Ignore the Electoral college at your peril. Still feeling that burn.
26
Both of my kids vote, but many of their millennial friends do not, and so I never miss an opportunity to tell them, the reason old people have all the money and young ones all the student debt is because old people vote. It seems like a message more likely to get through than whether a candidate is right or left of this or that or is a member of some group identity.
24
Mississippi will have a run off election between moderate Democrat Mike Espy and the governor-appointed incumbent, Cindy Hyde-Smith, on November 27th. I hope your theory does not hold true in our election. We are desperate for a change here in Mississippi.
14
This article is frightening evidence that the Democrats are flirting with permanent irrelevance.
19
Not fitting the narrative: Kyrsten Sinema, Ben Jealous.
14
But then look at Minnesota, where a moderate Democrat won the Governor's race, and our moderate Democrat senator Amy Klobuchar won by a 2:1 margin. A properly framed, moderate message can win too.
24
Mr. Phillips, apparently, is of the opinion that all that matters is that the Democrat Party wins, even if this requires a cynical abandoning of all its classic, moderate principles. The good of the nation matters not at all so long as the party, even if unrecognizable, is triumphant at the polls. Even if government ends up in the hands of incompetent individuals whose agendas are narrowly partisan. Awful, simply awful. But hardly surprising.
11
I hope that Democrats listen closely to Mr. Phillips. Republican Lite candidates won't cut it. The extra vote needed for victory will come from Democrats excited and inspired to turn out for Democrats from the Democratic wing of the party. Let's have a new New Deal. No more triangulation. No more DLC.
10
Representative Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat and former social worker, scored a groundbreaking victory in the race for a Senate seat in Arizona, defeating her Republican opponent after waging a campaign in which she embraced solidly centrist positions.
18
Donnelly lost in Indiana trying to "peel votes" from Trump supporters. He went further than most conservative Democrats with that strategy -- opposing a woman's right to choose, supporting "Building the Wall" and even giving serious consideration to stripping US born citizens of their citizenship if their parents came into the US illegally!! (A position many Republicans rejected.)
What did it get him? NOTHING! The Republicans and especially Trump supporters weren't going to support him no matter what he said -- and meanwhile, I can say as someone living in Indiana, that many many people who could have been energized -- young people, especially black and Hispanic and yes many white working class people---many who could have been energized refused to support him either actively or just weren't interested. And again, the Trump supporters and even many moderate Republicans were not going to support him no matter what he did.
9
Democrats repeatedly fail to learn a very fundamental lesson from Republicans' successes. Republicans have a clear, consistent message and they just pound, pound, pound it in. All the candidates are on message. By contrast, Democrats bicker and disagree; third-party boutique candidates drain votes from those who would rather be morally pure than politically successful.
Democrats should, as others have said, play to their local constituencies and reflect their needs and values. It's why both Ocasio-Cortez and Conor Lamb won their races, though it's not necessarily likely that either would have won in the others' districts. But in a national election, clarity is important.
Many believe the Democrats to be obsessed with identity politics and to care only about racial, cultural and sexual minorities. They are wrong, of course. But perception is reality in elections. Democrats need to show working-class white voters that they also will benefit from their policies. And to do so effectively, they need to break through the noise of the news and propaganda cycle and the noise of voters' prejudices.
18
I think that the Democrats employed, by in large successfully, what Howard Dean has called the 50-point strategy. For the record, I am more inspired by Abrams, O’Rourke and Gillum, but there are centrists who won: i.e., Sinema in Arizona or Abigail Spanberger, who beat Brat in a traditionally GOP district largely by appealing to suburban women who are rightly disgusted with the POTUS and care about health care for their families. It’s not at all certain that a progressive candidate would’ve done as well there. On the other hand, McCaskill played it safe fared considerably worse than O’ Rourke did in another red state. The
Democrats have had to thread a difficult needle, attempting to connect with the above described ex GOP-leaning suburban women as well as progressives, minorities and younger voters. For the present, the best way to do both is to match the candidate well with the district or state. However, I agree that where chances are slim, a warm, inspiring, charismatic candidate like O’Rourke will inspire more voters than a centrist who transparently play it safe. Hopefully, they are the party’s future, but for the present, we need the mix, in my opinion.
10
As Michael Moore so perceptively says, the biggest party in the United States is not the Democrats or Republicans but the stay-at-homes. That's where the biggest pool of potential converts resides. The GOP's natural posture these days is to repel, so there's no reason why Democratic candidates who are attractive enough and work hard enough cannot mop up large number of former stay-at-homes even in the reddest of states.
If Ms. Abrams and Mr. Gillum don't prevail in their elections, the Democratic Party should recruit them for candidate training
5
Many pundits are noting the success os the Democrats in winning House seats lies in winning suburban voters to the party. I assume this is true in addition to the case made by the author. My point is that the Democratic party must be a coalition. There are various strategies that will work in various venues. Democrats must argue among themselves AFTER the elections, not during the elections. I am anxious to see what strategies were successful in mobilizing voters. Was it constant phone calls, open meetings all over the geography, knocking on doors, bringing friends to the polls, or something else? I agree that the most likely successful strategies MUST include mobilizing voters. I think Perez knows that. We must find out the best ways to accomplish that and to place great resources toward that end.
5
I'm still sticking to my choice Biden/Harris, East and West, and It would be a mind blower if Joe quit soon after his second nomination in order to pass the presidency to Harris.
No Hillary, No Bernie, but let's make sure our primaries are wide open and that everyone gets behind the eventual nominee.
Michael Moore suggests we need a "beloved" person. I don't think Oprah or Michelle will run under any circumstances.
We need to run to win by any means necessary, not to lose making a social statement.
6
Moderate Democrats won't what?
"Representative Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat and former social worker, scored a groundbreaking victory in the race for a Senate seat in Arizona on Monday, defeating her Republican opponent after waging a campaign in which she embraced solidly centrist positions, according to The Associated Press."
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/us/kyrsten-sinema-arizona-senator.html
I'm an independent and unlike Mr. Phillips, I'm not trying to sell a book. All I want is for Congress to start working again - and working across the aisles.
There's been a lesson handed to Republicans in suburbs in many areas - they went too far. And Democrats should pay attention to the fact that in three Republican-dominated states, voters approved expanding Medicaid.
Give me moderates, please, with the brains and the ability to get moderates from the other party to compromise on deals. Then the country will get somewhere. Democrats win? Republicans win? I don't care. I want the public to win.
An example in today's paper - bipartisanship making it possible to accomplish something big - sentencing reform.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/us/politics/prison-sentencing-criminal-justice-reform.html
10
This doesn't make sense. Hillary was the most conservative mainstream democrat, the DNC broke there own rules to push her on the voters and force a coronation. Yet she lost to the worst candidate who's ever run, an unqualified and radical candidate beat her.
There's no going back. The voters STILL want change. They want a new economic order in which they get securioty and a better future. The conservative incrementalism of the mainstream Dems does not offer them that.
5
I think this column suffers from oversimplifications stacked upon oversimplifications. More white voters were attracted to these democratic candidates, because the Republican choice (with Trump at the top) is simply unacceptable.
Also, extrapolating from races in different states is A generalization that is very dangerous. Every state is not the same.
It has always been very strange to me that Democrats who are left of the candidate will not support the candidate, but Republicans that are to the right of the candidate usually fall in line. Perhaps with the groundwork that has been done to attract more voters, this will not continue to happen.
I think it is very easy to see that the mistake has always been that the Democrats have not turned out the vote like they should. They have now gotten better organized, and that should be a plus. I think it would be a mistake to negate that plus by taking policy to the left, and losing voters who are dependable participants.
6
Unfortunately, I have to take issue with Mr. Phillips's assessment. He fails to realize one cogent fact that explains Barack Obama's success: the former president was able to connect with working class whites, especially in the Midwest, by showing his moderate side. That's why he won comfortably both times. Further, specific state races do not directly translate to a national strategy. This article is one person's opinion of the "right lessons from 2018." Rather than narrowing the voting coalition, why not broaden it to include as many people as possible?
7
A couple of things. By opposing racism and calling out Trump,
by calling for expanded Medicare, candidates speaking to the large base of the Democratic Party. A base that feels completely
underrepresented by the old school, Clinton/Obama Dems.
I’m a life long Dem and I’ll tell you, 90% of my Democratic friends will groan or roll their eyes at any mention of Hillary running in 2020. New ideas and confronting the lies and hypocrisy coming out of the Right doesn’t make a candidate “ultra left” or a “socialist”.
5
Trump is a signpost. People as candidates see what he does and then decide where they want to be. The good ones will avoid imitation and the not so good ones will copycat.
2
Let's do the math. Moderated Democratic candidates flipped 30 Republican seats in the House. Progressive Democrats, like Andrew Gillum, Stacey Abrams and Beto O'Rourke, all lost--or will soon lose. But Steve Phillips tells us a moderate Democratic candidate can't possibly win in 2020. Sounds like the New Math to me.
9
I don't see any math here that should instruct me about who to support in 2020.
1
and while the democrats are busy navel gazing about voters of color and progressive whites, the republicans are going to win again in 2020 by nominating Nikki Haley, a thoughtful conservative of color and an easy sell as the best candidate who just happens to be a women.
3
Millennials finally discovered that Facebook wasn’t a voting machine.
2
The only thing that truly makes America "exceptional" (in a positive way, that is) is that it was the first Constitutional representative republic in world history to explicitly state that citizenship was a matter of pledging fealty to a specific set of humanistic and egalitarian ideals - regardless of heredity, ethnicity, class, religion or any other "social status" (or lack thereof).
And the Founding Fathers chose "E Pluribus Unum" ("Out of many, One") as the official motto of this new nation called "The United States of America". This motto has been on the Great Seal of the United States continuously since 1782 (on the banner which the eagle holds in its beak).
And this foundational ideal is still what truly "Makes America Great". And yes, all Democrats (and frankly, all true Americans) must stand steadfastly against any and all enemies (foreign or domestic) who would dare challenge this bedrock ethos of our nation.
In other words, racism, bigotry, ethnic or religious "purity tests" and all appeals to "blood and soil" nationalism are not only immoral - they are, by definition, totally "Un-American".
If Democrats can't unify and run proudly and unabashedly on this bedrock vision of "America" - then it's time for a new Party to replace the burnt-out husk of what used to be the vibrant Democratic Party of FDR, JFK, RFK, LBJ and BHO.
5
N.B. A Socialist is not a totalitarian Communist nor Facist. A vote for a socialist is a vote amplified for the betterment of humanity.
4
Please note Debbie Stabenow's currently appearing op-ed, "In Michigan, the Best Candidates Just Happened to Be Women". The title sums it up.
There's a third course besides the choice implied here of either going with identity-branded candidates and a breathtakingly progressive platform or going with "more traditional, moderate white candidates". That course is to put forward individually inspiring candidates and broadly resonant policy aims while working to mobilize the true constituency for those aims -- a constituency of which women, African-Americans, and others outside the white male category are vital mainstays.
For the analytical underpinning of this proposal, please look up Thomas Edsall's op-ed "Where Democrats Can Find New Voters" (June 15, 2017) and Steve Phillips's "The Democratic Party's Billion-Dollar Mistake" (July 20, 2017).
Please allow me also to suggest my own "The Voyage to Restoration" (January 20, 2018):
http://thefamilyproperty.blogspot.com/
The President has the bully pulpit and the organization to win again in 2020 as the democrats go further and further to the extreme, free-stuff, left!
Build The Wall, go moderately right and help solve the Entitlements disaster and assist the shrinking middle class of taxpayers would be the key to a win for this party of current losers.
2
My math: 40% of the country will vote for Trump no matter what, 40% will vote Democratic, whether progressive or centrist, to avoid another 4 years of Trump. Democrats need to appeal to the remaining 20% -- disaffected or wavering Trumpers, and, of course, independents. To do that effectively, Democrats need, first of all, to LISTEN to these voters and find out what they care about.
