Posted on 11/25/2002 4:49:41 AM PST by Common Tator
Some years ago there was a country music song called Looking for Love in all The Wrong Places. That to me seemed to be stating the obvious. I think Democrats are off looking for votes in all the wrong places. That is pretty obvious too. Democrats in the form of Daschle, Gore, McAuliffe, and the Clntons have been for months telling us that the Repubicans in general and President Bush in particular have it all wrong. Primarily Democrats have taken the tact of attacking what ever approach President Bush takes to a problem. It was not a way to find votes in the 2002 election.
Democrats believe that if they can convince the voters that Bush and the Republicans are doing a bad job the people will replace them. The problem comes when the Democrats scream bad job and it turns out not to be a bad job. Each time the Democrats predict goom, doom, and defeat and it turns out to not be true they have less cediblitiy and the tactic is even less effective. It is very counterproductive to make false charges. It will cost you at the polls.
All the research shows it. Item "A " can be big news. A couple of years later no one remembers item "A". George Bush as a candidate can preach the economy needs fixing and offer a fix. Democrats can claim it needs no fixing. That all is fine. Two years later the voters will not remember the dispute. That is what the research shows. What the Democrats fail to considerl is that memories can be jogged. What Democrats should not have done in the last election is charge Bush with not fixing the economy That is a memory jogger. The voter remembers his conclusion made in 2000. Back then a buch of voters believed Gore was right.. many voters believed the economy was fine just like Gore said it was. Now it turns out Gore was not right.. Bush was right ... and the Democrats want the voter to blame Bush. That is what made the economy an ex-Democratic issue. This last election about a third of the voters said the economy was a big problem. But half of those people wanted the Demorats to be in charge of fixing it and half wanted Bush to fix it. What that tell me is half the "its the economy stupid" had their memory jogged by the Democrat's attack. It did not work. It is never wise to jog their memory when it is not of benefit to you. About half the voters remember Gore was wrong and Bush was right on the issue. The Democrats made it a non deciding issue.
It is almost never effective to attack the job done by some one else with out presenting a better way. Attacks are looking for votes in all the wrong places. The voters are not into "you attack Republicans and we'll cheer". The voters are into "get problems fixed". The voters are for making the nation safe and the economy strong. If a party wants votes it had best have a way to accomplish those goals. The solution to the getting vote problem for an out of power party in dangerous and bad times is to present fixes. If the Democrats had in January of 2001 presented an economic fix that Bush could not accept, and hammered it for 2 years, they would have the house and senate. The public would be hearing the Democrats want to fix and Bush for political reasons won't let them fix things. But the public got the opposite view. So they rejected the fault finders and elected the fixers.
The first thing in looking for voters is to realize that voters never want to win elections. Screaming "We shall Win" in Florida or at a funeral is worthless. The voters want problems fixed if there are problems and nothing done when there are no problems. The public is by nature cautious. They will not vote for radical change. Proposing radical change is very counter productive.
But is is not just the nation that has problems. The Demorcrats have problems... big problems. The Democrats remind me of the guy who lost his wallet. His wife asks where did you lose it. He says, "In the basement." She asks "Why are you looking in the kitchen for it." "The light is better in here". The Democrats certainly on the national level understand what they need to do. Tom Daschle understands what he needs to do. He needs a program. The problem is he can't have one on today's important issues. Half the Democrats think they should tax the rich and give the money to them. Half the Democrats want their party to be the Robin Hood party. The other half knows that the rich will just stop trying to make money if Robin takes it. That would not be so bad, but the rich will lay off the people who were paid to make the stuff that made the money in the first place. The Democratic parties problem is half the party wants to do "A" for the economy and the other half wants to do "ANTI A". Either way they lose a lot of their voters. The same is true on health care. The same is true on fighting terrorism. The Democrats are split on all issues of importance. So they MUST limit themselfes to attacks and not offer solutions. When solustions cost support there is nothing left to do but attack.
What we have seen in Daschle, Gephardt, and others is frustration. They cannot offer a solution to the problems because their party is divided. On international affairs much of the party is made up of isolationist doves. The remainder are international hawks. There is no position on international affairs that the Democrats can take. They can only try to trash President Bush. As soon as they take a position they are in trouble with some of their suporters.
