Next Steps: Why the Democrats lost, and where they go from here (a Democrat perspective)

The American Prospect ^ | 11-12-02 | Ruy Teixeira (co-author of The Emerging Democratic Majority)

[dsutah]

Norm Coleman a leftist? I didn't get that impression. In fact in the debates with Walter Mondale; he seemed quite conservative, or maybe right of center to me!

[WorkingClassFilth]

Q: Where to go from here?

A: Hell.

[Plutarch]

a clear approach to improving the economy and should probably also include new programs in education

But what the Dems want is Socialism, which will wreck the economy; and largesse to teachers' unions, which will (further) wreck education.

The Dems problem is that there is no one left to lie to. Thus the imperative of importing voters from other countries, who will vote for the Party that keep the checks coming.

[okie01]

"Norm Coleman a leftist? I didn't get that impression."

A reformed Democrat, Coleman would stand to the left of the GOP middle (though well to the right of Walter Mondale). That is how I took the reference, anyway.

[nathanbedford]

Thanks for your analysis which I find to be better considered than the author's. Your explanation of Rove's ground game clearly explains the last election. But lets explore the next. How do you deal with the emerging Hispanic plurality if your are Rove? Why are there such apparent differences between Florida, Texas and New York on the one hand and California (and New Mexico?) on the other? How much of the Hispanic vote do the Pubs need to maintain an overall majority? 20%? 30%? 40%?

I would be grateful for your thoughts.

[No dems 2002]

Another excuse-laden discourse by the democrats for all their shortcomings.

Democrats lost because democrats are not trustworthy, and because they stand for virtually nothing good, in a moral or material sense. They're the party of Bill Clinton and Al Gore. And all their elder or retired "statesmen" are fools.

The democrats keep thinking that what happened in 1994 is something that will soon change, something that wasn't permanent. The fact that every US House election after that showed the GOP majority narrowing seemed to confirm this erroneous view. But, what Dems forgot is that, historically (since 1932), for the GOP to hold any majority, large or small, in the House is an absolute miracle. In 2002, every region of the country, not just the heavily Republican South, was affected by the GOP victory. Even in the Northeast, Republicans swept the gubernatorial races, and performed handsomely in the House and Senate.

But it's easier to just pretend that all is well. "Uncork the champagne, and eat, drink and be merry," they say as they refuse to send Terry Macauliffe and his ilk to the political firing squad (where they belong). Bill Clinton turned the dem party into a fat-minded, lean-spirited group of partying buffoons.

My estimation is that democrats will have to suffer more major electoral losses before they realise that they're in the big trouble they're in. As Zell Miller put it, the dem party stands for nothing and does nothing. But, as before, Zell Miller is a just another unheeded, ostracised voice of caution in his asinine donkey party.

Does this mean that we conservatives should get overconfident? Absolutely not. Earlier this year, I told a few TX republicans that probably the biggest thing that could defeat them in the 2002 gubernatorial and senate races was overconfidence. They readily agreed, and it's obvious that the TX GOP didn't get overconfident this year as they swept the state. If the GOP humbly serves the people and does the right thing (as they've done to a large degree), then they'll keep on winning.

[No dems 2002]

I find your post interesting. Could you tell me the exact number of state legislatures that the GOP holds? I read that the GOP gained appr. 200 legislative seats this election, which is totally contrary to the usual 350 that are lost during a mid-term election (for the President's party).

You're also quite correct about the dumb dem idea that the GOP only won because of a last minute, unexpected surge. The democrats were lackluster through the whole year.

Your discourse is quite accurate, but I must disagree with a couple of your assessment of some of the Republican candidates that won Senate races. I don't exactly what you mean by the "leftist" Coleman. For instance, Mr. Coleman is pro-life, citing that as one of the main reasons he left the dem party a few years ago. You also called Jim Talent "very centrist". Mr. Talent is actually a strong social conservative, he just doesn't talk much about it. As a congressman, he's had a strong pro-life voting record and he's also anti-gay, having, for instance, voted in favor of banning gay adoption in DC.