Democrats -- potential presidential candidates, policy-makers, activists, grass-roots people -- need to fan out to red and purple states and have town-hall-type listening sessions with the people who live there. Come armed to these sessions -- with empathy and humility, with open minds and sealed lips; just shut up and listen! They may hurl epithets or Fox News falsehoods at you: no matter, smile patiently, ask questions, and keep on listening. Then go home and come up with a platform that will appeal to the 20%, one that the 40% can get behind, too. The policies that come out of this process may end up progressive or centrist. I've got news for you: IT DOESN'T MATTER. Not in 2020. What matters in 2020 is a Democratic win, dealing a hopefully lethal blow to proto-fascist Trumpism and a smack in the teeth to the Trump-toadying Republican Party. Then and only then can we start talking progressive vs. centrist.
Eyes on the prize, Dems!
4
Sure, good plan, follow the strategy that put Trump in the White House and allowed Republicans to control both houses of Congress. What lunacy.
Phillips doesn't understand the concept of 'endogeneity': Bredesen and McCaskill ran as moderates because they had to in Trump-won states. Had they ran as unrepentant progressives they would have lost by even more.
This is the height of irresponsibility. The "mobilize, don't convince" mantra is exactly what's alienated so many white working class voters. If the Democrats don't win those people back, they'll never control the Senate again.
Phillips should recognize that he's been pushing a failed strategy. The evidence is Trump, and it is damning. Hilary ran on his type of platform and lost. And despite how awful Trump has been, the Democrats couldn't even take back both houses. Picking anyone other than a moderate who can appeal to the white working class next election is guaranteeing calamity.
6
Candidates need to prove they can do the job they are asking to do, address the real needs of all the constituents they will represent, and do it well.
It really doesn’t matter if they are progressive or centrist. For example - Sherrod Brown is fairly progressive, but he pays attention to his constituents needs.
1
Kamala Pres./Beto V.P. 2020.
I am a Democrat who has been radicalized by Trump to the extent that I feel that the scales have fallen from my eyes with regard to the profundity and stubbornness of racism in America and in American politics, including in Jim Crow and its weaker but still effective successor, voter suppression. So I agree with the general drift of this article. But we have absolutely no idea what November 2020 will be like, and that is because we do not know what will happen between now and then, except that whatever it is it will be bad - though we do not know if it will be bad emerging into good, or bad emerging into worse. But bad it will be. By the time we get to 2020 the landscape is going to be profoundly different, one way or another. And that is only speaking of domestic politics, before we even start to think about the international situation. So there needs to be a strategy for 2020, yes, but we should expect reality to change out from under it.
2
Having a winning platform for the Democratic party means having a bold and inclusive agenda. Here are some recommendations.
1. Medicare for all. Democrats are the party of healthcare equality. That begins and ends with Medicare for all.
2. Low cost/no cost access to a college education. This should be coupled with real relief for those who are already drowning in college loan debt.
3. The absolute END of our double standard criminal justice and tax system. There should be no special treatment for money earned without work (capital gains). ALL income should be taxed the same way. Period. And the idea that the wealthy can buy the jury verdict they desire must also stop.
These three simple planks in the democratic strategic planning would bring huge numbers of Americans to the polls. Yes, they are bold ideas that resonate with the far left. That, however, is the vital growing part of the democratic party.
7
Thank you. Especially for pointing out that these candidates also got more white votes. It's about time we started to understand, or remember, that decency wins if one is not shy about it.
4
I agree wholeheartedly with the premise of this article. The majority of Americans admire courage and truth, regardless of how much more “tanning” of the electorate is happening. Vince Lombardi was admired more for his stance against racism in America than how many championships his teams won. Although in the smallest NFL franchise in Green Bay - he had the courage to tell the nation in 1963, that if any of his black players were discriminated against (refused hotel rooms in white only hotels), then that business would not be allowed to do business with the entire Green Bay Packer organization ever. That undaunted courage by Lombardi most probably translated into raw determination of his men on the football field. They would win because they would follow a leader who had the courage of their convictions.
2
The saddest line in this piece is "It starts with emphasizing mobilization over persuasion."
I'm an extremely reliable D voter, especially anything statewide, but this worries me. Surely "we" can win on ideas while also mobilizing new voters to turnout.
2
I think this author's message of diversity rings true, but I think he errs in assuming that a platform acknowledging diversity is antithetical to one with moderate positions. That hasn't been true historically. President Obama, in addition to his obvious diversity message, supported free trade, a so-called moderate position (on a key issue that seems to be getting jettisoned all over the political spectrum). Moderate positions aren't exclusively white people's positions, just as positions like abolishing ICE aren't exclusively positions of people of color.
1
They won't work in districts like the New York 27th where even a congressman that has been indicted for insider trading was reelected.
2
Great article, finally! And if you win with the huge turnout, or even if you lose, democracy is better for it, we're all better for it and you inspire the next generation. There is no losing. If you win, well, you have a huge mandate.
1
Moderate democrats may not win in 2020 but ultra left democrats and socialists will have even lesser chance as they will not be supported by most independents. Without independents no candidate of either party can win. Candidates like the senator-elect from Arizona Krysten Sinema who are moderate democrats or semi independents have a better chance. The late John McCain and Jeff Flake kind of senators do well in Arizona elections because they have no absolute loyalty to their party.
6
An interesting analysis. Someone who gets too far ahead of the curve may indeed be looking for trouble. But it has also been proposed that when the choice is between a republican and someone trying to pretend to be a republican, the republican usually wins.
2
Mr. Phillips' thesis is blown out of the water by the news just a little while ago that a centrist moderate candidate, Kristen Sinema, has won the Senate seat in Arizona, a state that has been Republican red for years and had two incumbent Republican senators. Here's what's frightening---I ask progressive Bernie Sanders supporters, who despise W. Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, if the believe Bernie Sanders could ever win a senate election in West Virginia. Most of them refuse to answer on the grounds the question is "hypothetical," and while that's evasive enough, what's worse is that a number of them answer "yes."
3
Interesting ideas, but as a lifelong Republican who voted Democrat in the closely contested and historical GA race, any policy ideas took a back seat to simply sending a resounding message to Washington.
I suspect that like me, many moderates of both parties voted for progressives in spite of that, not because of that.
2
How much of Gillum's, Abrams' and O'Rourke's "success" should be attributed to the vast sums of money spent on behalf of their campaigns? That's the real lesson to be learned.
3
A lot of Republicans crossed over and voted for Obama over a Republican candidates because he sounded not too far left and despite Republican attempts to paint him as a wild eyed leftist progressive, their attempts completely failed.. Many of those same Republicans despised Trump and everything he stood for, and despite wanting to vomit at the thought of bringing back the Clinton's, held their noses and voted for her. I don't think there are enough new voters that will regularly turn out to outnumber the relatively reliable voting habits of the folks previously mentioned. The author is correct that another centrist re-tread isn't going to do any better against Trump the second time around, but at the same time I think that by itself, the new American Majority isn't ready to overcome Trump's base in 2020 if they run any apparent hard left ideologue. If the Dems are really smart, they would run somebody who appeals to the entire electorate like Tulsi Gabbard. Her no nonsense style, authenticity, and independent convictions would appeal across the political spectrum and after listening to a few of her interviews, I am convinced she is the one best able to expose Trump and send him packing. There is too much at stake to see if the author has a conviction that will be proven true or this is just one of a number of a lot of political opinions floating out there. My advice would be to run Tulsi, why pass on a sure thing.
Mr. Phillips is the best news for Republicans today.
So-called "progressives" think they have invented the wheel.
3
Yes, Beto O'Rourke ran an unabashedly progressive campaign that came closer to unseating a Republican in Texas than anyone else in decades. However, Lizzie Fletcher ran a campaign that refused to embrace progressives' major priorities, like impeachment and Medicare for all. She didn't come close, she flipped a seat that had been Republican for decades.
4
@Scott Lizzie Fletcher probably won because of Beto's coattails. As you know, in Texas there is straight ticket voting. It was Beto who got out so many voters and inspired so many thousands to check that "D".
3
Thanks for this essay. I couldn’t agree more. Instead of fighting over a few working class white male voters democrats have to give the legions who don’t vote a reason to. This was Bernie Saunders’ big incite.
3
Voting just because of a person's skin color or gender is just as bad as voting for them just because they're give you abortion laws or protect your guns.
My number one issue is marijuana legalization... but I'd never vote for Trump even if he was to legalize across the board.
Although I'd consider it if he was to also pardon the 85% of non-violent drug offenders currently in prison... that would be a huge humanitarian gesture. Huge...
He would never do it, in a million years... but you get my point... weigh everything. Don't vote a single issue.
Thanks.
4
Wow, who woulda thunk it; standing for something real that helps people in need and not changing with the perceived political wind or representing bought and paid for corporate interests might be a way to get voters behind your candidacy...
5
The secret is to recruit candidates that people want to vote FOR.
5
Refreshing
It seems to me that the premise of this article is that (at least the headline suggests) If you are an electoral candidate of color, by definition, you cannot be a "moderate" if you employ a “nonconventional” campaign and strategy of targeting one's voter base. To me, that is not only incorrect, but also preposterous. All of the Afro-American candidates mentioned in the article, from former president Barack Obama, Andrew Gillum, and Stacey Abrams, are traditional Democrats, which by today's standards makes them progressive (even though by the standards of the 1960s they would be conservative Democrats).
However, if the headline is merely suggesting that their strategy of targeting nonconventional voters makes them "progressive" or "liberal," then it and the article's premise is acceptable even though their policy positions are well within the bounds of modern-day mainstream Democratic socioeconomic policies and ideology.
2
To me both the headline and the article's premise suggest that if you are and electoral candidate of color, then, by definition, you can't be a "moderate" if you employ a "nonconventional" strategy of targeting nonwhite voters as your voter base. That is not only incorrect, but also preposterous.
All of the Afro-American candidates and elected officials mentioned in the article (from former President Barack Obama, to Mayor Andrew Gillam, and State Representative Stacy Abrams) are by any definition mainstream and traditional Democrats, which by today's standards makes them progresses even though by the standards of the 1960s they would be center-right Democrats.
But, if the article's premise and headline is setting a new standard that a candidate's election and campaign strategy determines one's political labeling regardless of their substantive policies and political positions and beliefs, then that is acceptable even though I strongly disagree with it.
3
This kind of racial politics started in Obama and has been brought to a fevered pitch under Trump. It is NOT the solution. First, there is a fundamental mistake that Hispanics and Blacks are a voting block, much less Asians. Asians are affluent and easily drawn to the center. Hispanics are largely Catholic and socially conservative. In addition, Hispanics are part the immigrant wave that produces new businesses at 2x the rate of native born and therefore a group that can similarly be moved on social and financial policies. Trump may be vulnerable because is not a Republican. But if he figures out that jobs, military, low taxes AND a moderating immigration policy becomes his approach, he can split the supposed non white voting block.
2
Do the math. Trump wasn't supposed to win. Do the math. A ton of people I know want a rational center. Do the math. Each election, each candidate group has it's own dynamic. Do the math, pundits are wrong, oh, about 50% of the time. Respectfully, you don't know squat.
4
This is not correct. Maybe it's what the author wants - but it is not supported by the facts. Moderates will win in moderate regions and progressives in largely progressive areas. It's not one-size-fits-all. On the national scale, the POTUS and VP candidates should be a moderate/liberal/progressive mix. Maybe a combo like Biden/Beto.
3
Why is Hillary mentioned parenthetically when she did better than Obama, Gillum and Abrams? Seems to undercut the point
"Over the past 20 years, the best-performing Democratic candidates in statewide elections in Florida and Georgia have been Mr. Obama, Mr. Gillum and Ms. Abrams. (Hillary Clinton in 2016 was actually Florida’s highest Democratic vote-getter ever.)"
