What happens this week could lock Democrats into the minority

[Tom Rinaldo]

There is a simple truism in electoral politics; if you don't have the money you better have the people (and vice versa). Thanks to the Supreme Court, for the foreseeable future at least Republicans will always have the money, virtually as much as they want, sometimes more than they can even spend.

Big Money can be fought and beaten, but it isn't easy. Jerry Brown dit it in California but he had some factors going for him. For one thing, Jerry Brown is Jerry Brown, no one else has a political biography remotely like his. The press is always drawn to cover Jerry Brown. Partially as a result of that he generated ample free media coverage.. Second, Jerry Brown had a lot of money to spend on his campaign also - nowhere near as much as Meg Whitman true, but enough for him to at least directly deliver his message to the public. Jerry Brown had strong grassroots support from enthusiastic Californian Democrats. They gave time and money to his campaign, lots of both.

The National Democratic Party, under President Obama's leadership, is considering weakening the very economic safety net that Democrats have long equated their political soul with. It's not being pondered during good economic times under the guise of continuing them in the future. Were that the case it would still be a bitter pill for Democratic voters to swallow, but a sense of economic optimism might at least have sugar coated it.

No, this is going down during a time of economic fear; of rising poverty and falling wages, of hunger and high unemployment and of waves of home foreclosures swelling the ranks of the homeless. Cutting into the safety net now is a powerful gut punch to every American worried about how they are going to make it in the America that lies before them now, and it is a double blow to Democrats, laced with a sense of abandonment and betrayal.

That is not a prescription for galvanizing the Democratic base and winning elections, now or in the future. When Democrats voters no longer instinctively know whose interests Democratic politicians are willing go to the mat fighting for, a key emotional bond is severed and support is no longer swift and certain. Big money has always legitimately only represented a small minority of American voters, but big money pays for big lies. When those lies can no longer be countered by a certainty of conviction within the Democratic base, they spread far more easily. Without the people to fight the falsehoods, money can buy opinions, and elections are more easily sold to the highest bidders.

Turn off the spigot of grassroots contributions, choke off the passion of grassroots supporters, and elections become a battle of mainstream media and direct mail marketing messages that Democrats are hard pressed to win with less chips to ante up with. Today the only grassroots enthusiasm that exists in on the Right, so Republicans have that to draw on plus blank checks to spend. How will the Democrats counter that? Joining with Republicans to cut into Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid at a time when more Americans are counting on them to survive does more than muddy the Democratic brand name, it discredits it.

If that happens Democrats can still win some elections; when Republicans way overplay their hand for example. Or when corporate interests need to shock Republicans into greater compliance by showing them who's boss by throwing some money behind a DLC Democrat. Or after Republicans have been in power too long and a restive let's clean house mood settles over the electorate allowing for brief Democratic interludes between long stretches of Republican rule. That is minority status. Sit down to play Poker against Big Money without the people at your back and there are few bluffs Democrats can afford to call. Become dependent on the same special interests to fund them that Republican have long prospered through tapping into, and the Democratic Party will be nothing but the loyal opposition. Loyalty to what becomes the obvious question.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. I'd rather have democrats vote like democrats and become a minority

consequently rather than democrats voting like republicans. The latter case may give them minority status notwithstanding. To be a representative requires courage and integrity to do the job you were elected to do. And that includes voting against your interests to preserve the foundation of this country.

[Big Blue Marble]

2. It sure seems like political suicide to me.

Why would you on the verge of regaining the House due to Ryan's overreach on Medicare, come
after the very same program that, oh by the way, has been a signature issue for decades?
The Democrats are destroying their brand as we speak.

Why would you engage the process to undermine SS?

The old rules do not apply any longer. Votes and voters do not matter and neither do
political parties. Everything and everyone are now in service to the corporatists.

[Tom Rinaldo]

20. Two thoughts come to mind

Conventional political wisdom is that President Clinton survived the Republican drubbing of Democrats in the 1994 mis term elections by moving to steal the Republican's thunder. He moved to the right on issues like "Welfare Reform" and of course he tightly embraced their battle cry for a balenced budget. Returning to the same well?

The second thought is kind of a perversion of the Peter Principle, the theory that over time a person will move up the ranks until he lands in a job that is over his head and then he'll remain there. Some Democrats seem so confident that the left has nowhere else to go that they assume if they remain to the left of the Republicans they can keep drifting Right indefinately, appealing more and more to centrist and slightly right leaning voters without ever losing liberals. If that assumption is correct Democrats have nothing to lose by drifting to the right, to the contrary that would only expand their share of the electorate. I think that assusmption is fatally flawed and the Party will only realize it when they inevitably make one too many moves to the right and the final one turns around and bites them in the ass.

[somone]

3. Hard to tell if it's unprincipled spinelessness or duplicity

Neither is an admirable trait

[_ed_]

4. If they cut SS / Medicare

then they deserve to be a permanent minority.

[blkmusclmachine]

5. The Democratic Party we thought we knew is dead.

I'm not sure it really ever existed. Bad cop vs. worse cop.

[Tom Rinaldo]

7. The more the traditional Democratic Base and Youth (the coalition Obama used to win) is alienated

...the more dependent the Democratidc Party will be on large donor special interest PACS to fund campaigns. The more dependent the Democratic becomes on larg donor special interest PACS, the more the tradtional Democratic base and youth will be alienated. It's not hard to chart tthat spiral.

[madfloridian]

14. That is very true. And the traditional base IS being alienated.

They set out to not need the traditional base, and it fair to say they have succeeded.