Because Bob Smith was so vocally conservative, it seemed that John Sununu was a typical New England Republican liberal. I'll give a run down on some of his votes on social issues:

Voted YES on banning human cloning, including medical research. (Jul 2001)
Voted YES on banning Family Planning funding in US aid abroad. (May 2001)
Voted YES on federal crime to harm fetus while committing other crimes. (Apr 2001)
Voted YES on banning partial-birth abortions. (Apr 2000)
Voted YES on barring transporting minors to get an abortion. (Jun 1999)

Sununu was also given an 'F' by a gay rights website that extensively reviews each Congress person's voting record. (For instance the same site gave Nancy Johnson a 'C'.)

And you're probably right about Mrs. Dole, though she's announced that she would support a federal Amendment to ban abortions. And, yes, Chambliss and Cornyn are pretty conservative.

Bottom line: a lot of conservatives, whether vocal or reserved, were elected this year, and thank God for it.

[William McKinley]

Teixeira, eh? He isn't related to the Texas Rangers' wunderkind 3B prospect, I hope. Anyway...

In every Senate race (except South Dakota) that was close or had the potential to be close, the Democrats lost.

I see this guy is just as accurate in this article as he was in his book. South Dakota and Arkansas.

[William McKinley]

Tator has developed this habit of seeing things as he wishes them to be. If you point this out to him, he then tries to hide behind a wall of bluster.

Coleman ran as a conservative. Not an abrasive, in your face conservative, but solidly conservative on almost every issue. And it mimiced how he governed as Mayor.

[Common Tator]

Norm is a Leftist

Norm Coleman is for diplomatic recognition of the Castro regime by the United States Government. Coleman is for removing all United States sanctions against Castro. Coleman is for giving Castro's Cuba most favored nation status in our dealings with him.

Is that to the right of you? If it is, then Dan Rather and Barbra Streisand are to the right of you...too.

[gitmo]

When everything is quiet and safe, women may like Alan Alda, or even a Woody Allen.

When the goons are outside shooting up the house, women want an Arnold Schwartzenager or a Sylvester Stalone.

We're at war against an enemy who want to destroy us. The Republicans are the only choice.

[Common Tator]

McKinley has developed the habit of looking at the world through his Goldwater colored glasses.

Let me lay this one on you. Ronald Reagan picks a lowly Colonel named Colin Powell out of the bowels of the Pentagon and promotes him over others. He brings him into the white house on his national security team. Reagan's successor, George Bush, gives him the job of Chief of Staff of the Defense Department during a war. Powell becomes a war hero. Bush Sr. makes him a four star general. Dubya Bush makes him secretary of state where huge praise is heaped on him.

Now let me add some fiction. In the second Dubya term Powell resigns his post and takes a job as a college president. In 2006 he joins the Democrat party and runs for president as th Democratic candidate in 2008. Powell wins in a landslide. He brings the Democrats control of both houses of congress. Picture in your minds eye Democratic President Colin Powell being administered the oath of office with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton cheering him on. Harry Belefonte sings at the Powell inaugural ball.

William McKinley is Powell an ungrateful unworthy SOB? What would you say if Powell were to do this?

Now let me tell you history. In the lead up to WWII, FDR picked a lowly Colonel named Dwight Davis Eisenhower out of the bowels of the Pentagon and promotes him over others until he is a full 3 star General. He is groomed and trained for the mose important job in the Roosevelt administration. FDR sends him off to Europe as commander in chief to deal with Churchill and Stalin and win a war in Europe. There as Roosevelt's military Commander of Europe he becomes a huge war hero. After the war Eisenhower is picked to be the first head of NATO by Roosevelt's successor Harry Truman. It is an important part of a Democratic presidents foreign policy. After two years of great prestige and a fawning press, Eisenhower resigns early in the second Truman term. Eisenhower takes the job of a college president and joins the Republican party. In 1952 Eisenhower runs for President as a Democrat and wins in a huge landslide bringing the Republicans control of both houses for the first time since 1931.

William McKinley is your opinion of Eisenhower any different than your opinion of the fiction about Colin Powel? If Powell were to follow in the steps of Eisenhower and turn on the party that made him, would you call that the act of a man with principles or would you describe Powell a man of unbridled ingratitude with no sense of loyalty.

People like you see the world as good and evil. People are one or the the other. There is no middle ground with purists like you. You live in a make believe world. There is no purity. There are only shades of gray.

You need a dose of reality or the ability it think in terms of how the world really works As I have frequently pointed out, and your reaction to my take on Coleman proves, you know nothing of the real world and its complexities.