2
Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, with his flattop is the ultimate Alpha Anti-Trump & would be perfect at the top of the Democratic ticket...Jon might easily recapture the white working class without a big turnout...
2
The author is correct, but only as it pertains to today, as a very understandable reaction to the behavioral aspects of our current president's communication style, seemingly portraying an alarming insensitivity to the general domestic populace. With that gone, the far left aspects of the democratic party get laid bare, and become a liability that can be used by center right to an advantage. The X factor is truly the sadly over-weighted impact of social media masquerading as news and our current reactionary approach to each tidbit out there, certainly led by our aforementioned commander-in-chief "tweeting" style.
None of what you are proposing will make the nation less divided. I don’t want to only go back to the Obama years (not a whole lot got done that isn’t being unwound). What the country needs is to come together around policies that promote consensus and togetherness. That would enable new legislation to have more staying power over the longer term.
But this will require new, better ideas. McCaskill and Bredesen offered none. Gretchen Whitmer is noticeably absent from your analysis. She is a prototype that could unite an even broader constituency that the identity politics approach you espouse.
1
I take exception to the author's assertion that Lucy McBath somehow had to start her campaign from the ground up. She did nothing of the kind, as she already had the vast network of volunteers, including canvassers, who were just chomping at the bit to have another change for Georgia 6 in November. She walked into a ready-made boots on the ground network ready, willing and eager to go, and they did. It is not bad politics for candidates to fit their constituents, particularly in heavily gerrymandered districts where voting power of one particular party is magnified while the minority party's votes are essentially "lost." Likewise, claiming that Claire McCaskill's loss was because she attempted to appeal to a "moderate" base misses the realities of the constituency she was faced with! Know they enemy. It is clear Mr. Phillips had little to no knowledge of Senator McCaskill's "enemies." Finally, noting that Hillary Clinton was the highest Democratic vote-getter EVER in Florida in the 2016 election hardly proves his point; rather, it impugns it! No one would ever call Hillary Clinton a "Progressive" candidate in the ordinary sense of the word, not then and not now. There is definitely shifting taking place, but it won't be huge movements, it will be gradual over time, as most politics are. We're starting to see the pendulum swing back in the other direction. We can help it along, but writing articles more wishful that factual are a waste of time.
2
I want a progressive candidate, but Donald Trump’s victory has proven the shortcomings of data. Democrats need to think about who they like best, and who can really move voters. That’s it.
If you want to understand this issue just think about Jeremy Corbyn and the Labor Party in Britain. There as here defeats led the Labor party to enter into a battle between moderates and the most extreme Laborites. The same exact arguments were made and Labor deduced that the reason they weren't making it was that they werent extreme enough. That faction of the party won the fight and their left turn pushed the party into near irrelevance perhaps permanently.
2
This is a nice counterpoint -- echoed elsewhere as well -- the tired refrain that the only way to beat Trump and his copycats is to run as a moderate. David Frum, whom many of us hank for his bold rebukes of Trump and his former party, is the most recent high-profile political writer to state this case, in The Atlantic. But the case studies highlighted in this column laid bare that while running moderate is necessary in some districts (see, for example, the California 48th, which required a Republican-turned-Democrat to flip it!), running as an unabashed progressive can and will work in almost all time zones, provided the messenger is authentic, inspiring, smart, and passionate about he people. I am not convinced that a moderate candidate in place of Gillum, Abrams or Beto would have done better than any of them in their respective states. Not remotely convinced. Walk like vanilla, talk like vanilla, received by the voters like vanilla.
1
This articles data analysis ignores the national environment. In 2016 looking at the only comparable statistic national house vote it was R+1. In 2018 it was D+7 (based on current nytimes estimates). On average one would expect candidates democratic candidates to do ~8 points better, but performing this adjustment Hillary outperforms both of these candidates by a good margin.
Also Nelson in 2000 outperformed Gillum both in their first run. That is in reference to a false claim about Gillum being best perform besides Obama in Florida state wide in 20 years. He also did better in following years and appears to have done better this year.
None of this is to say progressive candidates are bad, just that the data analysis in this article is bad.
3
Our moderate, left of center, Democratic gubernatorial candidate received the most votes in the history of the state. Her moderate approach, and law enforcement background attracted many new voters. A more progressive candidate would not have won in a state Hilary barely carried. Rejecting a left of center moderate, in favorite of a Harris, Booker or Warren liberal will ensure a 2nd term for Trump.
4
Yes, it's the money. But SCOTUS has decided that spending money is analagous to free speech. Therefore, it seems that the only way to end the egregious spending is by spending.
A dilemma...
1
Yes, do the math. The Democrats did not win the House with this strategy. Many moderates, and some conservatives, won Republican seats. Nor did this strategy gain a Senate seat in Arizona. Also recall that Obama won twice on a relatively moderate platform and received a decent number of votes from voters who switched to Trump over Hillary - who did not try to reach out. Writing off all the Trump voters and further polarizing the divide doesn't seem like a great plan for the country either.
1
I largely am aligned with this. I don't think the right term is "moderate" though. I think it's a candidate with no vision. What makes a difference, what gets people to the polls in large numbers (IMO) is either a) someone terrifying they are voting against (DT) or b) someone they are truly inspired by, even if they don't necessarily agree with the entire message. In this world of negative campaigning, endless mud-slinging and dumbed down messaging for sound-bites, it is challenging to truly be an inspiring candidate. To go high. To aspire. To include. That is, I truly believe, the way to engage people's hearts and minds. I hear that kind of messaging with many of the newly elected Democrats.
3
What about Tester and Manchin? There is no one-size-fits-all strategy.
5
The historic Democratic turnout is objective evidence that there is no nefarious effort to suppress the vote. As was the case in Dem. Sen. Doug Jones election in Alabama. Eligible voters are encouraged to register and to vote. Those who argue voter suppression despite undisputed and objective proof to the contrary diminish respect for the election process.
1
Many of the candidates listed as examples of a clearly successful strategy (Gillum, Abrams, O'Rourke) lost their elections or are currently losing. I am not convinced.
Then again, I have always wanted centrist candidates to succeed. I think voters are less polarized than the parties that represent them.
4
At the presidential level anyway, there is only one potential candidate who is an amalgam of all the characteristics Mr. Phillips rightly identifies in his column plus other characteristics that would appeal to what some might call more traditional middle of the road voters in a wide variety of states. It's Deval Patrick. As the first African-American governor of MA he was a strong progressive who also had good relations with the business community. He has also been general counsel of both Coca Cola and a major oil company and is now a partner at Bain Capital, a firm founded by none other than Mitt Romney. The fake charge of socialist will be very hard to stick him with. Add his time in the Clinton Justice Department and you have an unmatched set of credentials for this particular time in Democratic politics. He's also a charismatic speaker and relentlessly upbeat, just as are O'Rourke, Gillum and Abrams. If he decides to get in - and he's looking hard at it - it will be because he thinks he can win. And if he thinks he can, he can.
1
Finally, someone is published in the Times who is calling the Democrats to stand up for the values they profess but most often shrink from acting from and for. The center cannot hold. It certainly doesn't hold success for the Democrats. They don't have to be extreme, but they do have to stand up and call things by their names, as Mr. Gillum did with racism. The timidity of the Democrats is their undoing. It's possible to be fierce, and direct, and resolute, while also being reasonable and compassionate, and to act autonomously when conciliation and co-operation are rejected by the other party.
1
An exercise in data cherry-picking - and a recipe for disaster. It is absurd to compare the performance of moderates in Georgia or anywhere else in 2014 - when Trump was not on the ballot literally or figuratively - to results when many people (but obviously not enough) would be willing to vote for nearly any Democrat to send a message to the Party of Trump. What’s more noteworthy is that despite the overwhelming majority of people who just want him neutered, the Democrats STILL didn’t win in most of those places where we offered the same old identity politics nonsense as the alternative. The more important “math” is in flyover country, where the only Democrats who flipped House seats were those that ran non-partisan, non-idealogical, non-identity-politics campaigns. If the Democrats follow this advice we’re looking at 8 years of Little Putin in the White House, guaranteed.
5
To win in 2020, democrats have to win in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Good news, they won both the Senate and governor races here, so I would look here (adding Sherrod Brown in Ohio to the list) to see who can win in 2020. Because what 2018 shown is, you can have the best inspiring candidate in Florida, Georgia and Texas, it is extremely difficult to win here.
2
I like the idea, but does the math include:
- Maine
- Ohio
- Michigan
- Wisconsin
- Pennsylvania
- Florida
- Virginia
- Missouri
- Nevada
- Arizona
Those are the states we need to win.
The others, we've got.
2
Steve, I do the math. Clinton won the popular vote. She lost the electoral vote because Greens didn't vote for her and Blacks and Browns failed to vote significantly in the critical Midwestern states. As someone said at Aretha Franklin's memorial service, you've come out and stood in line for hours for this event, why didn't you do that in the presidential elections?
I do the math: Ocasio won in the South Bronx. Cuomo won the state. Beto lost in Texas. It's likely, despite the turnout that causes you to exult, that Florida and Georgia have elected Republicans. You ignore the moderates who won in places like Nevada and Arizona. Joe Manchin won in West Virginia. Can't it be possible for the Democrats to be the big tent the GOP always pretended to be?
And I do the social studies: Donald Trump is a racist, sexist anti-Semite who used commercials so repulsive that Fox News even stopped running them. He must be beaten. And all of us--white, brown, black, every color; moderates and progressives--must unite behind the Democratic candidate in order to beat him. It's not a matter of the lesser of two evils; it's a matter of democracy or fascism.
2
Abrams is toast, and Gillum is a very likely loser. However, as a Republican, I'm all for a hard shift to the left for my Democratic brethren. (Because I want them to prevail, of course.)
2
Using elected cases you make a steong argument. But there were lots more wins and losses that don't fit the pattern of your examples. I hope that Democrats can find someone to analyze the _whole_ election who doesn't have a thesis he or she is promoting.
The largest reason that Mr. Trump squeaked into the Presidency is that he ran against the Clintons. You want to understand what an inept candidate Hillary Clinton was? She ushered Mr. Trump into the White House.
Mr. Reagan would have loved to gut welfare when he was President. He couldn't do it. The Clinton's did it for him when they were in power. When Mr. George W. Bush was President he took us to way, and millions went to the streets to protest. When Mr. Obama was President he continued the wars and made the mad policies seem normal. He met the financial disaster by bailing out the banks he called to big to fail, and he did nothing for the lower middle class who lost their homes.
So long as the Democrats keep nominating (and sometimes electing) centrist politicians, they give us scant reason to have any enthusiasm for them.
Want to lead America into a better era that cares about the rest of us--the poor, the sinking middle class, the youth who are living without any faith that society offers a future for them? Start nominating some candidates who show the guts to fight for some fundamental changes in a government that exclusively has been of, by, and for the rich and powerful.
5
The wild card in 2020 is a strong GOP challenge from someone like Governor Hickenlooper.
Trump is in for a big surprise when he gets knocked off in the primary -except for the hardest core trumpanzeess the average conservative has finally sickened of his crummy act.
Hickenlooper would make a great president -thats the good news!
He will be hard to beat by any left of center democrat - that's the bad news.
I say go with Biden/Harris
@dave
Hickenlooper is a Democrat.
(Perhaps you are thinking of John Kasich.)
1
@dave I say no to Biden. He chose to sit out while Hillary got the nod. Many democrats just could not vote for Hillary. I considered her very, very hawkish. Biden is but one of the reasons we now have a sociopath in the White House. Time for new blood.
