Why Democrats lose
Why Democrats lose | Amanda Marcotte | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
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The failure of the US Senate to repeal "don't ask, don't tell" last week is many things: a national disgrace, an embarrassment to the Senate, and a reminder of the baffling hold that the theocratic right has on US politics. But it's also an important lesson in the value of political will. The Republicans have it and the Democrats don't, which is why the Republicans can continue to win important battles while being out of power. The Democrats would do well to look at how and why the Republicans were able to win this battle and learn a few lessons for themselves on how to get stuff done.
By every right, the opponents of DADT should have won this one. They had the political momentum behind them. The public largely supports them. Even some members of the GOP have signalled their indifference or opposition. Most people see the repeal as an inevitability, and it was tied to a bill that has passed the Senate for 48 consistent years.
And yet, when push came to shove, the moderate Republicans who claimed opposition to DADT voted to filibuster the bill, maintaining DADT (and, by the way, keeping the Pentagon from being funded). Realistically, few, if any Republicans will pay for bucking public opinion at the polls. So, what can Democrats learn from this, if they want to borrow some of that political magic to achieve progressive ends?
Here are three rules Republicans have figured out, but Democrats who aren't Nancy Pelosi seem unable to grasp:
Passion matters as much, if not more, than polls. Republican positions usually poll worse than Democratic positions. Despite this, Republicans happily take stands all the time, whereas the Democrats will see something polling at 70% and fear that's not popular enough. But what the Republicans understand that Democrats don't is that their base voters may be seen as a fanatical minority by the rest of the country, but they have passion. They give money, knock on doors, speak their mind to other voters. Oh yeah, and they never blow off voting. Every passionately involved supporter is worth at least two or three middling ones. Obama got a big taste of this when he was able to whip up the liberal base to be as passionate as the conservative base usually is, and their enthusiasm caught on and swept him into office – where he then promptly forgot that passion matters more than numbers.
You got to dance with them what brung you. The late Molly Ivins made this one of her favourite political maxims, and for good reason. The people that get you into office need to be paid back for their contributions, or those contributions will not be forthcoming in the future. Ivins was referring mostly to lobbyists and campaign donors, but it's also true for door-knockers and pundits who keep the base excited. You cannot afford to disappoint those people, or their enthusiasm for you will die off. Upholding DADT is exactly the sort of red meat the religious right needs to keep motivated, and now the Republicans can count on the rabid minority of homophobes to keep working their tails off for them.
Democrats, on the other hand, seem to think the proper response to the liberals that brung 'em to the dance is to abandon them at the door, make fun of them to the other dance-goers, and then occasionally dance with them while reminding them the whole time that you hate dancing with them and they should be grateful that you bothered to spend even a song with them.
A political party should be a brand. Republicans understand that the first role of marketing yourself is to define your brand and why it's different from everyone else's. By definition, this means turning off some people, in order to win over others. Apple didn't turn around by trying to cater to the style-conscious and the style-indifferent; they pandered to the former, even though it brought down the mockery of the latter. But it worked to save their company, because Mac enthusiasts never go back and they never shut up about their brand loyalty. (Disclaimer: I say this all while writing on my beloved MacBook.)
Republicans do the same thing. They stand by a hyper-patriarchal, capitalist conservatism at all times, even if it means bringing party members who may disagree at times into line. That required standing up for DADT no matter how unpopular it got. Having a brand means having brand loyalty, as is demonstrated by the enthusiasm gap between stalwart Republican voters and on-again/off-again Democratic voters. Republicans may crow about having a "big tent" as much as Democrats, but they know that this is an empty phrase and they treat it as such.
Democrats show no certainty in themselves or what they stand for. They have conservatives, anti-choicers and Wall Street hacks among a largely progressive coalition, and it's just enough that their base – the people who knock on doors – can't really depend on them. If every fourth time you bought an Apple product, and it was unseemly-looking and hard to operate, instead of cool and simple, you'd probably stop buying Apple. And the Democrats are finding their clunkers, like Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, ruin their brand identity.
Right now, the Democrats are paying yet again for their inability to create a coherent image for themselves that fires up their base. Even though there's a compelling argument for why Obama had to offer the compromise position that he did in exchanging tax cuts for the wealthy to get spending on the not-wealthy, he had run out of rope with his progressive base, who saw this compromise as the last straw.
Now, the Republicans are coming to take over the House, and the Democrats have to go into the fight without the passion of their people behind them.
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I'd quibble with some bits (you need clearly defined policies once you're in power, out of it they tend t be harmful), but I think she makes some good points.
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