?
...and?
Democrats bitch and moan and don't vote. Republicans bitch and moan and vote.
Maybe the conservatives/republicans/ libertarians/right wing are correct. A portion of Americans want something given to them.
source: Crooks and Liars
Jenny Beth Martin Gives Republicans Their Marching Orders
This is why President Obama should do everything he can to make their heads explode.
<iframe src="http://embed.crooksandliars.com/embed/8DhkhXjL" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="340" width="600"></iframe>
The day after the election, conservatives issued marching orders to the Republican leadership which boil down to this: Repeal Obamacare, seal up the borders tight, and whatever you do, don't let the Kenyan usurper get anything done for the next two years.
They held this press conference at the National Press Club, but you didn't hear about it on the nightly news or anywhere else. If the public heard JennyBeth Martin get up there and say those things, they might regret not voting or casting a ballot for a Republican. We can't have that.
Instead, we heard about Mitch McConnell and Reince Preibus' claim that if Obama signed an executive order on immigration, it would 'poison the well.' Honey, the well is completely, totally dry. There's nothing there to drop arsenic in, but that didn't stop the press from going with the whole "ZOMG, if he signs that order he'll never get a tea partier on board with immigration reform!"
As if.
Any Republican who doesn't fall into lockstep with them will immediately be exiled to the land of primaries, where tea partiers are waiting in every church and street corner to take away their power. We know this, but your average voter who tapped the (R) candidate on their ballot Tuesday didn't have a clue.
However...
This little display of power and hubris right here? This is why we don't quit. This is why we won't quit. These authoritarian power junkies represent a very, very small minority of people in this country who wield an outsize amount of power. They're liars, they're cheats, and most of all, they're all handmaidens to their billionaires.
Attending Princess JennyBeth at this particular press conference: Richard Viguerie, Ken Blackwell, David Bossie, Brent Bozell, Marjorie Dannenfelser, and Tony Perkins. All the Koch billionaire factions, well represented.
Don't be fooled by Martin's big diss of the U.S. Chamber, either. ConservativeHQ.com's Vice Chair used to be the US Chamber's senior political affairs manager. There's no daylight between these people and the US Chamber, or the NRA, or the Family Research Council, or any of the so-called "tea party" groups. That comment was just smoke and mirrors to disguise the US Chamber's involvement for corporations that might be put off by the extreme positions they plan to take.
This is your Republican party, ladies and gentlemen. They are not just a faction. They are the movers and shakers. Ginni Thomas must have been standing in the back, giggling.
Most importantly, this is the reason that President Obama shouldn't hold back on his executive orders. It's time to make them show their ass for what it is, and to let the country know what extremists they just allowed to take over the reins of the Senate.
Democrats lost ground among white voters
Democrats lost ground among white voters
Associated Press
By JENNIFER AGIESTA and JESSE J. HOLLAND
November 7, 2014 4:45 AM
WASHINGTON (AP) — White voters of all ages were less likely to back Democrats this year than in elections past, helping Republicans nationwide but most acutely in the South — and overpowering Democratic efforts to turn out their core supporters among blacks and Hispanics.
In a nation growing ever more diverse, political forecasters repeatedly warn Republicans they must improve their appeal among minorities in order to remain competitive in the long term.
But for the Democrats, dominating the vote among minorities isn't enough to win elections today — and it won't be in the future if the GOP is able to run up similar margins among whites, who still make up a majority of voters in every state.
"The rule of thumb was Democrats could win with 90 percent of the African-American vote and 40 percent of the white vote," said Merle Black, a political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta.
"But now very few Democrats could think about getting 40 percent of the white vote. They're trying to get 30 percent. In the Deep South states, from South Carolina to Louisiana, it's very hard for the Democratic candidate to get 25 percent of the white vote."
Republicans running for seats in the House won 60 percent of the white vote, while Democrats won the backing of 89 percent of African-Americans and 62 percent of Hispanics.