1
Democrats can win by inspiring NON VOTERS that, yes, it really DOES make a difference. They do this by bringing in candidates of color, men, women, transgender, non-gender conforming, Jews, Christians, Muslims, atheists, Buddhists - people with IDEAS that inspire us to believe that America has never been as great as it might be.
With all due respects, this makes no sense. The calculations that go on in voters' minds in a presidential election are very different from those in a midterm; hence, the Math, assuming it is done correctly, is only applicable to midterms. The fact that Mr. Trump tried to put himself symbolically on the ballot, does not make the recent election a presidential one.
It's good to know your mind & believe in yourself - this fosters creativity, strength and endurance.
However, even the greatest throughout history did not succeed alone.
Honor every part of our Constitution and Declaration of Independence - these statements were won with Lives & Fortunes.
Every Right exercised comes with the Duty to acknowledge & accommodate our Fellows & their circumstances.
Despite aspirations, our Government may not be ideal - commit to improving it rather than diminishing it.
Demand high standards of those who take on the role of Public Servant - and applaud them, for such requires very thoughtful & hard work.
Our Government exists to achieve objectives that can't be (well-) accomplished otherwise - these don't always pencil out.
Hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang (or go broke) separately.
We are only as strong as the weakest link - and that is the link not there.
Expansion of Human Rights is the bedrock claim our Nation has to greatness - all else is fleeting.
We are People - not corporations, unions, or churches.
Though we all have interests in and obligations to other groups, our Country is all of us.
1
Thank you for this op ed. It is a national public service. The era of mealy mouth-ness and mild blandishments are over. People want substance and inspiration. Hopefully we move onward and upward from here.
2
I so want you to be right …
… but you're not. First, comparing Missouri to Florida or Georgia is wildly inapposite -- growing economies vs. contracting economies, just for starters. But the most damning evidence against our point of view is to be found in your own dismissive parenthetical: Hilary Clinton was Florida's highest Democratic vote-getter ever. You can't get more moderate than Hilary and still be a Democrat, for Pete's sake.
The rest of the piece is just rhetoric built on the initial fallacy.
Democrats need inspiring candidates who can turn out the vote -- that much is clear -- but there simply is no evidence those inspiring candidates have to be progressive. Alas.
2
Driving in the middle of the road will get you killed.
3
Yes! No more Clintons, Bidens and the rest of Wall Street lakeys.
3
The tragedy is that Wall St. so easily conned black Dem primary voters into believing that Hillary was better for them than Bermie--an absurd lie, of course. As everyone knows, Bernie won the white Dem primary vote. Had blacks not been responsible for nominating the most despised nominee in party history, as all the exit polls in the Rust Belt showed, Bernie would have taken the region easily and wiped the floor with Trump. That would have given us the most progressive president since FDR, just when we needed him, instead of the most photo-fascist, racist president in our history.
2
Progressive candidates may pose a risk to certain members of the D's establishment/leadership/pundit class. The more success such candidates have, the greater the threat and the more similar potential candidates are not supported and even resisted. W's for the party isn't everything for these people, keeping their status within the party is.
1
The gist of the Steve Phillips formula for the success of Democrats seems to be that the party should nominate candidates of color to run on aggressively progressive platforms and, with rare exceptions, white candidates should never be nominated by the party.
This formula may satisfy the agenda of Steve Phillips, but it flies in the face of the Democratic Party’s tradition of a diverse party which welcomes members and candidates of every race, religion, gender, sexual orientation and country of origin.
The only requirement of the Party is a focus on justice for working people and for the most vulnerable among our fellow citizens.
Any formulaic approach which tries to alter that that diversity and focus threatens to destroy us.
E Pluribus Unum.
3
Do this math ... Voter turnout generally speaking is very poor in this country .. even at a record this midterm its still under 50%. Hence, if anyone (left or right) can tap into a massive non-voting population segment they would win any races that are anywhere near close.
1
The most salient and understated point in Phillip's argument is inspiration. Here's a short list of inspiring candidates: Obama, Sanders, O'Rourke, Gillum, Abrams, McBath (KY), Davids (KA), and yes, Trump.
They all have one thing in common: authenticity (Trump is authentic con). All but one are relative neophytes on the national political stage. All but two are young. All of them talked about America in a way that made their supporters feel good.
Please, no more Joe Bidens, John Kerrys, Cuomos, or Pelosis. If anything is clear, it is that Americans will want someone new in 2020.
3
A classic case of cherry-picking the data to support a preconceived opinion. No doubt a Heitkamp or McCaskill would have trailed far behind in Georgia and Florida (minority populations estimated at 44% and 46%), but a Gillum or Abrams would have been crushed in ND or Missouri (minority populations of 13% and 20%). Sinema looks likely at this moment to win in Arizona (minority pop. 44%) and she ran as a centrist. So did Tester in winning Montana. Jacky Rosen won in Nevada (49% minority) while stressing her bipartisanship. Sherrod Brown won in Ohio (20% minority) by about the same margin, running as a progressive. It is simply foolish to extrapolate from one or two states to make a very specific argument -- two years in advance -- about what sort of candidate can defeat Trump in 2020.
2
How to pick a winning candidate without regard to ideological purity: Nominate the candidate who draws the biggest crowds. An Obama, a Trump, a Sanders, a Dean; not a Hillary, not a Gore, not a Kerry. It's not complicated. We can let this choice sort itself out in the primaries. On a fundamental level, politics is still old school. If you can't motivate enough people to get off the couch, away from a screen, out of their comfort zone to come see you in droves in person, you're not going to win. They're not going to get up to vote for you, and, more critically, you will not have enough people to knock on doors, make calls, send texts, contribute, and get others to vote.
1
Moderate Democrats won. Socialist Democrats won. Progressive Democrats won. Similarly, all the above shades of Democrats lost in some races. The country and Democrats are diverse and I don't think one size fits all. Democrats should appeal to as many voters as possible, by having policies that are designed to capture what we have in common rather that what divides us. I hope our next candidate for President is a Moderate Socialist Progressive etc. etc. Democrat that can get as many voters to feel that she will be a President for us all.
1
True enough in the legislature but the approach does not work for national elections.
First and foremost, Democrats should stop demonizing wealthy, educated white men. My husband is a reliable Democratic voter, but is so tired of all the generalizations made by the Party about what he must think and believe based on his socioeconomic class. Second, rather than spending an inordinate amount of time and effort convincing apathetic people to vote, get the people that always vote to see the Democratic party as something they can get behind. Third, the Party needs to communicate its priorities and the solutions they intend to implement. Very specific solutions, not just generalizations. All of the Democratic candidates in mid-terms went on and on about healthcare, but I'm not convinced that any of them have any new ideas.
3
The most important thing we can do right now is focus o secretaries of state, governors, and state legislators in 2020. That is the one and only way to beat back the gerrymanders for 2024 and 2028.
2
In other words, Democratic candidates should take stances on the issues that reflect what majorities of Democrats want. Sadly, this is some kind of epiphany for some.
Try googling polling on single payer, campaign finance reform, marijuana decriminalization, reducing the size of the military, taxing the rich, raising the minimum wage, tuition reform, prison reform, gun control...
Are these really "liberal" issues? Polls show strong majorities of Democrats support them and in many cases, they even have majority support among the general populace.
So yes, let's try out the premise that our candidates should support what the people actually want.
(Really, google the polling. You may be surprised.)
2
@Tim L. Bravo! We are the majoritarian party, and we need to act like it. That's what Beto did--these are "common sense" ideas.
2
The progressive route is the way to go because the center right policies have failed the middle class and led us to this second gilded age we are in. The neoliberals like the Clintons and the current (changing now though) Democratic establishment is hardly distinguishable from Republicans economically, and these polices have failed us. Most people realize this and they are reacting in different ways. In 2016 Hillary was the Republican and Trump was the something different. He is duping the working class though and the Republican and neoliberal policies will continue to fail. Newer and what will be more successful policies are what progressives are pushing for.
2
The problem with anecdotal arguments is that they can often be confuted by other anecdotal arguments. Rosen in Nevada and Sinema in Arizona have certainly done better than Abrams, Gillum, and O'Rouke, although they campaigned at the right end of the Democratic Party. In beating Rohrabacher in California Rouda campaigned with many left wing proposals, but what people first learned and remembered about him was that he was a former Republican. Winning is important.
Even Phillips' examples are poor. Does he really believe that Ocasio-Cortez would have done better than McCaskill in Missouri? Taking a moderate stance, Nelson still did better than Gillum in Florida despite the weird ballots in Broward County. Obama was certainly an exciting candidate in 2008, but he was way to the right of Clinton on health care and had to be nudged leftwards by Pelosi. His economic policies, marked by his feeble stimulus package, were hardly Social-Democrat. I have no idea what will win for Democrats here or there, other than having exciting candidates is usually a good thing. But as a recommendation, that is about as useless as a director telling an actor, "Act better."
And, then, of course, is the elephant in the room. No discussion about what-ifs and review of 2016 can be authentic without noting that there was HUGE manipulation of the election by the GOP and it's operatives; and the asterisk needs to also offer a paragraph on Russian meddling. We know Republicans win with voter suppression and gerrymandering, reduced election polls, reduced hours, etc. Let's stop spending thousands of words discussing "candidates" if we aren't going to also discuss cheating.
1
I most definitely agree with Mr. Phillips, with a few caveats, but one very significant one: mobilizing voters doesn't end after the elections are over. In fact, if Democrats, or anybody, actually did something while in office to improve the lives of the majority of people, the need for mobilization wouldn't be so urgent. Obama did this, to a certain extent, by giving people healthcare options where they had none previously. This was a baby step, because Obama took the most conservative possible road to achieving that. There are still millions of people without health insurance, the federal minimum wage still sits at an incredibly astonishing rate of just $7.25/hour, and most families with 2 wage earners still struggle to earn what they used to earn with 1 wage earner. As citizens, we still choose our candidates based upon the least of 2 evils--it simply should not be this type of choice. Democrats need to put together a platform to make people's lives better, not just to get their vote.
1
This strategy works in some localities, but not others.
In today's Wall Street Journal, the topic was pay and conditions of the working class in the restaurant industry. This good be expanded to retail, hospitality, up to about 50% of U.S. jobs. Eventually, people will figure out the problems isn't China(Trump), its Wall Street and Hoover economics.
3
The author is correct, but we need to understand that there are just not enough people of color to win. It takes a lot of whites too. Which whites, where to find them, that is the question.
However, he is right that the whites cannot be found by going to that "middle." That has become a formula to sell out to Republican ideas, and to contest with Republicans for their voters.
It takes for granted the Democratic voters, and betrays them. Then they just don't turn out. Why should they? They can only elect Republican ideas either way.
It overlooks the huge numbers of those who don't turn out. We run about half of us voting, many times even less. Someone could win with just the voters who don't vote.
That is what "mobilization" is about. It is outreach to those who gave up on politicians. It must acknowledge that they were right to give up on politicians. As good sensible people, they could see how it was going.
Listen. Learn. Reform. Go to them.
2
In 2014 Gwen Graham, arguably a conservative Democrat, was one of only 2 Democrats to unseat an incumbent Republican. She is the daughter of Florida poliitcal royalty Bob Graham who served as that state's US senator.
In 2014 appropriately progressive Wendy Davis was was crushed in her run for Texas governor. Likewise, Alison Grimes in Kentucky's senate race against Mitch McConnell.
How many times now has Zephyr Teachout lost?
If there is one thing Democrats must learn from the 2018 elections is that all national politics is local and they must not be whip sawed into arguing, with each other or with the other side, the arcane and esoteric points of their positions during the campaign.
In politics, if you are explaining, you are losing. Broad strokes that are relevant to the voters of the political subdivision you are running for is the winning path for Democrats, regardless if they are as conservative as Gwen Graham and Kyrsten Sinema or as progressive as Allesandria Cortes.