[Tom Rinaldo]

15. I hope they don't count on the Koch Brothers being as dependable as the old base

And I hope they aren't counting on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce either. They sure as hell can't be counting on the Unions after taking a virtual pass on all the struggles going on at the State level over public employess. I would have expected a Democratic President to make a strong defence of those who choose to serve public by serving in government agencies. Not this one.

Maybe the bigger tragedy though is how young voters have been treated. They were wooed by Obama in 2008 with the slogan; "Yes WE can" and led to believe that WE included them and their issues, and that their talent ansd idealism, not just their votes, was valued and wanted by the Democratic Party. It's clear that Obama still wants their votes, but can he count on them to back him again like they did before?

[kentuck]

6. The voters are sitting in Plato's cave...

They only see the shadows that go by. They do not understand the real picture. Neither our media, nor the political Parties, will permit them to see reality.

[TheCowsCameHome]

8. Messing with Medicare and Social Security will do it.

I hope the know that before the do something very stupid.

[OmahaBlueDog]

9. I've heard three times this lifetime that we'd become a permanent minority party

..and that the GOP would retain the WH for the foreseeable future. It keeps not happening.

I say this with 80-90% confidence: if it had not been for 9-11, the GOP would have suffered moderate losses in the 2002 midterms, and would have likely lost the WH in 2004. As it was, Bush barely (and arguably) squeaked by in 2004.

[Tom Rinaldo]

10. Nothing is permanent, not even the Roman Empire was

But overall control of the Presidency certainly shifted toward Republicans after FDR. Each election is unique but there are still trends. The problem as I see it isn't that the Democratic Party as it has always been perceived until now can not compete with Republicans. The problem is this time the perception of the Democratic Party is shifting onto softer sand, and it is happening in the wake of Citizens United which is a brand new very wild card to deal with.

[OmahaBlueDog]

16. Hmmmmm...Lets look at the numbers

After FDR

Harry Truman 1945-1953 (just shy of 8 years)
JFK 1961-1963
LBJ 1963-1969
Jimmy Carter 1977-1981
Bill Clinton 1993-2001
Barack Obama 2009-2011

30 years

Ike (1953-1961)
Nixon (1969-1974)
Ford (1974-1977)
Reagan (1981-1989)
Bush I (1989-1993)
Bush II (2001-2009)

36 Years

Actually, if Barack Obama is re-elected, the split wil be dead even since FDR. The number of Presidents is equal.

That said, the parties changed dramatically after Carter. Prior to 1980, both parties had Liberal and Conservative wings, and both parties had hawks and doves. The GOP was very popular out west, and the South, Midwest, and East Coast largely voted Dem. By the mid 80s, the GOP had pretty much become the party of mostly white, mostly conservative rural and suburban voters. They came to dominate the South and much of the plains and ROcky Mountains. The Dems became the party of the Urban dwellers, and came to dominate the West Coast, the East Coast north ot the Potomac, and states like Illinois.

[Tom Rinaldo]

17. Yes, that spread is closer than I was remembering

I think I was remembering the numbers from before Obama's election. The parties have been changing as you describe. If anything, with the current Democratic Party demogaphics, programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are more, not less, bederock Democratic priorities.

[Tom Rinaldo]

11. P.S.

Another scenario that starts becoming increasingly plausible if core Democratic Party principles are muddied is an unravelling of the Coalition that comprises the current Democratic Party, leading a split within it leading to a new party emerging, for better or for worse. The Federalists didn't last forever either, neither did the Whigs.

[madfloridian]

13. You know what? You ARE a permanent minority party if you act like the majority one..

all the time.

[Tom Rinaldo]

12. By the way, the reason why I wrote and posted this today...

I am hoping there are enough elected Democrats who are willing to think beyond the short term electoral strategy of the Obama Administration, whatever that might be, to the long time electoral health of the Democratic Party - who can make there voices heard before any grand budget deal goes down. If they can't bring themselves to care enough about the poor and elderly, maybe the risk to their own Party's future can provide motivation. That's a nice thing about Democratic Underground, it's reasonable to assume that some Democratic staffers at the very least are checking in here.

[bemildred]

18. This is all speculative babble.

Nobody and nothing "locks" the future.

[Tom Rinaldo]

19. Virtually all of DU is speculative babble if you get down to it. Either that

or repors of news events and emotional reactions to news events, or links to someone else doing speculative babble.

I never did like headlines because, aside from simple statements of fact, they fail to capture nuances. That's not their purpose, there purpose is to entice people to read the aritcal. I don't like writing subject lines for my threads at DU either.

What I wrote was a predicition about consequences the Democratic Party will face if they are not seen as the Party that reliably fights to keep and expand on programs like Social Security. I sharwed my reasoning for that prediction, obviously no one can be certain about the future. And I didn't say that henceforth the Democratic Party would lose all national elections either.

Make your own case if you want to share a different prediction, but pointing out that the future is never assured is fairly pointless.

[bemildred]

23. Why yes, yes it is.

I do agree the national party hacks are playing with fire this time, but they are dumb mother**** so I don't expect much.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[sabrina 1]

22. If things continue as they have been with the Dem Party

moving closer and closer to the right, especially the Leadership, I think a new party will eventually emerge. If the Dem Party keeps stepping on Unions, Teachers and the rest of the working class while propping up Wall St and moving towards privatization of everything (the HC Bill, Charter Schools etc) what is already happening will only increase, people seeing not much difference between both parties.

But that doesn't mean the PEOPLE have changed. It just means they will eventually feel they are not represented by either party and they WILL do something about that. It wouldn't be the first time in history that a new party rose up. We the people may not have the money, but we do have the numbers.

One thing is certain, it can't go on the way it is going with no one representing the American People in DC without some form of major reaction.