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One of the cool things about being an evil Washington insider who still has a lot of friends in outsider progressive politics is that I get access to polling/focus group/dial test data, the trendlines in races around the country, and the latest innovative ideas in terms of tactics people are trying around the country from both sides of the insider/outsider divide. What I am learning from all this is that in spite of the challenging election cycle we find ourselves in, there is an emerging message strategy that both insiders and outsiders can get excited about that seems to be gradually starting to gain traction. It is too early to tell whether the anger over the bad economy and the lack of enthusiasm by Democratic base voters can be overcome by this strategy, or whether enough candidates will buy into it to matter, but the outlines of a message that can help save a lot of Democratic seats is becoming more apparent.
The key to this strategy is understanding one fundamental notion: like 2008 and 2006 (and that other blowout election in 1994), this is a blame election. Most middle-class voters are in a pretty growly mood about their government right now because the economy has not been treating middle-class workers well for several years now. They dumped the folks running Congress in 2006 because of it, and traded in for a different kind of President in 2008 because of it, but they aren't feeling like things are working any better yet, and they are looking for someone to blame.
Some Democrats are suggesting our best hope is to blame Bush, which is tempting because he is still very unpopular and people generally think he is still more to blame for the economy than Obama. I don't have a problem reminding folks of Bush's malfeasance, but I don't think it is what we can build a strategy around because people know Bush is gone and they don't necessarily associate the current crop of Republican candidates with him. So what's the emerging strategy that looks like it could work?
1. Attack the bad actor big business special interests that have wreaked havoc on our economy and have way too much power over our government, and have a plan to take them on. As I pointed out in a post on Wednesday:
Bob Creamer's piece highlights the fact that voters are incredibly angry with Wall Street (10% positive, 53% negative), corporate America (12% positive, 42% negative), and the health insurance industry (12% positive, 56% negative. And MoveOn.org's polling shows that 56% of voters rate it very important (with another 23% saying somewhat important) that a candidate commits to reducing the influence of corporations on elections, while 62% say it is more likely they will vote for a candidate that commits to limiting the influence of large corporations over how government runs, and 83% say corporate lobbyists have too much influence over Congress.
It's not just raw numbers either. Focus groups of both swing voters and base voters show the extraordinary emotional punch of these issues. I have seen focus groups this cycle where the anger was palpable, with participants pounding their fists on tables and almost getting off their seats. Focus group leaders have described sessions to me where they could not come up with a word or phrase too tough on Wall Street.: they would suggest government oversight, and participants would say "no, they need to be regulated", and then others would say "no, broken up" and others would say "fired" and others would say "no, thrown in jail." Literally every time someone ratcheted up the rhetoric, the participants in these groups went along enthusiastically.
I have been watching polls and focus groups for almost 30 years now, and I have tended toward populism as a political strategy but have never seen the level of anger at Wall Street and big corporations and elitists and the establishment as I have in the last two years. Democrats are running into that buzzsaw because they are in charge of the government right now, but they can get on the right side of that by showing voters whose side they are on.
The message here is not anti-business but opposition to the cronyism, sweetheart deals, anti-competitive, too big and powerful to fail business practices of the bad actors in a few industries: Wall Street, the big health insurers, defense contractors, etc. Democrats need to aggressively target the bad guys in the business community while being pro-small business and pro-entrepreneur. Beyond attacking these corrupt companies and their lobbyists though, it is important for candidates to show voters they have a plan for taking these companies on. I have been working with a bunch of candidates and members of Congress on a three-point plan around cleaning up corporate corruption in Washington that is based on the MoveOn plan developed by their membership. The proposals in this plan- cleaning up the lobbying system, taking on the Citizens United decision, and public financing of campaigns- poll off the charts, and candidates in targeted races all over the country have been signing onto the plan and running ads with this kind of messaging.
This is a narrative that frames the election in a way that is completely believable to both swing working class voters and to the Democratic base voters that we have to figure out how to motivate: our economy remains in tough shape, and things aren't changing fast enough because of the entrenched power of corporate special interests and their allies in Washington. This message of taking on the big corporate special interests is important for two other reasons. The first is that the Chamber of Commerce, Koch Industries and other corporate special interests are pouring tens of millions of dollars into nasty ads targeting progressive Democrats like Alexi Giannoulias and Barbara Boxer, and it is important for Democrats to directly confront this kind of corporate special interest spending, and work to inoculate voters from all the garbage they will be seeing.
