Random Thoughts on the Election

It was a dark and stormy night....

Ok, so a Peanuts joke more appropriate would be Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown. It was only a year ago that we had th historic election of Barack Obama and overwhelming victories in Congressional races and seemed poised to enter an era of progressive change. Last night losses seem to be a pull back from that great hope. Without some recriminations that are certain to follow, here are two thoughts for going forward.

No Honeymoons. When Barack Obama won an unprecedented victory last year, the GOP leadership said the right things about working with him, and then basically went on strike, refusing to engage in constructive debates about real issues. In fact, they did the reverse, fighting a lost cause recount in MN, leaving it without a Senator for 6 months, stalling a ridiculous number of Obama appointments, and not even pretending to put together real plans for legislation about the key problems of energy, health care, and financial services.

In NJ and VA what Democrats need to do is oppose strongly the new Governor's where they are wrong. Do not let them get their feet underneath them. Make them fight for their nominees. NJ elected its most conservative governor in history - let's lay that bare. The last Governor of NJ promised tax cut, and was only able to avoid fiscal catastrophe by using a series on one-shot budget gimmicks, leaving the clean up for her Democratic successors during two recessions. We've paid that price now.

Oh, and assume the Republicans are going to claim overarching mandates. when George W. Bush was sworn in, everyone assumed that he would try and work with the middle so his margins were so thin. We know how well that worked. An argument can be made that posture eventually cost the Republicans the Congress and Presidency, but Bush's first term in office was when he implemented the policies that helped make the current economic crisis worse.

Persuade the base. As Democrats, we tend to view persuasion and motivation separately. We need to stop that. We lost because our base is depressed and the Republican base is fired up. We need to counter that not just through our field and organizational structures, but through messaging. And assuming that the base has nowhere else to go is a failed assumption. They can stay home. That's how in just one year in Virginia an electorate the voted for Barack Obama becomes an electorate that voted for John McCain.