1
If there are any moderate Democrats I hope they pound their fist and make some noise. The same hope goes for any moderate Republicans. The media is driving a minority of the country, the uber partisans of the left and the right, to take control of our Congress.
Following last week's election, all I've heard is the voice of the extremists - yelling half truths about the GOP and Trump agenda - threatening to take the country back to one controlled by Washington, D.C..
Elections do matter. But, before 2016, most Americans allowed the election results to be implemented. In 2016, a number of left wing activists decided that elections don't matter - that the poor rubes who supported a change in the executive branch just did not have the knowledge to 'properly' vote.
These same folks will try to tear down the electoral college, a defense against an all powerful federal government. When they do so, they will tell their followers that they are smarter than those in the country and not to worry. Those running Washington know better. Most of the damage will not affect the boomer generation, but I do fear for my grandchildren. The country that prized initiative, work, and respect for all is going to disappear.
1
What's a "moderate" Democratic candidate? Someone for moderate discrimination against preexisting conditions, moderate sexual harassment and pay discrimination, moderate police brutality, moderate extreme income inequality, moderate destruction of the environment, moderate citizenship for Dreamers and moderately ripping children from their asylum-seeking parents at the border? That's the problem with so-called "moderate Democrats": they stand for nothing that can be defended if it is articulated. To campaign in moderation is to campaign in empty words and empty symbols, with only what funding deep-pocket donors, who basically want nothing done, can deliver. All "moderate Democrats" end up doing is validating unspoken bigotry and injustice, which Trump and the alt-right are doing a fine job broadcasting already.
2
@RRI Someone who does not believe in socialism. Someone who believes that in America, when you are young and strong and go to college you MUST bear some of the costs, so as to make sure you don't see college as a young adult funhouse. Someone who can appeal to white independents, who we are losing over and over to the GOP because of extreme leftists. MLK was a black moderate and so am I.
1
The article unintentionally makes the point just how anti-social the US is when it states "by being unapologetically progressive. They did not shy away from championing Medicaid expansion, pursuing criminal justice reform and promoting gun control policies"
In every modern democracy today other than the US these are taken as givens and accepted by mainstream conservative!
Sigh
Do the math...a leftist democrat for President can't win in 2020, it would be a bloodbath the likes of 1972/McGovern...the strategy for the party/Congress should be to go local, recruit exciting candidates, talk issues that could vary substantially by state...don't try to solve all our problems in one election... the Presidential candidate should be above all a non-Trump - smart, nice, truly tough, non-elitist, decent, caring...someone who talk up a handful of key issues that most Democrats support, not just a narrow bandwidth right or left...
2
I think a more accurate proposition than the title of this article would be "Democrats Should Focus on the Issues Rather Than Attempting to Triangulate Between the Far Right and Far Left".
Yeah, know it would be a terrible title but I think it does express reality. Voters are looking to solutions to their problems, not for labels.
Sorry, mate, it's not math, it's electability. Just think of the democrats that trump would love to run against and don't nominate any of them.
3
I think the bottom line is please, oh please, don't nominate Elizabeth Warren. I like her just fine, but she is vilified by the right, even the moderates. This is not the time to do the right thing, this is the time to win. If it has to be an old school Democrat, Biden is the only one who has a shot. But, if you are listening DNC, O'Rourke/Harris for the win!
2
Beto O'Rourke came close because his opponent was the easily dislikable Ted Cruz.
I suspect many people are tired of the far right and tired of the far left and want a candidate who is
--honest and forthright
--for stopping big money including bezos and gates and oil money from influencing politics
--for health care for all AND for controlling the costs of health care so as not to overburden us with costs or taxes
--for enough of a military to provide a defense and provide job training to young men and women everywhere
--mostly pro environment
--not socialistic
Bernie's too far left. Trump is too far right and impulsive. Hillary has too much baggage.
I'm starting to favor Amy Klobuchar for president. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Klobuchar
@Charlie Running against the unlikeable Cruz probably helped, but Beto's disarming likeability and authenticity were the main factors that brought him so close. I like Klobuchar, too. Wouldn't mind a Beto/Klobuchar ticket or Klobuchar/Beto.
This article is correct about the math in 2018, and I think that by 2020 the math will be even stronger.
The Republicans have treated politics as war by other means. They have no particular principles, but just want to win and reap the spoils. Some military leaders have on the past decided to win by trashing all restraint and customary norms, and committing evil crimes. That does work, until it doesn't work. Then the rest of the world comes thundering down upon them. This is the path Trump's party has chosen: to repeatedly gather up ill-gotten gains, until they end in utter defeat.
1
Sinema's (apparent) victory in AZ goes against this grain -- she really seems to be more of a moderate republican than a democrat. Perhaps a one-size fits all global strategy for all dems is not the most effective. Surely regional and local dynamics should be considered in the calculus of which dems would do better in 2018 against their opponents.
1
If moderate Democrats could stand to learn a few things, so could progressives: they could stand to learn who their actual enemies are, they could stand to learn some patience for the women and men who kept their eyes on the prize for a long time, they could stand to learn that a lot of Americans aren’t stupid and aren’t benighted, and just see the world in different ways from them.
Wouldn’t hurt if they learned that their own loud chest-thumping isn’t one whit more attractive than Trump’s, too.
1
It's not about math. It's about Democrats finding a clear message and a person to carry that message. You are correct that the Democratic Party needs to invest in "get out and vote" strategies in all 50 states and with the new Democratic governors end the gerrymandering. The Party knows that the future is diverse - it was lifted up by diversity in 2016 and in the 2018 midterms. The Party was abandoned by white men and women who chose to vote against their own best interests. Kind of hard to fight that kind of stupid.
This author’s delusional nonsense is music to the ears of the Trump 2020 campaign. The Democrats would be better off learning how to say, “We are opposed to illegal immigration.”
But, that’s the magic bullet they won’t touch.
5
There is a racism and sexism here. No doubt having a black, Hispanic, man or woman or, even better, Oprah, on the ticket would draw some votes. No doubt, a photogenic "Democratic Socialist", would draw some votes.
But one thing the Democrats have hopefully learned is that a candidate with charisma and charm, and who really cares about and can talk to ALL of the constituents, regardless of their class/ethicity/sex can win.
3
Ever since Bill Clinton, the Democrats' rationalization for centrism has been: "This is how we will win, and winning is all that matters; Now, you Progressives, sit down and shut up, while we kowtow to Wall Street, Big Pharma, Silicon Valley, and the Military Industrial Complex".
Well, by their own metric—winning—this rationalization has been exposed and debunked. On Centrist Obama's/Pelosi's/Shumer's Watch, the Democrats lost 1,000+ seats and paved the way for a President Trump. (Yes, Candidate Obama ran as a Progressive, but President Obama governed as a Moderate Republican.)
Bottom Line: When given the choice between a Coke and a Coke Lite, a Bud and Bud Lite, the voters prefer the real thing.
3
In case you missed it, Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum both lost.
4
Going left is not the winning strategy just yet. Socialism will not win in the South--or in any of the states where people work with their hands. I'll remind you....Abrams, Gillum and O'Rourke all lost--as did Joe Donnelly, Heidi Heitcamp and Claire McCaskill.
It will take at least another generation of socialist brainwashing of our children by our education system--reinforced by the Socialist Media--before Socialism has a winning chance.
1
@Jesse The Conservative
Abrams, Gillum and O'Rourke came very close in Republican states, outperforming previous candidates. With two of them also handicapped by racism, and all races facing voter suppression and election fraud (on the part of the two candidates overseeing their own races, mind you.)
So saying they "lost" may be right technically, but you're wrong on the overall takeaway from their races.
The Democratic Senators who lost their seats were in very heavily Republican territory. They still lost with less than the margin of Trump's victory.
You seem obsessed with the word "Socialism".
You repeated it four times.
Seems like you've undergone your own form of brainwashing.
Unclear what you mean by "where people work with their hands".
There is nobility in any job. Whether you work mostly with your hands or your brain. They are not mutually exclusive. One is not inherently better than the other. When I perform surgery, I am using both my hands and my brain.
And in every job that I've had in my 50-year work history, spanning work at a butcher shop, several supermarkets, doing environmental studies for a University, working in an office, going through medical training, and performing as a surgeon, I've always emptied the trash.
2
McCaskill lost, so we shouldn't follow her example.
Abrams lost, so we should follow her example.
Got it.
Or maybe, different electorates require different candidates. But that doesn't fit the narrative, so it's not presented as an alternative.
2
Run diverse candidates - of course. But diversity is not a platform unto itself. Talk about policy. Diversity is self-evident, and voters see it and embrace it (or don't) without it being articulated explicitly.
1
The argument is intriguing. Inspiration matters a great deal. Ms. Clinton was not inspiring. President Obama and his wonderful wife are. But so too are people like Mr. O'Rourke. You don't have to be a person of any particular color to inspire others. You do have to credibly care about every person and every group of every race, color, creed and gender, and to be credible as a leader of the free world. There are plenty of candidates in the new, younger and definitively dynamic class of democrats, and one new republican representative, Dan Crenshaw, who could fit that bill. Time for the old guard to leave the stage!!!! From the democrat and republican parties.
4
This argument doesn't hold much water. Abrams, Gillum and Beto all lost - all are on the progressive end. Sinema, Rosen and Kelly all won - all consider themselves moderate. Most of the really progressive winners were in deep blue districts, of which there are not many in 2020.
3
Democrats in so-called "red states" need to stop running as moderate Republicans and start passionately advocating for things like reducing income inequality, widening access to low-cost healthcare, implementing common sense gun regulations and (especially) campaign finance reform) and against the billionaire agenda.
In my state of Indiana, I predicted Senator Donnelly's loss several months prior to the election. I watched in disbelief as he campaigned on helping the President get the wall built and his support for the appointment of Justice Gorsuch (he also refused to opine on appointing Kavanaugh until the very last minute). His campaign was uninspiring to his base to say the least and failed to create enough energy to propel him (or any of the more deserving down-ballot Dems) to victory.
If the best person the Dems can run at the top of a state's ballot is a candidate who appears ashamed or embarrassed by the party's core values, it is probably better to stay out of the race altogether. Authenticity is the currency of our political system and if you don't have it, please just step aside. Obama had plenty of it in 2008 and he won in my "red state" without sacrificing his values.
4
@KC You're omitting the fact that Donnelly was an incumbent candidate and his more moderate positions got him elected six years ago. I'm with you on the need for progressive candidates who actually stand for something, but don't forget we hold 50 separate elections for national office in this country and many thousands of down-ballot ones. Not every place is alike.
1
Most of the seats flipped for Democrats was by moderates, not progressives. It would be a mistake to believe that progressives are the right fit for most of the country.
3
You are indisputably wrong. Very progressive democrats within the party make headlines by proclaiming that this or that type of person is not a "real" democrat. Because of our extreme political transparency these ideas are widely disseminated. In our two party system this says to those with shaky convictions that since they are not "real" democrats, they must be republicans. It would seem obvious that you do not win elections by telling people that they should join the opposition. We have seen a lot of this behavior of late.
3
Confusing: Obama hewed to the middle, both on the campaign trail and in office. His example undermines this argument.
4
This is all so bogus. The idea that one "kind" of candidate is sure to win and the other is sure to lose is so ridiculously not how life works. As someone who wishes it were so that someone with Abrams or Gillum's politics was a sure thing and the milquetoast middleism of Bredeson or McCaskill could be proven by calculation to fail, I still am entirely uninterested in this silly projecting. Last I saw, Mr. Phillips, the embodiment of moderation (Nelson) was doing better against a formidable opponent (Scott) than Gillum was against a looney tune (DeSantis). How could the Times publish this without telling Mr. Phillips to deal with this unpleasant fact? There's no crystal ball, people. Stop listening to these con men; organize!
