Democrats in Congress need to pull out Howard Dean’s old 50-state-program handbook if they want to hold their seats.
In 2006, as the Democrats’ national chairman, Dean put his plan in place to make the party competitive. He invested in party infrastructure, even in ruby-red Republican districts where Dems had no business running.
Between party workers in the field and “values messaging” that reached rural Christian voters via subtle radio ads embedded in weather, news and farm reports, Democrats picked off enough seats to pull out a congressional majority.
But no one has sent them a “values message” in a very long time. Saying “Big special-interest companies are bad and the rich should pay higher taxes” has no value; people know they never receive a paycheck from a poor person.
Saying that Washington is out of touch or partisan bickering must end have no value either. Hello? Mr. Obama, don’t you live in Washington? And bashing Republicans at every town-hall meeting is seen as partisan bickering, or at least as instigating it.
A huge disconnect exists between the Washington Beltway and America’s John Deere voters. No one can win a general election without the latter; they are the Reagan Democrats who swing elections, the independents who began pulling away from this administration last March.
“The base is very demoralized,” Dean says. “At Democracy for America, a grassroots progressive political organization I founded, activists and volunteers have no interest in federal races. They are really let down by everything that has happened in Washington in the past year.”
Instead, he says, they are focused on recruiting, training and funding progressive candidates to run for school boards, city councils, state legislatures.
“It’s still a long shot for Democrats to lose the majority,” a Republican strategist here admits. “The Republican brand still has a bad smell to it. But for Democrats to have a demoralized base while losing independents is brutal.”
Dr. Dean agrees.