I think the Democrats are at the place the Republicans were in 1960. Nixon and JFK had a very tight race. If Nixon had chosen to contest it would have been at least as close as 2000. Politically Nixon was a centrist. In the 1960 election both Nixon and JFK reached out for the middle. But JFK won. After that loss there was a huge soul searching in the Repubican party. The right was certain that the move to the center (in their view center left) was a disaster.The Party must return to its conservative roots was the cry. Barry Goldwater lead that charge. The Goldwater pitch was that the nation in the first 32 years of the century had been very conservative. In the next 32 years it had been very liberal, Barry was just going to take the nation back to what had once been the glory days of the Republican party. Today the democrats are falling for the same bit. Many of them actually believe they can move the country to the left by going hard left. FDR made it hard left, we cand do it again is what they are thinking.
The Republican turn to the right in 1964 was not based on logic. It was not based on what the voters wanted. It was based on faith in a philosopy. The campaign slogan proves it "In your heart you know he is right" is an appeal to faith. It was not here is the evidence it proves we are right, it was look in your heart and have faith.
Today the Democrats are about to make the same classic mistake. Two years after a very very close lost election, they are fast moving to the roots. They are taking a sharp turn left. Look at their leader. Gore has said over and over that he is going with his gut. He is going with what feels right. Cast the pollsters to he wind. He is going to have faith in the left. He wants Hillary care times 2. He wants tax increases. He wants an isolationist dovish approach to foreign policy. The polls don't show that is popular but his gut tells him it is right. It is the mirror image of the republican party in 1962.
I can see no logica reason for doing what the Democrats like Gore are doing..except that they know they must have a message. They must stand for something. So they will take the message that nearly all Democrats will like and that no independents can stomach and go for core democratic vote in 2004. Their reasons must be the mirror image of the Goldwater reasons of 1964. Thirty years ago our nation suported us on these issuse. We must take then back to the future.
Perhaps the Democrats are not so different from this years Republicans in California. The California Republcans were certain that they could sell a right wing candidate. They could not believe he would only appeal to broken glass Republicans. They felt he could do well against a Democrat only yellow dog Democrats could vote for. They could see Davis was a yellow Dog, but not all the broken glass around Simon. What the California Republicans found is that there are more Yellow Dog Democrats than their are broken glass Republicans. That is true in a lot of states.
But nationaly and in most states our party understands that it must appeal to more than half the voters to get more than half the votes. That means in moust years we must appeal to more than half the independent voters. But 2004 can be a watershed year. For if the Demorats go to the left as they appear to be doing, they will get next to none of the independents. That means for a Republican to win in 2004, he only has to get some of the independents not the usual 2/3. Even in a Democrat state, in 2004 if we can get half the independents we win. Look at a typcial Democrat state. That states vorers are 40 percent Demorat and 33 percent Repubican. That leaves 27 percent independent. In a year like 2000 a Republican needs to get just over 60 percent of the independent voters to win. In a year like 2000 a Democrat needs only to get just over 40 percent of the indpendents to win. But if the Democrats take a hard turn left, in 2004 we will only need a tad over a 30 percent of the independents to win. We almost always get a third of the indpendents in such states.
So 2004 could be a very good year for Republicans. Those that look at 2000 and think that 2004 is replay are wong. Those that look at 2004 and think 1996 will be wrong. I think that if you look at 1964 and see that the Democrats are doing every wrong thing that the Republicans did back then, you will get a clue about our oportunity.
As long as Democrats are looking for Votes by blaming others. As long as Democrats are looking for Votes with out offering a positive program. As long as Democrats are looking for Votes with a program democrats love and independents hate... they will be looking for votes in all the wrong places.
The biggest down side for Democrats looking for votes in all the wong places is Democrats won't find any.
The Democrats have moved so far to the left that their base - the ones they count on to generate voter turn-out and provide grass roots moral and financial support - consists almost entirely of extreme whackos. The NOW feminists, tree-huggers of Unabomber dimensions, the most far-out pro-abortionists, the Reparations crowd -- those are today's hardcore Democrats. They are not all that far removed from the anarchist street mobs you see at G-8 Summits.