2
Gillum, Abrams, and O'Rourke all lost. Meanwhile moderates like Tony Evers (WI), Tom Wolf (PA), and Gretchen Witmer (MI) all won governor's races in the three decisive states that tipped the election to Trump in 2016. (As did moderate gubernatorial candidates in Nevada, Colorado, and Virgina.) Do the Math!
2
Come on, Jason Carter ran for governor in 2014, a terrible year for Democrats all around (not the almost blue wave of 2018). It wasn't being more moderate than Abrams that put him four points behind Abrams. Phillips makes other claims just as wrong or unsubstantiated, like ignoring all the moderate/pragmatic House candidates actually elected in 2018 across the country.
This is just typical of most political pundits with their own agenda to push.
The Dems aren't going to win 2020 in Georgia and probably not Florida. And they aren't going to win by going far left to "get out the progressive vote". If you are progressive and you aren't out voting against Trump and his minions regardless of who the Dem candidate is in 2016, 2018, and 2020 then … well … you aren't progressive. No matter what color you are.
2
The author cherry picks a half dozen races and then draws his own predetermined conclusion. The headline says do the math and he doesnt do any math. Send it to Nate Cohn for an honest analysis and not a cherry pick. No attempt to look at all the races, no scientific systematic analysis. He makes a big deal about Heitkamp and McCaskill's losses but fails to mention Tester and Manchin in two even redder states. One can pick and choose what one wants and come to some conclusion. My own take is that it is the candidate not the policy. I have heard enough about Beto O Rourke, but he was an eminently likable candidate against a guy who looks like Bela Lugosi
1
@Jack Wolf Sadly it's true. It's much more the candidate than the policy, mostly thanks to the superficiality and "star making machinery" of the media.
1
Posing as an election analyst, an author plugs his own book.
5
I don’t like what this strategy portends: namely, that the only way to incentivize black and brown voters to show up on Election Day is to put a black or brown candidate on the top of the ballot. Our candidates should be as diverse as the country they represent, but their identities ought to be incidental; bold ideas and principled leadership are what matter most. Trump has demonstrated the dangers of campaigning in naked racial appeals; Democrats must resist that urge and make overtures to women and men of all races and backgrounds if they have any hope of succeeding as a national party in the decades to come.
166
@Michael
That's not at all what he's saying. He is simply saying that a candidate has to be strongly differentiated enough to inspire people of color to vote, to actually stand for something. Ever since the Clintons came along, the Democratic party has stood for "moderation", which means compromising on health care, educational standards, welfare, and a whole host of other issues where the Republicans say "meet more than halfway" and keep walking to the right. It's time for Democratic candidates who really have a vision of a better America, not one that is just tinkered with.
66
@Michael
I agree. “Democracy” means rule by the demos, the common people; and a democracy is the healthier, the more its demos is self-motivated. People who need others to motivate them, who won’t bother to vote without being cajoled to do so, are not good decision-makers for their polity. In a healthy democracy suffrage is universal and no one is denied easy access to the voting booths—but neither is anyone pressured to make use of them.
6
@Michael Black women are the most reliable Democratic voting bloc; the LEAST we could do is put them at the top of the ticket. All else being equal, this suburban white lady who (now) lives in Cedar Park Texas will vote for a Black woman over a white man. Call it reparations.
34
What do we want to win? I think any reasonable Democratic candidate has a good chance for victory. The question becomes, what do we want to accomplish with a Democratic president. Do we want improved universal health care, taxes that more fairly ask the wealthy and businesses to contribute more, a fair minimum wage... All these require sizable Democratic majorities in Congress. [Remember how close the ACA vote was, and that was with very substantial Democratic majorities.] So the goal is more than simply to narrowly win the presidency, it is to win big enough to enact a progressive agenda. For that, it is unclear that Mr. Phillips strategy is the best one.
1
The math changes due to the electoral college, and in states outside the South. Don't confound "moderate vs. progressive" -- an introspective division only Democrats employ -- with "establishment vs. populist" -- what the broader population cares about. We can run very successfully as economic populists, on gun control, and so on; the risk is repelling suburban moms and working class whites by going all-in on minority identity politics or rabidly speculative new schemes ("Medicare for all"). Run on gun control, Medicaid expansion, reversing the Trump tax cuts, and we win. Run on militant self-obsession, as the author has urged, and we lose.
2
It’s not a question of progressive versus moderate. It’s a question of candidates who stand for something versus candidates who only say “I’m not Trump“. Trump’s impulsive and shifting commitments somehow give many people the impression that he stands for change, and people feel a very great need for change right now. A Democrat who stands for something will be a progressive, because that’s with the democratic party stands for. Conservative Democrats will always sound like “we are not as bad as they are”, and thus will not sound like they stand for anything.
More importantly, the way to win is to choose your positions, rather than to blindly follow the Liberal or Conservative Orthodoxies. Again Trump gets all sorts of votes because he embraces positions that are rejected by Conservatives, both Republican and Democrat (Tariffs, punishing businesses that try to relocate factories etc. )
Ossoff in GA-6 was a pretty progressive candidate, albeit closer to Obama than Sanders. He mobilized the same base as McBath but not as successfully. One could reasonably argue that he mobilized the Dem GOTV effort in a red district and laid a foundation which McBath rode to victory.
The last thing the Democrats need is a civil war over ideological purity, a litmus test for "right" thinking. This is a surefire formula for the Right to divide and conquer. Progressive wins in some regions/states, in others it is better to be moderate. The point is to be pragmatic: choosing the right candidate and agenda for the right region/state. Remember, one has to be elected to enact policy.
5
Mobilization is not a progressive versus moderate issue, and Medicaid expansion (and "Medicare for all"), criminal justice reform (and campaign finance reform), and sensible gun control policies are positions that progressives and moderates alike can support. I agree that confronting racism head-on is a strong strategy. But candidates need to appeal to their constituencies. In many places it may be OK to be a moderate. But it may take someone who campaigns like a progressive to win an election.
1
Most Americans are in the middle. Independents, moderate Republicans, and moderate Democrats.
It is the worse advice to recommend extreme candidates or far left or far right candidates from either party. If this advice is take, it will mean one of 2 thins - defeat or else victory resulting in much greater polarization, something that our country hardly needs.
The best advice would be to have moderates in both parties.
4
@Philly
"The best advice would be to have moderates in both parties."
The problem is that you can count the number of moderate Republicans left in Congress on one hand. (Most either got primaried from the right, or Mr. Trump drove them into retirement.)
Nearly all the moderates in Congress today are Democrats. And the Republicans keep moving the goal post further to the right. If Democrats try to work with them, Mitch McConnell proceeds to pull away the football like Lucy did to Charlie Brown.
2
The candidate with the most charisma wins. Charisma can be good or bad, it can be something beautiful or something freaky or terrifying, but in this game show, charisma ALWAYS wins.
1
I was going to point out you are mistaken because Beto lost to the slithering Cruz, but then realized what you were saying - the people of Texas prefer slithering to slick at this point in time. Both are charismatic, but at different ends of the same pole.
President Obama wasn't a progressive. He was a moderate Democrat. Most true progressives felt let down, even betrayed, by his actions and decisions as president.
5
Its of course important to win races to have a share in power. Messaging is important. It may be the case though that even more important is what you accomplish. David Brooks remarks and I agree that pre-existing conditions protection won't work for 2020. Other than the above what policies does the Democratic party stand for? What will a team in office accomplish? How can they do this? Answer some of the above and the Dems may win in another wave.
There is no one-size fits all approach to winning elections, but every campaign does need to mobilize the vote to win. That makes sense. Authenticity counts. Research counts. Leadership counts. When it comes to speaking to the voters and convincing them to vote, it depends on the local electorate. The same issue doesn't make the top of the list in every state and every district. Democrats need to work on a ground game, reconnecting with the voters, and having a brand on a national level.
I can tell you that if Democrats nominate a "progressive" a/k/a socialist, Donald Trump will carry Michigan again. It will be a mirror image of 2016 in which low African American turnout in Wayne County allowed Trump to win. In 2020, with a "progressive" candidate, the suburban voters will sit it out and Trump will win again. Suspect it is similar in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and even Ohio and Florida.
3
It would have been really nice for your argument if Gillum, Abrams, and Beto had one. But they didn't. I guess it was adding and comparing numbers that led to that outcome. Not that there's anything wrong with those candidates to me personally.
1
You (and Democrats) keep looking at this in either/or terms. All the nuts-and-bolts efforts to get out the vote and inspire action is crucial. Any smart candidate should do that.
I'm a moderate Republican and despises Trump and hopes that Democrats will provide a great candidate, with a clear/concise message, that is delivered with passion. i don't have to agree with every policy decision. You really don't have to be that "moderate".
Show me that you understand what issues are most important, focus on those, explain what solutions look like, be honest about the costs, demonstrate a an understanding (not just a "willingness") to work with the other Party to find solutions.
There are at least 20% of the electorate who will support a candidate like that - people that supported Obama. If you think a combative Booker/Harris/Warren is going to win, you're ensuring a Trump re-election. I don't know who that ideal candidate is yet. I don't care if it's a Republican either but that's unlikely.
6
Speaking of being honest with yourself, any chance you guys’ll get honest with yourselves about the GOP’s total refusal to work with Obama on ANYTHING?
The problem is that we have an electoral college and all that matters is winning the majority of swing states That means fielding a candidate who can win PA, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin.
The Dems just came trouncing back with big statewide races there. Georgia and Texas likely will not be turning blue by 2020.
While i adore Gillum, Abrams and Beta, they likely aren’t wining their races. “Almost” doesn’t count with electoral college math
3
The best politicians, by temperament and personality, are Left-Leaning. Could be ANYBODY. Focus on economic benefits delivered through the Federal Government and Team Blue will take the White House in 2020
Let me simplify the math: EVERYONE to the left of the Democratic nominee will vote for him or her. Most to the right will not The further toward the middle that candidate is, the more people will be to the left and the fewer to the right.
Nominating a Cory Booker or Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren or a Hillary re-invented yet again as a far-left avenger -- in other words a Coastal Identity Politics champion, will be another suicide mission by the Democratic party.
5
Mr. Phillips is lumping Pres. Obama in with Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum, but other than their skin color and organizing skills, they have very little in common.
Obama did not run as a progressive. He ran his first campaign on a message of Hope and Change that meant many things to many people. He ran as a centrist. He rarely brought up racial issues specifically, referring instead to fairness and justice. This is called "being all things to all people", and he had a gift for it.
Many people, especially coastal urbanites, seem to have a hard time understanding that not all white people in red states are racist. Obama proved that middle-of-the-road folks will vote for politicians who aren't white. But they are not going to vote for politicians who don't understand that the East and West Coasts are not the entire country.
7
"Ms. Abrams’s campaign defied conventional wisdom by spending early and big on a vast mobilization effort that involved calling, texting and knocking on the doors of nearly 600,000 infrequent Georgia voters a full year before the election."
This is what the so-called "leaders" of the Democratic fail to understand, and keep failing to understand. It's not the centrists that will win you elections, it's mining the unrecognized and disenfranchised, exciting THEM to register and vote, that will win. Only 48% of the eligible voting public actually voted last Tuesday. No more than 1/3 of eligible Millennials voted.
In 2016 enough voted Green Party in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan to surpass Trump's margin in all 3 states--they wouldn't vote for the right-centrist main-stream, little-in-common with them Hillary Clinton. But dollars to donuts they'd vote for Beto, Stacey, or Andrew in a NY minute!
There are more votes out there to be mined and spending four hours a day calling big donors isn't going to reach them. Knocking on doors, getting small donations, registration drives, and providing transportation will.
Remember: 100,000 donors giving $25 each is worth 1000x more than 10 donors giving $250,000 each. The former will vote for you, the latter expect access--and you STILL need to win 100,000 votes you would have had!
