My political wake-up came in the fall election here in Ohio in 1998

[WCGreen]

Let me explain...

I have always been a progressive, even when I was in the clutches of my alcoholic daze. I found out there are no liberals at the bottom. There is no room for charity or thoughts of grandeur when you have hit rock bottom. That is one of the reasons I quit drinking. I didn't want to be associated with that kind of thinking. But those moments at the bottom made me a realist.

I have been a realist since. I wanted my guy or gal to be out there, girded for battle.

And yet, time after time, I was disappointed.

I was disappointed that democrats couldn't deliver the knockout blow. In my adult life, I have seen democrat after democrat on the national stage stand in bewilderment as the GOP eviscerated them one by one. It was like watching a lamb being led to the slaughter.

And when they did try to take it to the other side, they came out looking as if this was the last thing they had in mind.

I kept screaming fight back, fight back.

In 1998, I thought I had a chance. At the time I was the treasurer of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party. I also did vote targeting, sat in as the liaison to the party with all the state wide and county wide campaigns.

We had a chance to take the governor’s office but it would be a fight. I need to explain something right here. The Ohio Democrats believe that governor’s office is the one and only. They still believed that once you started to vote democrat at the top you would keep going on down the ticket. How Quaint.

Well, by 1998 that was no longer a valid strategy, they just couldn’t see it any other way. BTW, this is how I became friends with Richard Cordray. He was running for Treasurer and was, well, left on his own. I spent a lot of time with him that summer and fall.

Anyway, to get to the point. The polls were showing that Taft could be beat, that former Attorney General Lee Fisher had a good shot at winning. He was behind in the polls but Taft’s support was not strong.

This was right after Art Modell had up and moved the Browns to Baltimore. This was also a year that the Indians were packing them into the Jake every time the Tribe was in town.

So I went to look up the campaign contributions to Taft thinking that maybe Art Modell had donated money to Taft’s campaign. Bingo. I found that he had donated 5 grand in 1996 and 1994. Just to be sure, I checked over Fishers contributions and Modell was nowhere in sight.

So I came up with the idea of printing up Baltimore Raven football schedules with pictures of Taft and Modell on the other side. Also pointing out that Art had given Bob 10g’s over the last two campaign seasons.

I was going to get kids to hand these out before and after the game, put them on the cars, send them to the sport stations.

I took the idea to the people who were running the Cleveland campaign and they said no. Fisher lost by a little less than 100k. There were close to 45g at every Indian game that fall...

Now if the foot was on the other shoe, you know the GOP would have done exactly what I had cooked up.

Time after time the democrats don’t go for the jugular. Time after time the GOP slashes and burns and does anything to get elected.

I don't know if we would have won, but in a close election against Bob Taft...

Anyway, that is my close up story about why the democrats are falling to the GOP. They will do what it takes to win and then never look back. Most democrats want to be liked. Most republicans want power.


changed on line on edit. Double phrasing.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. Why is it the Dems want to be liked?

Haven't they figured out yet that's not how you win elections?

It really makes me mad.

You cannot be timid when you're going for any kind of political office.

Thanks for letting us see just how this stuff works.

[WCGreen]

2. It was just one of many times when I did a double take....

[starroute]

7. Part of it has to do with the right-wing message machine

Any minor lapse of political etiquette on the part of Democrats will be blasted over and over by the media for weeks, while major dirty tricks by Republicans will be left to quietly fade away.

Have a look at Harry Reid's account of his first unsuccessful run for the Senate in 1974:
http://books.google.com/books?id=RJoAQgcBNMAC&pg=PT151&lpg=PT151&dq=%22harry+reid%22+laxalt+nun&source=bl&ots=-Xy37JYybz&sig=7yQ-2Mhyp5c75gEKIRpQ6VdmzzM&hl=en&ei=eFdeTuLLM8y1twfwtrmlCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false

My defeat in that overwhelmingly Democratic year can be traced to one crucial mistake that I made. ...

Paul Laxalt had been governor when Howard Hughes materialized in Las Vegas. Laxalt had relaxed the licensing requirements for Hughes, and I suspected that Hughes had in turn feathered Laxalt's nest. I made a real stink about it, insisting that Laxalt's whole family disclose their finances.

To my embarrassment, Laxalt complied. Why yes, he said, my sister the nun who has taken a vow of poverty would be more than happy to inventory her meager finances. It made me look bad, and it taught me another lesson: Go after your opponent as hard as you can. But leave his family out of it.

The anecdote is instructive -- but probably not in the was Reid intended it to be. I think the lesson he and a whole lot of other Democrats took from situations like this one was far broader: It was not to go after your opponent in any way that could possibly be used to make you look bad. And over the years since 1974, the Republicans have become masters of extracting the maximum of outrage from even the most minor slights.

But as I said above, I blame the media for this. It's why Republicans can play the outrage card again and again, while Democrats seems to be helpless to put to rest even the most dubious smears.

When there's a real shitstorm poised to come your way at the slightest provocation, developing more backbone isn't the answer.

[housewolf]

3. Have you seen any of the research on brain differences between Dems & Repub?

You might find some of this interesting

From 2007 LA Times - Study finds left-wing brain, right-wing brain
Even in humdrum nonpolitical decisions, liberals and conservatives literally think differently, researchers show.
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-sci-politics10sep10,0,2687256.story

From 2011 TIME Healthland - Liberal vs. Conservative: Does the Difference Lie in the Brain?
http://healthland.time.com/2011/04/08/liberal-vs-conservative-does-the-difference-lie-in-the-brain/

From April, 2011 CBS - Liberal vs. conservative: Who has better brain?
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20051706-10391704.html
Based upon what brain scientists know about the function of the two brain regions, researchers believe the structural differences support the notion that liberals are better equipped to make sense of conflicting information while conservatives are better able to recognize a threat.


There's lots more, google
brain differences between liberals and conservatives

[WCGreen]

4. Cool!

[MarianJack]

5. My Advice to Dems as a whole...

..is to stop worrying about what rush limbaugh is going to say. He's been an official toafy of the republican party ever since bush sr. carried his suitcase into the White House in 1991. That is, except since 2009 when he became the leader of the republican party.

"Conservative" means nothing. rush will kiss the ass of the most "liberal" rethug (I know< there aren't any) over the most conservative Democrat because of the r vs D.

Sometimes the measure of a person's or party's quality is who hates them. I'm honored to be hated by the rightists.

PEACE!

[Waiting For Everyman]

6. Those who know how to do battle are scuffed up - therefore ineligible.

I suppose the next best thing is to have a campaign manager who can fight and knows the score. But that isn't really something that can be learned second-hand very well, or quickly. That is, except for a professional actor, and there have been a few. Sports starts possibly, but they tend to be ignorant.

The best you can do is a clean competitive "golden kid" who has won everything all their lives but has a liberal conscience. FDR, JFK. They both were "overcomers" so that might have helped.