Polling on three potential Democratic messages showed how those pre-existing narratives might well be tapped into by two powerful messages that Democrats might have used--Democrats are committed to a "Made In America" policy path, as opposed to Republican "free trade" and outsourcing, anhd Democrats are pledged to change Washington to benefit the midddle class, while Republicans are committed to protect those special interests--in sharp contrast the message that Democrats did use--Democrats want to move forward, while Republicans want to take us back. Here's the dramatic difference in how people responded to these messages:
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Here's how the "Made in America" message played across different demographic groups, particularly the white working class. These are all groups identified as "swing" voters (though Chris has long ago debunked the notion that only groups splitting more-or-less evenly are statistically "swing"):
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And here's how the "Middle Class" message played across different demographic groups, again, particularly the white working class:
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Compared to the messages Democrats actually used:
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You can see that everyone except Republicans had nearly identical perceptions about the decline of the middle class (59%-62% saying "not rising), but even Republicans were more likely to see things like this than not:
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And finally--perhaps most significantly and surprisingly--you can see that despite heavy messaging calling for reduced spending and virtually no messaging for infrastructure investment, and a significantly more conservative electorate, there was virtually no change from 2008 to 2010 in the balance between these two competing outlooks:
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There could not possibly be a more stark Demonstration of how consistently the Democrats have turned their backs on a sure winning political vision and strategy--one that brought them political dominance in the past for a period of roughly four decades. Such long-term dominance is right there at their fingertips once again, if only they chose to reach out and take hold of it.
Here's the last slide from my first diary, just to drive that point home one last time, the 80% support for a "rebuild America" Agenda:
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And yet, instead of focusing on this message like a laser, what is President Obama doing immediately after the election? Going on a "trade mission" to India. I have nothing against India. But if anyone thinks that India's recent development boom is a good thing, you haven't been keeping up with Arundhati Roy. We have long past the point where anyone can empirically argue that economic development and equity or democratic values go together. This is no more true in India than it is America. But the neo-liberals currently dominating the Democratic Party elite remain as impervious to reality in their own way as all the various factions in GOP remain in theirs.
p.s. I wrote this Friday, but tweaked it slightly over the weekend after it got squeezed out of the lineup. On Saturday, Dante Atkins wrote a short front-page DKos diary, "Republicans win office, kill jobs immediately". The jobs killed--in the Midwest--were:
(1)
Governor-Elect Kasich in Ohio has killed the federally-funded passenger rail project that would have connected Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland.
(2)
Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, 300 people working on the high-speed rail project that would connect Madison and Milwaukee have been let go owing to the election of Republican Scott Walker, who has vowed to kill the $810 million federally funded project....
Any question at all that we could totally demolish these putzes with a "Build America" agenda?
Coming Tomorrow: Part 3, the last in this series. |