Those margins are nearly identical to the 2010 midterm elections. But Democrats won more of the white and Hispanic vote in 2006, the last midterm elections in which the party won control of the House. White voters last tilted in Democrats' favor in a midterm in 1990, and were a swing group in the 1980s.
The data on voters come from exit polls of voters nationally and in 27 states that were conducted for The Associated Press and the television networks by Edison Research. Most interviews were conducted among randomly selected voters at precincts nationwide and in each state.
Outside the South, whites broke for Republicans by an average of 8 percentage points on Tuesday. But in 10 Southern states with an election for Senate on the ballot, Republicans won the white vote by an average of 42 points. Democrats garnered so little support among whites in Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas that a majority of those voting for the Democratic candidate were non-white.
In North Carolina, though incumbent Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan was widely credited with running a solid campaign, she carried just 33 percent of the white vote — down from 39 percent in 2008 — and lost. White voters under age 30 backed Hagan by close to a 2-1 margin six years ago as they helped sweep President Barack Obama into office.
This time, in a midterm election, the younger white voters who cast ballots in North Carolina broke just as decisively for Hagan's Republican opponent, state House Speaker Thom Tillis.
Steve Rosenthal, president of the Organizing Group, a Democratic-leaning consulting firm, said he's been jokingly calling this election the Seinfeld election for Democrats: They had no national message that resonated with their voters.
"It was an election about nothing. Republicans made it an election about President Obama. That was their goal," he said. "Their mission was to turn out people who were angry, people who were displeased with the job the president has done."
It was a mistake for Democrats to distance themselves from the president, said Erik Smith, a former Obama campaign adviser and Democratic strategist. Democratic voters are not motivated to help candidates who were happy to be with Obama two years ago, but tried to avoid his presence this year, he said.
"I'm sure (it) led a lot of these voters to say, 'How is this candidate going to treat me in two years?'" he said.
The only states in which Democratic Senate candidates improved their overall support among whites were Minnesota, Oregon and Mississippi, a Southern state where Travis Childers managed to grow the Democratic share of the white vote from 8 percent in 2008 to 16 percent.
Democratic voters were especially less engaged in states where there were not supposed to be competitive elections, said Michael McDonald, an associate professor of political science at the University of Florida who tracks voter turnout.
Democratic voters are traditionally more likely to stay home if the midterm races are uninspiring, while Republican voters — who tend to be older, wealthier and more educated and also are more likely to be white — generally come to the polls anyway, he said.
"The poster child for this would be Virginia. It's an uncompetitive race, according to all the polls. In that environment, who sits out the election? It's predominantly Democrats," McDonald said.
Two days after the election, while the heavily favored incumbent, Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, had a lead of a few thousand votes out of more than 2 million cast, the race remained too close to call.
https://news.yahoo.com/democrats-lost-ground-among-white-voters-094522348--election.html
Democrats lost ground among white voters
Associated Press
By JENNIFER AGIESTA and JESSE J. HOLLAND
November 7, 2014 4:45 AM
WASHINGTON (AP) — White voters of all ages were less likely to back Democrats this year than in elections past, helping Republicans nationwide but most acutely in the South — and overpowering Democratic efforts to turn out their core supporters among blacks and Hispanics.
In a nation growing ever more diverse, political forecasters repeatedly warn Republicans they must improve their appeal among minorities in order to remain competitive in the long term.
But for the Democrats, dominating the vote among minorities isn't enough to win elections today — and it won't be in the future if the GOP is able to run up similar margins among whites, who still make up a majority of voters in every state.
"The rule of thumb was Democrats could win with 90 percent of the African-American vote and 40 percent of the white vote," said Merle Black, a political science professor at Emory University in Atlanta.
"But now very few Democrats could think about getting 40 percent of the white vote. They're trying to get 30 percent. In the Deep South states, from South Carolina to Louisiana, it's very hard for the Democratic candidate to get 25 percent of the white vote."