In order for the Dems to win an election these days, they have to convince the voters that it is the Republicans who are the radicals. They attempt to persuade people that the Republicans actually want to starve babies in order to generate profits for corrupt corporations, ruin the environment, etc. However, the people like Dubya and appreciate his efforts to defend the country, so they ain't buying it.
The next time the Dems win an election will be when they run a relatively unknown "centrist" and can convince the people that the economy is in horrible shape-- as in 1992.
Either one suits me just fine.
There's something else in the California mix. I'm not familiar with the Golden State, but I read a couple of articles about post-election California stuff, and it appears as though the California Dems are going to go b*lls-to-the-wall with tax increases.
Were the voters actually aware that they were, in effect, voting for MASSIVE tax increases? Because they're going to get them.
Agreed. I believe you are right. But logic tells met that is going to be very had for the Dees to do. The Republicans are becomming the grass roots party of the people and the Demorats are becoming the Labor Party.
Congressman BillyBob has a very interesting column on UPI. In it he shows that in the last election, for the first time since 1932, the Republicans have elected a majority of state legislature members.
State Legislatures are the farm team. It is from their ranks that the national congressional leaders come. The big problem for so many years was we had next to no farm team. Running and wining a race for city council then on to the state legislature and then for a state senate on the way to a seat in congress is terribly important. By the time that young person goes for a federal congressional seat he or she had been around the track a few times. They become good candidates that are hard to beat. We are going to have a lot more of them. The Democrats are going to have a lot less. That is not good for the Dee people.
Secondly control of state legistlatures and governors allows for the re-drawing of both state and federal legislative districts. We had to win this control by wining in districts that were Gerrymandered against us in 2000. You can see what will happen if we continue to grow and get to redistrict in 2010. Yes, it gets even better.
The national media is missing the story. Repubicans are on the way to a long term dominance in government. It begins with city council members and county commissioners. We are at stage II. moving them up to the majority in Sate Legislatures. It does indeed look long term good. It begins at the White House and goes down to the city council member. Recruit and train candiates at the local level is what it takes to dominate the national political scene.
A very telling factor in 2002, was that in many states Bush raised huge sums of money. But it was not blown at the top. The money was used to help candidats all the way down to the city and county level. The Democrats at the local level in my area were singing the blues. The money here in Ohio was not all spent to re-elect a Governer. Taft spent enough to get that done nicely, but the remainder was spent on all the other races. It showed in the results. Governor Taft and President Bush now have a bunch of elected candidates that owe them. That is never a bad thing when you need a vote to pass a bill.
Consider that most of the money raised this year by Republicans was hard money. We can do that forever. Democrats made soft money illegal for 2004. They have to have soft money. Now what was called soft money can only go to state party organizations. Democratic state parties are controlled by labor unions. The Democratic party is soon to become the Labor party.
There were 4 million california voters that voted in 2000 that did not vote in 2002. I pointed this out as likely with in a week after the primary election. The instant I saw the Simon tackics, the results were a sure thing.
Campaigns come in two flavors. Negative and Positive. Most candidates use both. All the polls before the primary showed that Gray Davis could only expect to get the core Democratic vote. He had really screwed up as governor. He knew he could only expect to get those votes that would go to a Democrat no matter what. That normally means that Davis could not win. There are more Democrats in California than Republicans but if the Republican got even a few independents or centrist Demorats, the republican would win.
At the time there were two Republican primary candidates. The polls showed the former Repubican Mayor of LA named Riordan could easily defeat Davis. He would also likely carry the rest of the state offices for Republicans. He would own the center. He would get less than 3 million republican votes, but he woud get more than 3 million independent votes. It would be a republican blow out. The other republican candidate was a flakey rich kid named Bill Simon. Simon was not very bright and had some skeletons in his closet. His main advantage was he had inherited a bunch of money and would spend it.
The Democrats decided to run the second flavor of spots in the REPUBICAN PRIMARY. The democrats spent 9 million dollars painting Riordan as a closet Democrat. The idea was to present him as such a liberal that Republican would turn on him and vote for Simon. That type campaign is called a negative campaign. The idea behind the DAvis effort was to get the Republicans to nominate a candidate that could not win by defeating a candidate that could easliy win. It was designed to remove support among Republicans for Riordan. It worked very very well Simon got the Republican nomination.