You should not pretend you know how to play the game.. You don't even know the rules.

[blastdad51]

My advice to the Dems is to follow your base and " Go left! " that should help your poll numbers.

HHHAAAAHHHAAAHHHAA

[William McKinley]

Someone has a distinct problem with either analysis or memory or both.

Where you got this fantasy that I think Goldwater ran a good campaign or that I think that Republicans should follow his lead when it comes to candidacy is beyond me. The fact that you keep acting as if that is my view, much like your stubborn belief that Coleman is not a conservative, speaks for itself.

[Nick Danger]

Here we go with the gallop poll caught a surge.

Yeah, I don't buy this either. These "last minute surges" toward the Republicans happen too often to be attributable to actual, on-the-ground events like Presidential visits.

I think the phenomenon is more related to people feeling pressured by pollsters into giving an answer on how they will vote before they have actually sat down and thought seriously about it. The prevailing cultural wind -- Gore's "zeitgeist" -- still blows pro-Democrat in the broadcast media, so that becomes a quick-and-easy thing to tell the pollster to get rid of him. Three days later the pollster is out telling the world that the Democrats are on a big roll and will do very well. The same guy calls around again the night before the election and finds that a huge chunk of people are now telling him that they will vote for the Republican. So then we get the "race closing" and "too close to call" stories. That happened in Reagan's victory over Jimmy Carter, it happened in 1994, and it just happened again.

How long ago was it that Dick Morris was telling us that the Democrats were going to take the House? Morris didn't need to just make that up... he has access to enough polling data that there was something in there that pointed to such a result. But it was just people being glib with the pollster on the phone... telling him something 'acceptable' to get rid of him.

I think it's another case where the Democrats produce their own BS, pump it out through the media, and then believe it themselves when they hear it come back.

[hchutch]

If so, then that is the ONLY break Coleman has with Bush.

We're talking a pro-life, pro-Second Amendment vote in Minnesota. That is not something to discount. Coleman's center-right, which in Minnesota is the equivalanet of Jesse Helms, only he does NOT have the polarizing impact that Helms did.

[Common Tator]

That is my point. Coleman is for trade and normalization of relations with Cuba because the dairy farmers in Minnesota want to sell Castro their milk and cheese. They are a group of people who votes a candidate must earn. My point is always that you have to run candidates that can be elected. That is candidates whose views reflect the views of a majority of voters.

The technique is to do issue polling in the state or legislative district and plot the resulst as a graph. The horizontal graph is the number of voters. The vertical scale is divided into issues. The widht is the weight voters give that issue. If you are doing a a state with 3 million likely voters the graph has a range of 3 million. For example plot the number of people who are anti abortion from the right to the left. And plot the pro abortion from the left to the right If you do that for all issues you will see the magnitude of both core and the issues that motivate them. You will see the issues that resonate with the center. You will know what a winning candidate must be for and what a wining candidate must be against. A party to win must pick a candidate that matches the voters. A wining candidate has to be in tune with the issues that span more than half the graph.

If you need the Dairy farmers to win, a candidate will have to adopt their views. If a Democrat is going to hold the left he will have to support leftist issues that span the center.

Our nation is no longer a nation of political amateurs. The Republican party under Bush and Rove are selecting candidates with which the voters agree. Any candidate who thinks that the voters minds can be changed to his views will lose when opposed by a candidate whose views match those held by a majority of voters.

This nation is every day becoming more of a REPUBLIC with a REPRESENTATIVE government. Our elected public SERVANTS must REPRESENT US not rule us. This is no longer a nation that elects RULERS. This nation increasingly elects SERVANTS. YES THEY ELECT PUBIC SERVANTS. Any servant that thinks he is a ruler will be fired at the polls. Elected officials can not have unchangeable views of their own and hold office. They will always be defeated by loyal servants that do as their masters order them to do.

Both Wellstone and Mondale saw themselves as benign rulers. They got beat by a public servant.

[William McKinley]

Of course he is center right. For some reason Tator feels a need to have him be "center-center". Which is fine, he can believe whatever he wants to believe. We'll see where the ACU ratings end up next year. I am betting it will be well into the conservative side, nowhere close to your centrist Senators such as McCain or Snowe or even Liddy Dole. I am comfortable waiting to see the results.