This is what the "Leaders" don't get, and why Dems blow it almost every cycle.
1
@Dadof2 Abrahms lost and if the Dem leadership listens to people like you, I will be voting white racist GOP in 2020.
If doing what we've always done is the key to winning elections, how come Donald Trump is president? This article is just playing to the New York Times base. The strategy will lose, just like it did in 2016.
4
Maybe I'm being naive, but is it insane to think we can appeal to both moderates AND progressives? The Republicans don't sit around whining about potential strategic appeal conflicts in their ideologies. It makes no sense that they can appeal to wealthy CEOs, middle class suburbanites and low income rural voters, and yet they do. It's frankly laziness to say that this is solely a racial appeal and all of their voters are not only somewhat prejudiced but SO prejudiced that they are all single issue voters on whiteness.
The strange need of the left to fight with itself and of every person within it to be right hurts our cooperative efforts. Obama won because while he could appeal to PoCs, progressive whites and educated suburbanites, Biden appealed to low income rural voters at tons of rallies across the country.
I don't know why it is so revolutionary to suggest that people who wish to rule the nation should attempt to appeal to as MANY people within it as possible. So, perhaps, instead of wringing our hands over which Americans we should be ignoring, we should try to figure out a message that can actually appeal to enough of them that the Republican party can't sweep the Electoral College by putting an ill-fitting suit on a rotting orange covered in cat hair and encouraging it to spout poorly written, race-baiting propaganda.
The truth is that bigotry is only winning because nothing better is being offered in the correct manner to the correct people.
2
The lesson should have been learned after 2016 debacle lead by the Clintons --the prototypical moderate democrats. Obama was viewed as a progressive liberal even though he really was more moderate than that label suggests. Obama was able to win with typical democrats and independents and a few republicans, while Hillary tried and failed to recruit disaffected republicans who were anti-Trump. The result for Clinton was an utter disaster and the DNC wasted millions trying to convert republicans at the expense of fully mobilizing the base. The arrogance of that strategy is clear today--you were/are never going to get the Evangelicals, blue collar white voters, anti-abortion people or some traditional republicans to vote for the democrats--stop wasting money and time on these people!
1
...in which Steve Phillips selectively pulls anecdotes that show that people he likes should be chosen and people he doesn't like should not.
5
Republicans are the party of cheaters.
Think of any way one can cheat and Republicans have gone there. Look at Rick Scott filing suits to prevent counting all Floridians' votes! It worked in 2000 after all.
Democrats must continue to immediately fight and debunk the cheating loud and long. Look at the Georgia governor's race. Look at Florida's races for senate and governor.
In order to continue to win Democrats must constantly talk about what is important to voters while fighting to overturn the cheaters, whether it is Fox. Trump, or Koch brothers' money as speech.
2
And your evidence is two candidates that appear to have lost?
Are you math challenged?
Republicans go far right wing and your answer is for the Democrats to go far left wing?
What about ALL of those American voters in the middle?
Riddle me that Steve?
7
Let’s see if I understand; Embrace the far left Identity Politics of Abrams’ and Gillum because white liberals loved it even though both candidates lost? Is that what the author is suggesting? Scream “racism” at every turn because some people think that brings us together? Huh?
All over the country Moderate Democrats won. And they did so by focusing on economic ideas. Better to follow that path.
9
I’ve finally figured it out: “identity politics,” is what right-wingers say when they mean, “uppity blacks and derned civil rights advocates.”
1
Concepts for a 'Carville-haiku' for Democrats in 2020:
1. only one reality
2. naptime for grandpa
3. We'll fix the potholes.
1. Only one reality. Not only should every Democratic candidate sign a "facts, truth, no hyperbole" pledge, the national party should hire a chief reality officer ASAP. In addition to being the right thing to do, becoming "the party of truth" would provide an all-purpose anti-trope.
Mayor Gillum's brilliant "I'm not saying you're a racist..." comment is an example of one of the many ways this principle can be applied.
2. Naptime for grandpa. Dealing with the problems the planet, world, and country face is going to take years of effort. We really don't want to decide retrospectively that it could have been a mistake letting the planet's future depend on a long-dead politician with either an ideological or economic conflict of interest.
Prospective Democratic candidates who can remember Harold Stassen should mentally substitute their own name and 2020 for "Stassen in '68...why not?"
They could become elder statespeople, perhaps taking a long tour of the planet's beaches and islands to "enjoy while it lasts" Another potent weapon against "whataboutism."
3. We'll fix the potholes. Competence can deflect "identity politics". As South Bend mayor Pete Buttieg says, nobody cares he's gay when they're trying to get some garbage picked up.
Note that campaign claims of competence "I worked with..." and "I passed..." differ from actual competence.
1
@Grennan I love it. Flesh this out into a book
@Tiger shark
Thanks. This approach could start immediately, as well as covering any candidate in any situation.
One reality: Imagine Mr. Trump trying to respond to a 2020 Dem who'd taken the truth, facts, and no hyperbole pledge.
The facts-based debating style worked very well for Al Gore in the 1996 v.p debate against Jack Kept. It might have worked for former WI Sen Russ Feinstein, who did not challenge then-debate opponent and now-current Sen. Ron Johnson when he claimed that the AHCA would require 15,000 additional IRS agents. I knew that wasn't true, and Mr. Feinstein should have, too.
Naptime for grandpa: Nancy Pelozzi deserves to be speaker again. Then she should implement "leadership school", open to any and all congresspeople to enforce the idea that the speakership affects every American, and that the history and process of the people's house is more important than ideology.
We'll fix the potholes [roads, bridges, schools, toxic lagoons, invasive nutria, etc.]. How to repair something is a lot more important than blaming whoever broke it.
It's also a lot harder to dismiss incompetence charges as a smear tactic than corruption accusations.
Whatever ideological factors were involved, the GOP wouldn't have become the "party of Reagan" if enough voters in 1980 had believed in Jimmy Carter's effectiveness.
(A century earlier, Chester Alan Arthur's competence was a GOP political force. For decades "he's no Chet Arthur" was a meaningful comparison.)
YES!
In order for Democrats to win, they need to double down on their core "values": support for illegal immigration, affirmative action, identity politics and transgender bathrooms. Trust me, this is a winning strategy.
5
Beats tripling down on greed, ignorance and bigotry, though, don’t you think?
2
Somebody wants a "moderate left" other David Brooks and his ilk? I don't. Who's going to win in 2020? The moderate right? hahahaha
I'm as far left as one can be, but I find agreement with Trump supporters on one thing: I support candidates who are "straight talkers" and who exude strength. The problem with the Clintons' attempts to flash a smile to the left while winking knowingly to the white folks with the cash is that too few voters are not, you know, idiots. Racists are racist. Use the word. The NRA values profit over the lives of people who don't own guns. State this. Be forceful. Call out lies, corruption, and violations of the Constitution (eg. Our acting Attorney General). State your views and positions and work to bring the opposition to accept them. Compromise does not work if one side capitulates before negotiations begin.
Gillum, Abrams, and other strong progressives embody integrity. The Dems could use hundreds of candidates in their mold.
1
What twisted logic. So a few left-leaning candidates did reasonably well in a year when their opponents could easily be labeled as Trump-supporting, misogynistic, racist supporters of inequality. Lumping a moderate Obama with these sorts of candidates only extends the fallacy. So too does the fact that moderate Democrats, some of them racial, gender, or religious minorities, kicked butt to win back several governorships, the House and even an unexpected Senate seat or a two.
3
As long as you can respect the concerns that a fair number (30-55% or more) of Americans have that makes them "non-progressive,"...go for it.
Getting elected is about striking balance between the past and the future and bringing "past"-voters into the future in ways that make them feel safe, respected and valued.
The Democratic Party (my Party) hasn't done a great job of making the past feel welcomed in the future.
Not every election is a revolution and not every voter is situationally or constitutionally (small "c") a revolutionary.
Trump's election, while a motivational kick in the butt to progressives, provided a home for "past"-voters and it will be hard to dislodge them if they have come to "feel" safer in that dwelling. Trump's election was a rebuke by some (not all) voters to Progressives saying too fast and without enough "comfort," or straight talk about trade-offs.
Democrats have a certain amount of starting over to do if they want to attract these voters.
Taking the 2018 mid-term results to be a signal to steam forward is as much a formula for reversals as it is a call to jump off a moderate track. How many times (the early Obama Presidency?) must Democrats be given the proverbial half-a-loaf only to throw it back in the voters' faces as inadequate and an insult to our "progressiveness."
1
WSJ says Hillary is running in 2020.
What do you say a Hillary Beto ticket in 2020. For a Trump win.
3
You state: "Over the past 20 years, the best-performing Democratic candidates in statewide elections in Florida and Georgia have been Mr. Obama, Mr. Gillum and Ms. Abrams. (Hillary Clinton in 2016 was actually Florida’s highest Democratic vote-getter ever.) " Hillary is hardly a left leaning progressive.
What your analysis seems to support is an early aggressive grass roots effort and candidates who actually ask questions and listen to the people's responses, regardless of their skin color. I will vote for any candidate who has an understanding of our national health care crisis, need for more equality in earnings and economic advantages, infrastructure rebuilding and fair treatment of immigrants. I don't care if they are considered moderate or far left. We need problem solvers.
1
Mr. Phillips is wrong. These wonderful progressive candidates lost their races. Martyred candidates should inspire NOBODY.
If the Democrats want to lose in 2020, nominate Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, Corey Booker & Washington Post's anointed front-runner Elizabeth Warren. None of these folks, decent though they are, can get elected president. None of these folks, except possibly Bernie, can carry Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan or Ohio.
Amy Klobuchar, a moderate senator from Minnesota, is our best bet. Klobuchar is viewed as someone who repeatedly works across the aisle and treats colleagues - and the voters - with civility and respect.
Nominate a progressive or aggressive firebrand like Booker, Warren or Harris who's going to get in Trump's face and we lose.
Sad but true.
Amy Klobuchar is the only candidate who could take the White House away from Trump.
1
@fast/furious I agree. The Democrats need somebody who embodies what Trump is not ---strong but civil, respectful, with a strong motivation to unify. I like Warren's ideas, but her combative, in your face style would probably play right into Trump's hands.
How about we encourage our leaders to try to govern for 18 months, to solve some of our many problems. Then worry about the next election. It's always looking to the next election that causes so many of our problems. Mr. Phillips, how much writing have you done about policy as compared to politics?
2
While a lot of progressives will be trumpeting this view, it is a recipe for disaster for the Democrats in 2020. Mr. Phillips seems to have picked out those facts that he finds convenient.
Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election for a number of reasons. Ultimately, it was the upper Midwest that really altered the race. The 2020 nominee will need to capture Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Three states that elected Democrats last week. While it would be nice for the Democrats to be able to move Arizona, Florida, and Georgia into their column, that does not represent the most plausible path to a victory.
Others have correctly pointed out that the results from Florida belie Mr. Phillips' argument. If Mr. Gillum had run ahead of Sen. Nelson he might have a point, but that isn't what happened. The moderate outpolled the liberal. Looking to Missouri, Indiana, and Tennessee to support the argument is just as problematic. Does Mr. Phillips really believe that a liberal would have done better in those bright red states?
Barack Obama won two national elections for several reasons. While he had some progressive tendencies, he largely campaigned as a moderate -- an eloquent one at that. For Democrats to beat back Trump in 2020 they will need a candidate who can articulate a compelling vision for our future and someone who will not be viewed as too far out of the mainstream.
5
Maybe success this year was just a matter of knocking on doors and getting the vote out. 58% of eligible voters in 2016 actually voted. 42% did not. Conventional wisdom is that a higher percentage of Republicans vote than Democrats.