After the primary Davis went to negative adds to drive all independent support from Simon. That worked too.
Bush, Rove, Lyn Nofziger and others tried to tell Simon what to do. Simon only needed to run a positive campaign. He needed to give independent voters a reason to vote for him. Davis was not going to get any independent votes. And Simon only needed to get a third of their 4 million votes. He just has to go positive about himself and he wins. If Simon goes positive and Davis stays negative the negative spots will hurt davis more than they hurt Simon. Simon refused to listen. He continued to attack Davis and refused to give the independents a reason to vote for him.
Instead Simon spent millions attacking Davis trying to match Davis's attacks on him. DAvis continued the negative attacks becuase it kept Simon negative.
The result is quite predictable. Davis told people don't vote for Simon. Simon is a stupid dirty crook. Simon told people don't vote for Davis. Davis is is a stupid dirty crook. Four million people listened to both of them and agreed with both of them. They voted for neither.
The result was most democrats voted for Davis. Nearly All Republicans voted for Simon. Since there are a lot more Deocrats than their are Republicans Davis won.
You ask if voters realized that taxes were going to be raised. How could they. All they heard was Simon Trashing Davis and Davis trashing Simon.
All that needed to be done for Simon to win, was for him to take a vacation from the day after the primary until the day after election. Then the voters would have noted that Davis is being nasty and Simon was not. Simon would have gotten about a third of the independent votes. That would have given him a half million vote victory.
The white house and the RNC became convinced by late August that it would be a bad thing if Davis were re-elected. They came to the conclusion an even worse thing would be if Simon were elected.
Simon is just very stuborn and very dumb. He surrounds himself with equally dumb people. Bush felt that if Simon were to win that by 2004 all of California would blame Simon for the problems created by Davis.
There are many men who can win elections on their own and then govern badly. Those that can't win elections can't can govern well at all. It takes a lot more of the same skills to govern as it does to campaign. If a candidate does not have the skills to get elected, he or she will be a disaster as an elected official.
The downer is that having successfully used the Davis tactic of buying spots to select a poor Republican candidate the Democrats will undoubtedly use it again.. and ...again...again.
They do not understand that the Nader voters see no difference between a Bush and Gore.
Nader got 2.8 million votes in 2002. The nader voters were aware that voting for Nader would elect Bush. But they see no difference between Gore and Bush. We do. They don't.
If you do the research on the Nader votes you will find that if the Greens do not have a candidate half the 2.8 million stay home. Of the 1.4 million that vote, 700 thousand of them vote for Bush other 700 thousand will vote for Gore.
In New York this fall the Clintons got an independent to run. he was supposed to take votes away from Pataki to elect the Democrat McCall. But late in the race Pataki was leading McCall by 20 points. And the independent was close to 20 points. So Clinton went to the independent to ask him to drop out. The feeling was the independent vote would go to McCall. But they polled it before he dropped out and discovered that the indpendents 20 points would just split between Pataki and McCall. Pataki would still win by about 20 points. So they scrapped the idea.
Candidates can't understand it. Gore is certain that if he is Green enough, the Green party voters will vote for him. But the truth is they will not. Third party voters go for third parties because they don't agree with either major party. And if there is no third party and they vote, they split down the middle.
The name of the game is your base and the center. If a candidate has both he wins. He can lose all the splinter parties votes and still win. The ratio is about like this. One fringe party vote costs 20 centrist votes. Only a fool or a party following its gut /heart would go for it.
There would be tax increases regardless who won. Davis managed to not only spend the surplus, but put us in debt, big time.
But you are correct, the media, newspapers and TV were quite about this.
The only questions was if there would be big taxes little cuts in spending (Democrats) or little taxes and big cuts in spending (Republicans).
If they were bold, they would cut taxes more, remove some of the enviromental regulations, and get government off the backs of the business, and then watch California lead the nation in recovery.
But that would take vision,courage, and an understanding of the economy, all of which is in short supply in California right now.
Reminds me of a joke that went around after the Heaven's Gate business.
Q: Where'd they find the last Heaven's Gate member?
A: Under the sink, behind the Comet :o)
Every once in a while I wonder where all the Bush Bashers that were so hot on FR during the 2000 election have gone! Definitely back into some fringe or other. It is pleasant to read threads without their whining.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.