The second reason this is important is that so many of the Republican candidates in big races in this election year come out of the big business community. Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman in California, Rob Portman and Jon Kasich in Ohio, and many other corporate execs who have made big money by hurting their workers and the rest of our economy are running in campaigns around the country. All of these people are a walking laundry list of all the bad behavior of corporate executives in American business over the last few years, and a populist message about the abuses of our economy and our democracy by big business unquestionably helps us defeat these kinds of candidates as well.
2. Attack extremism. In a tough cycle, the Republicans have given us the gift that keeps on giving: a level of truly crazy extremism that voters are starting to notice. Media Matters has done a great piece on the extremism of FOX commentators in wanting to roll back literally every major step forward in the progress of the 20th century, but it's not just FOX, it is one Republican candidate after another. A whole series of Republican candidates for House, Senate, and Governor's mansions in 2010 have been promoting ideas that were conservative many decades ago, including some even back in the 1800s, including:
- Privatizing/cutting/phasing out/abolishing/declaring unconstitutional (take your pick, each of these phrases has been used by various candidates) Social Security and Medicare
- Abolishing the minimum wage
- Repealing the Constitutional amendment that allows an income tax, and replacing it with a 23% sales tax
- Repealing the 1964 Civil Rights Act
- Repealing the 1965 Voting Rights Act
- Repealing the Americans with Disabilities Act
- Repealing or amending the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which was the basis for Brown v. Board of Education
- Getting rid of the Department of Education, the EPA, the SEC, and various other agencies helping Americans
Their Senate candidate from Colorado said the best reason to vote for him is that he didn't wear high heels. Their Governor of Texas running for re-election thinks Texas should consider secession from the Union. The guy who would become chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee apologized to BP for all the nasty liberals being unhappy with their spill. The man they would elect Speaker wants to raise the Social Security retirement age to 70, and thinks the financial crisis of the last couple of years was no bigger than an "ant". The level of extremism is truly astonishing.
The only major advances in our nation's history since the Civil War that Republican candidates have yet to suggest repealing are the abolition of slavery and women's right to vote, and I'm getting to a point where not even that would surprise. This year's crop of Republican candidates is as profoundly reactionary as any group of candidates in our nation's history, and the good news is that this reality is starting to sink in with voters. Hearing about these positions is making a lot of voters think twice about supporting Republican candidates this year.
3. Having a populist economic plan that creates good jobs. The populist language that President Obama and Democratic candidates all over the country are starting to use is no accident. The polling shows that this kind of language has to be central to our messaging about the economy. I wrote about this in my last blog post, so I won't go into a lot of detail here, but it is clear that voters want to invest in rebuilding our manufacturing base, and to help small business and new entrepreneurs compete with the big businesses who want to stifle any potential competition.
In looking at the polling in individual races, as well as some national data, I am convinced that these three messages are the foundation of a strategy for Democratic candidates that gives us a chance to hold our ground in the face of the headwinds we are facing this year. They have the potential to both appeal to white working-class swing voters and to motivate Democratic base voters to come to the polls. There are no guarantees in this tough election year, but I think this strategy gives our candidates the ability to compete.
One final thought: it is absolutely the case, as I have said, that Democratic candidates should have an aggressive platform around rebuilding our economy from the ground up, around producing manufacturing jobs for the industries of the future, around promoting small business investment and entrepreneurship. If candidates aren't talking about these kinds of ideas, voters will be less likely to listen to them. But let me also be really, really blunt in my pragmatic political consultant way: elections where people are in this grumpy a mood are not ultimately won or lost on thoughtful policy platforms. This is an election where people are highly skeptical of both parties' ability to get anything done that will improve their lives. To win, candidates need to have a clear narrative about what is wrong, and a clear explanation of how awful the other guys' ideas are. At the end of the day, voters will be walking into the polling place trying to decide who they dislike more, not who they have more confidence in. I am not happy to have written those words, but it is a fact: winning this election requires being able to fend off tough, attacks that will resonate with a lot of voters, and to effectively make your own. I hope that by the 2012 elections, the economy has started to get dramatically better, and we can have a debate about whose policies are most likely to help us make continued progress. But for today, to survive the 2010 elections, the Democratic narrative has to be an attack narrative: attack the big banks and other special interests which have corrupted our government and destroyed our economy, and attack the Republican extremists who want to take us back to the 1850s.
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