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Must Read: 'Who Will Save the Democratic Party From Itself?' - NYT
X-Posted From GD.
Who Will Save the Democratic Party From Itself?
Thomas B. Edsall - NYT
NOV. 25, 2014
Let’s forget Webb for a moment and take the question a step further. What are the prospects of winning the presidential nomination for a candidate who challenges current Democratic Party strategic orthodoxy? This strategy calls for identity group, rather than class-based, mobilization, on the assumption that turning out single women, the young, and racial and ethnic minorities is more effective than an uphill struggle to revive support in the recalcitrant white middle and working class.
As much as such a shift to a class-based strategy might result in economic policies more beneficial to less affluent Democratic constituencies, and therefore to more votes in the long haul, so far there has been insufficient intraparty pressure to force a change in strategic orientation.
It is not lost on Democratic strategists that President Obama won twice deploying a group-based rather than a class-based strategy. Even if the next Democratic nominee does not inspire the high minority turnout levels of 2008 and 2012, the 2016 electorate will be less Republican than it was in 2012. Every four years, the heavily Republican white share of voters drops by a little over 2 percent, and the disproportionately Democratic minority share grows by the same amount.
There are, however, fundamental problems with the current Democratic strategy, not least of which is that it is a strategy for winning presidential elections but not necessarily for exerting real political control.
The current approach depends on a Republican Party that refuses to adjust to the transforming composition of the electorate. The 2014 elections demonstrated, however, that the Republican Party and its candidates are not immune to feedback and will change if they have to in order to win.
Insofar as the Republican Party tempers its retrograde stance on social-sexual and moral-racial issues, Democratic campaigns stressing alleged threats from conservatives — the threat to freedom and privacy posed by the Christian right; the threat to Hispanic family unity posed by anti-immigrant activists; the threat to programs serving the poor posed by deficit hawks — will run out of gas.
That moment may be closer than expected. An Oct. 15 Washington Post/ABC poll found that the public held the Democratic Party “in worse regard than at any point in the past 30 years.” An Oct. 24 Pew Research Center survey found, in turn, that the public favored Republicans over Democrats on such key issues as handling the economy, the budget deficit, immigration and terrorism.
Democrats, according to Pew, retained an advantage on less tangible qualities such as empathy, honesty and a willingness to compromise. As attractive as those characteristics are, they are not top priorities for voters. Both Pew and Gallup have found that, except in times of crisis – for example, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks — voters’ top priorities consistently include bread-and-butter issues, jobs and the economy.
As much as such a shift to a class-based strategy might result in economic policies more beneficial to less affluent Democratic constituencies, and therefore to more votes in the long haul, so far there has been insufficient intraparty pressure to force a change in strategic orientation.
It is not lost on Democratic strategists that President Obama won twice deploying a group-based rather than a class-based strategy. Even if the next Democratic nominee does not inspire the high minority turnout levels of 2008 and 2012, the 2016 electorate will be less Republican than it was in 2012. Every four years, the heavily Republican white share of voters drops by a little over 2 percent, and the disproportionately Democratic minority share grows by the same amount.
There are, however, fundamental problems with the current Democratic strategy, not least of which is that it is a strategy for winning presidential elections but not necessarily for exerting real political control.
The current approach depends on a Republican Party that refuses to adjust to the transforming composition of the electorate. The 2014 elections demonstrated, however, that the Republican Party and its candidates are not immune to feedback and will change if they have to in order to win.
Insofar as the Republican Party tempers its retrograde stance on social-sexual and moral-racial issues, Democratic campaigns stressing alleged threats from conservatives — the threat to freedom and privacy posed by the Christian right; the threat to Hispanic family unity posed by anti-immigrant activists; the threat to programs serving the poor posed by deficit hawks — will run out of gas.
That moment may be closer than expected. An Oct. 15 Washington Post/ABC poll found that the public held the Democratic Party “in worse regard than at any point in the past 30 years.” An Oct. 24 Pew Research Center survey found, in turn, that the public favored Republicans over Democrats on such key issues as handling the economy, the budget deficit, immigration and terrorism.
Democrats, according to Pew, retained an advantage on less tangible qualities such as empathy, honesty and a willingness to compromise. As attractive as those characteristics are, they are not top priorities for voters. Both Pew and Gallup have found that, except in times of crisis – for example, in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks — voters’ top priorities consistently include bread-and-butter issues, jobs and the economy.
Much More: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/26/opinion/who-will-save-the-democratic-party-from-itself.html
16 replies
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I've learned recently that the FDR coalition/philosophy is dead...
That the NeoLibs are the future...
And that we must keep looking forward... even though we wrote a winning playbook 70+ years ago...
I'm grateful I live in California, but even that may go by the wayside.
I AM PISSED!