Republicans running for seats in the House won 60 percent of the white vote, while Democrats won the backing of 89 percent of African-Americans and 62 percent of Hispanics.
Those margins are nearly identical to the 2010 midterm elections. But Democrats won more of the white and Hispanic vote in 2006, the last midterm elections in which the party won control of the House. White voters last tilted in Democrats' favor in a midterm in 1990, and were a swing group in the 1980s.
The data on voters come from exit polls of voters nationally and in 27 states that were conducted for The Associated Press and the television networks by Edison Research. Most interviews were conducted among randomly selected voters at precincts nationwide and in each state.
Outside the South, whites broke for Republicans by an average of 8 percentage points on Tuesday. But in 10 Southern states with an election for Senate on the ballot, Republicans won the white vote by an average of 42 points. Democrats garnered so little support among whites in Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas that a majority of those voting for the Democratic candidate were non-white.
In North Carolina, though incumbent Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan was widely credited with running a solid campaign, she carried just 33 percent of the white vote — down from 39 percent in 2008 — and lost. White voters under age 30 backed Hagan by close to a 2-1 margin six years ago as they helped sweep President Barack Obama into office.
This time, in a midterm election, the younger white voters who cast ballots in North Carolina broke just as decisively for Hagan's Republican opponent, state House Speaker Thom Tillis.
Steve Rosenthal, president of the Organizing Group, a Democratic-leaning consulting firm, said he's been jokingly calling this election the Seinfeld election for Democrats: They had no national message that resonated with their voters.
"It was an election about nothing. Republicans made it an election about President Obama. That was their goal," he said. "Their mission was to turn out people who were angry, people who were displeased with the job the president has done."
It was a mistake for Democrats to distance themselves from the president, said Erik Smith, a former Obama campaign adviser and Democratic strategist. Democratic voters are not motivated to help candidates who were happy to be with Obama two years ago, but tried to avoid his presence this year, he said.
"I'm sure (it) led a lot of these voters to say, 'How is this candidate going to treat me in two years?'" he said.
The only states in which Democratic Senate candidates improved their overall support among whites were Minnesota, Oregon and Mississippi, a Southern state where Travis Childers managed to grow the Democratic share of the white vote from 8 percent in 2008 to 16 percent.
Democratic voters were especially less engaged in states where there were not supposed to be competitive elections, said Michael McDonald, an associate professor of political science at the University of Florida who tracks voter turnout.
Democratic voters are traditionally more likely to stay home if the midterm races are uninspiring, while Republican voters — who tend to be older, wealthier and more educated and also are more likely to be white — generally come to the polls anyway, he said.
"The poster child for this would be Virginia. It's an uncompetitive race, according to all the polls. In that environment, who sits out the election? It's predominantly Democrats," McDonald said.
Two days after the election, while the heavily favored incumbent, Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, had a lead of a few thousand votes out of more than 2 million cast, the race remained too close to call.
https://news.yahoo.com/democrats-lost-ground-among-white-voters-094522348--election.html
Sen. Kay Hagan: Obama should have praised economy during campaign
President Barack Obama could have done more to help Senate Democrats in last month’s elections
if he’d spoken out about the nation’s healthy economy and its positive impact on middle-class families,
Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina said Wednesday in her first interview since her narrow
defeat.
“You look at the economy right now,” she said, and ticked off a list of developments that Obama could
have trumpeted during the recent campaign: gas prices are low; the stock market is at an all-time high
and jobs continue to grow, unlike the situation in 2009 when she first came into office, Hagan said.
“The president hasn’t used the bully pulpit to get that message out in a way that resonates with people,”
Hagan said during an interview in her Capitol Hill office, which she will have to vacate this month after
a single six-year term. “And I think that’s an issue that the Democrats should not cede.”
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/12/...d.html?sp=/99/104/244/112/&rh=1#storylink=cpy