2020: How the Democrats Are Already Blowing It Again
This year, in what has been billed (incorrectly) as the most important midterm election in American history, the Democratic party absolutely failed to present the electorate with a national campaign, leaving it up to the individual candidates to put together their own campaign strategies. The disorganization of the National Democratic Committee is painfully obvious. The party leadership is out of touch with the party rank and file, and even more out of touch with the electorate.
Will the Next Contestant Enter and Sign In Please?
This year, in what has been billed (incorrectly) as the most important midterm election in American history, the Democratic party absolutely failed to present the electorate with a national campaign, leaving it up to the individual candidates to put together their own campaign strategies.
The disorganization of the National Democratic Committee is painfully obvious. The party leadership is out of touch with the party rank and file, and even more out of touch with the electorate.
The Democrats have to face up to the fact that a substantial percentage of the electorate actually LIKES some of the things that Trump has done or is in the process of doing. What they don’t like is Donald Trump himself, the person, rather than the president. The Democrats have to start acknowledging that Trump isn’t always wrong (even a stopped clock is right twice a day) and focus instead on the really bad things he’s doing to the economy and the country.
That’s a problem because the only way to combat a gargantuan personality like Donald Trump is with another gargantuan personality, and the Democrats don’t have one. They don’t have an FDR or an LBJ waiting in the wings to take up the Democratic banner and run with it. What they do have is a bunch of wannabes who don’t have either Roosevelt’s charm and charisma or Johnson’s true grit.
The Midterms are the Starting Gun for 2020
The closing months of the midterm elections is when the front runners for the next presidential contest traditionally make their initial moves toward seeking the nomination. (Donald Trump started his 2016 in 2012. He started his 2020 campaign the day after the election.) Usually, these are people who are NOT running for anything in the midterms.
Nevertheless, no single Democratic leader has emerged as a national spokesperson for the Democratic party during the 2018 electioneering.
What the Democrats should have done was exactly what all the pundits warned them against: accepting the challenge and making every congressional campaign a direct challenge to Trump’s presidency because that’s exactly how Trump has set up this election season. He’s been making comments designed to elicit angry retorts from Congressional candidates. His comments after the Tree of Life Massacre are a case in point. Announcing that he intends to end birthright citizenship in the United States by executive order is another one.
Nevertheless, even before the returns are counted, the Democrats have already failed by failing to put their best 2020 prospects up for public scrutiny. That’s an opportunity that comes around only once every four years, and the Democrats blew it this year. So, even if the Democrats take back the House, they have already lost the first skirmish in the 2020 campaign.
Going forward, the Democrats need some fresh blood for 2020. They need a candidate who isn’t shopworn, who doesn’t have any excess baggage, and who can take the fight to the Republicans, standing toe to toe with Donald Trump to beat him at his own game.
No, I have no idea who that might be. All the Democrats have to choose from right now are a collection of Hubert Humphreys and Eugene McCarthys, with a couple of Mike Dukakises thrown in for comedic relief.
I do know what the Democratic candidate should look like, though. What Democrats need right now is another Harry Truman, a plain spoken, hard-hitting, take no prisoners kind of guy. Now, that would be a real horse race. Unfortunately, Harry Trumans are in short supply these days. The conditions for making a Harry Truman just don’t exist anymore, but I sure do wish we could get him back again. That would be something
(EXCERPTED FROM A MEDIUM ARTICLE BY ALAN MILNER. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE)
11/05/2018 @ 8:58 pm
Terrific read. I grew up about 2 miles from the Truman family farm. Growing up in KC we learned a fair amount about President Truman. He’s the reason I joined the Democratic Party. But, I’ve voted Republican since Bill Clinton disappointed us all in his first term. An HST would be fabulous and have me voting Democratic again, but like you wrote, they don’t exist these days. Thanks for the article.
11/08/2018 @ 12:37 pm
Appreciate the comment, Tom. Feel free to share.
03/08/2020 @ 6:31 am
This is a fascinating piece as a historical marker. I can’t say definitively whether the Democrats blew it or not. I’m not sure what your measuring stick is on the matter. We do know that the Dems did indeed take back the House. With that, they investigated and impeached the President.
Recently, the stock market has lost about 20%, and the 10yr bond yield closed around 0.76%. Trump was forced to play defense on the trial in the Senate to such an extent that the GOP had to block the use of witnesses or evidence. Maybe some would consider that successful, but there is no way that tactic will stand historical scrutiny. Now that it is 2020, and an election is coming in about 7 months, that scrutiny is imminent.
It is one thing to deny, say, the rules of some legal question like whether high crimes and misdemeanors requires the commission of a crime. That sort of debate is remote theory to most. An economy in recession tends to be significantly more real to most voters. Another thing that voters will likely take seriously is a pandemic exploding within our borders. There is room to debate the incarceration of asylum seekers at the border. It is an entirely different level of seriousness when “Outbreak” is the chyron on the news channels during stories of the Iditarod.
As it turns out, the candidate that Democrats need to go toe to toe with Trump may actually be Trump himself. The assumption that will be tested is that someone needs to play Trump’s game with him. That presumes at least two things overt the past two years. The first is that Trump fatigue does not exist, and the second is that Trump competence does.
I would wager that this election season is analogous to Ali-Foreman when Ali used the rope a dope to defeat Foreman. Ali did not use Foreman’s game to defeat him. Ali used Foreman himself to defeat him. They called it the “rope-a-dope”, remember? And if ever there was a dope, the Covid-19 response, the emergency rate drop, and the just general incompetence may provide the Democrats with precisely the dope to rope.
05/14/2020 @ 12:34 am
rain comin’ in egg plant
delay
Beulah and the Bare Hands
Crazy yougins
PT is guys, the apparatus
melds disaffiliation to
‘neither knee-thar’
get off the porch.
Possibly Marcuseian defacto
coupled like freight cars
::SIGH::
friends, it hasn’t been too
long. Sure ‘yowser
Bennie flyin’ his kite
When big Bill and me
chorused ’round the clock
HE with scars simply said
the KGB picks you up @
birth
jpHart
(waiting for AAA,
Holy Hill, WI0