If true, then the lesson is that those running for office need to mobilize and inspire, as stated in the first paragraph. So what messages will inspire that 42%?
Anticipating my question as I read through this article, Mr. Phillips rhetorically asks: "Does this strategy require a candidate of color?" His answer is: "No, but it does call for candidates who can inspire voters of color." And then he cites Beto O'Rourke as an example of a white candidate who can inspire non-white voters with unapologetically progressive views.
But I don't really buy this argument. A fairly recent article by Samantha Smith at the Pew Research Center notes:
"More black Democratic voters continue to characterize their views as moderate than as liberal. This year, 40% of black Democrats call themselves moderate, 30% say they are conservative and 28% call themselves liberal. Among Hispanic Democratic voters, 36% describe their political views as moderate, 41% as liberal and 22% as conservative."
So are far left views really what are going to attract voters of color? I doubt it. Call me cynical, but I think the only reliably strong draw for black voters is a black candidate. So is this the new path to victory for Democrats? Maybe in Georgia, but a party perceived as effectively having to nominate a black or Hispanic candidate will always lose the presidency. And rightly so.
1
What election day has taught us is that there is no simple message to be drawn from it. To argue largely from the showing of people who actually lost in 2018 for a strategy that many people think lost Hillary Clinton the last election is ludicrous.
One difference in this past election is that it's rather like 2012 (see Nate Silver) -- the difference being Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin went Democratic. Florida is a glitzy prize, the third largest state in the Union but Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin would give the Democrats the election without Florida. Democrats have to find candidates and messages which will not only get its constituents out to the pools but also convince swing voters in purple states.
The time to start thinking about this is NOW. But the thinking needs to go on for some time. Believing less than a week after the election while votes are still being counted that we have an answer -- is inane.
My own thought is that we need a compellingly charismatic candidate and 3-5 major campaign promises that can be delivered and that we hammer home. We first we need to identify the key states, positions and other strategies to get out the vote. Then we need to actually do it -- support it by the world's best ground game.
Thank you! Your column has made me rethink some of my assumptions about the type of progressive most likely to win and my dismay at some of the Democratic party's choices. Although I have repeatedly called for Democrats to put forward centrist, mainstream candidates, this column caused me to rethink that position. Both Ms. Abrams and Mr. Gillum are cases in point. Neither of them fit closely the mold of what I have considered to be 'mainstream electibility', for example, in their size and weight, in the case of Ms. Abrams, and their accent in the case of Mr. Gillum, but as Mr. Phillips explains, both of them came far closer to victory than many more moderate and conventional Democrats. That's an eye-opener for me, and a reassuring one, to boot. Perhaps we are closer than I feared to finding more black and brown candidates ready to pick up the progressive mantle of former Presidents Obama, (Franklin) Roosevelt and others and undertake the challenging responsibility of guiding the the whole country, white, black, brown and everything in between, forward to a better place for all of us.
Again, thank you!
In deep red Shenandoah Valley our Democratic candidate for the House lost by 20 percentage points, a smaller percentage than any candidate in recent history. It didn't matter if she ran in the center or on her head, she was a Democrat. Virginia did well in our last state election and did well again last Tuesday, but in some parts of the state the Republican hold is a death-grip. Almost all of western Virginia, in particular, so the question of how far left is irrelevant. We may as well run socialists until everyone finally gets it that's where we need to go. And for the record our recent candidate was far left of any Democrat that had run in the past 20 years in this area.
2
This Democrat has been waiting for "the emerging Democratic majority" to emerge for 30 years. We will not become the majority party by trying to patch together a loose and unpredictable coalition of minorities. Instead we need to be crafting a platform based on economic justice for all working Americans.
8
Nader, Nader, Nader, Nader...Nader. Ego voting gave us the Iraq War and 8 years of Republican policies. The folly of using examples from the midterms should be obvious. There has never been a Trump to truly mobilize all segments of the Left and Center. America is not a staunchly leftist country. Democrats who want to push hard on fringe social issues and ignore the complex realities of immigration, globalization, and poverty are never going to control national politics and policy. If you want to vote for someone who best represents your views, write yourself in on the ballot. It would do about as much good as promoting the most liberal candidates for national office.
5
3 points. First, here in WV, Manchin won by using McKaskill's strategy. We don't have demographics on our side. What to do? Second, Obama allowed the DNC to demobilize his grassroots organization after 2012. How do we ensure that doesn't happen again? Last, demographics may prevail, but we've seen that the old guard will stop at nothing to extend its control. Progressives need to find more effective ways to appeal to marginalized white voters at the same time they take on racism, anti-Semitism and anti-democracy. Outcomes based on demographics are not inevitable
2
I generally agree with your theory, that standing about loudly against what Trump stands for and not being ashamed to do so. However, what you're missing is that the general public sees Washington in general as a cesspool - corporate greed, PAC money, lies, etc. They want to see people, like Beto O'Rourke, stand up for things that affect them directly: healthcare, the rising costs of education, and do so without being beholden to special interests. The Democratic Party needs to figure out which candidate can bridge the divide - and pull those moderates over the line. The strong stand against bigotry/racism is certainly essential, but people want a leader that speaks "to them" and can restore their faith in government, that we'll be okay as a nation. I'm not sure I've seen anyone yet that can fit that bill.
@Kim The only name you mentioned is Beto. At this point, his message came closer than anyone's. Losing by 2.7% in Texas is winning for a Democrat. Maybe others with a similar message and style will emerge.
The problem with moderates is that they often destroy the party that they are running under, provide no leadership, and leave no coattails. When one looks at Claire McCaskill and Joe Donnelly both ran against their own party. Both ran ads, that attacked the left of their party trying to create room for Republicans to make a singular exception for them.
What they said was vote for me, but don't vote for Democrats. This is entirely different than Beto O'Rourke, Gillum, and Abrams. All saw positive results for other elections in their states.
Further, future democratic candidates for office, don't have to have to defend the attacks that McCaskill and Donnelly left in their wake. They don't have to make a case for the party, just for themselves and positions held by themselves and the party.
It should be possible to run as a moderate member of the Democratic Party. They should be welcome. Democrats are a big tent party. Moderates should run on trying to find a middle ground, on saying that there are good ideas beyond the party. They can even say, those are not my position, but that those are people they can work with in coalition with.
The moment they trash members of the Democratic Coalition, they are not allies working towards a common goal, they are cuckoos, people disguised as democrats trying to use the nest of the party while actually destroying the group.
Claire McCaskill worried about "crazy democrats" but She was the cuckoo. Same with many "moderates".
4
To defeat Trump a candidate must keep with the Dem's values (health care, true tax reform, infrastructure, education and to rejoin the world community) for sure but must also have character, thick skin and be quick on her/his feet to the expected on rush of vile, petty, derogatory accusations from Trump himself. Trump needs to be put in his place repeatedly and on the spot during the next campaign. That will take a truly exceptional candidate.
Mr. Phillips makes an either.or case. Doug Jones in Alabama was able to do both. I would argue that Beto was able to do both too.
1
So I opened this article looking forward to an explanation of why Gillum, the progressive, got fewer votes in Florida than Dean Heller, the moderate democrat. If you are looking for a clear comparison between the strategy of being moderate vs being stridently liberal, there’s no better test case than when both are on the ballot for all of Florida in the last election, right?
But no, instead we get cherry picked information for far more flawed comparisons and Heller isn’t even mentioned. If Trump has taught us anything, it’s that any argument can be made if you just ignore the data. The Times needs to do better than just printing whatever biased rant is brought to their door. They should require that op eds address the strongest arguments from the other side of an issue.
2
How about someone the left and the center can get behind? That's what Obama did to win. Hilary tried to pull it off, but couldn't be a convincing progressive candidate based off of her history and all the money involved.
Great article--thank you! I groaned when I heard Nancy Pelosi's speech right after the election results came in. Bipartisanship. Reaching across the aisle. Peace, prudence and sanity. Has she learned nothing over the past 10 years? Put a hawk and a dove together in a cage and the outcome is not going to be good for the dove. When millions of people are counting on you and democracy itself is on the line, you don't get to choose the higher ground.
1
In fact Abrams and Gillum look more progressive than Obama.
In 2017 polls said the most popular US politician was Bernie Sanders. In the 2016 campaign, there was notorious and lack of Sanders coverage in main media.
In fact the Times --in reporting and op ed columnists, including liberal Krugman, etc--- went out of their way to deprecate and insult Sanders and his proposals, instead of seriously debating them factually. What were they afraid of?
This is what Fox calls the liberal media?
In fact the mainstream Democratic party 'colluded' with main media to make sure Sanders didn't get nominated and was sidelined as too left wing. Sanders only wanted to restore The New Deal! Is that too left wing?
The Dem party wanted Hillary, who got paid millions in speeches to Wall St banks, and wouldn't reveal what she told them to voters. Then refused to restore bank regulations her husband had repealed. This is democracy?
After the election, polls showed Sanders the nation's 'most popular politician'. Amazing. The reason should have been discussed in the media. Why wasn't it?
1
I'm confused. Closely losing red states does not appear to be a winning strategy for 2020.
6
I disagree with this editorial. Dems need centrist candidates. They will fail if they become the party of identity politics, special interests and illegal (as opposed to legitimate) immigration.
It's not immigration per se which will lose them votes, it's the unrealistic focus on 'rights' and travails of illegals which will damage them, and for this the liberal media - the New York Times and the Washington Post - must bear much of the blame.
6
"inspiring, mobilizing and turning out voters of color and progressive whites."
As soon as you used the term "voters of color," I knew this article was going to be a disaster.
Stop. Focusing. On. Group. Identity. It's -- no kidding -- divisive.
The irony of the author holding up two campaigns that are probably going to lose as examples should be lost on no one. This strategy doesn't work, and it's also fundamentally bad for the country.
Hillary Clinton lost the election because of "basket of deplorables" speech. It turns out that ignoring the opposite side because they're "evil / fascist / racist" doesn't work. Even if you do win with that kind of rhetoric, it hurts the country.
4
The writer's candidates lost.
Nevertheless the writer thinks he has something of value to say.
He does not.
3
Issues are what the people voted on here in AZ. Democrat Kyrsten Sinema refused to be dragged down into the mud by her opponent and ran primarily on health care. She's bi-sexual and went through a period of homelessness as a child that she talks about candidly.
People want honesty. Her opponent, also a woman, went into the mud as soon as nominated, lied constantly about both of their records and now looks like she'll be the first Republican senate candidate to lose an open election in over 30 years.
Honesty and issue based campaigns. Republicans can't do either. It's catching up to them in 2018 and in 2020 they're gonna get their doors blown off. That's what happens when you cheerfully and enthusiastically jump into bed with a pathological lying sociopath like Trump. Short-term, fine, you got your ill gotten tax cut. Long-term?
You're done.
2
Gillum and Abrams sound like true progressives, while Obama was never more than a progressive poseur. He'd be Teddy Roosevelt on the stump and Richard Nixon in the oval office, giving away the store after the financial crisis and paving the way for Trump. The lesson: elect candidates who are willing to stick their necks out and make concrete policy proposals, not someone who just makes you feel good about yourself.
1
Cherry picking through and through. A focus entirely on losing Democrats in the South instead of winning Democrats in the Midwest.
2
A socialist like Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasión-Cortez around economic issues. Unite the Left.
2
Democrats need to once again become The Party of Working People, as they were under FDR and during the 1950s when the United States was arguably at its best.
This time around, however, they need to embrace working people of all colors, casting aside the racism of the earlier days. They should also embrace labor unions as part of their rebranding, with emphasis on teachers' unions, since they are the most powerful national unions left at this point.
To do this, they need to shift course drastically from that set by the likes of the Clintons and Obama, all of whom courted the country's economic elite; what author Thomas Frank calls "the ten percent".
Voters who have been left behind or disrespected by the current system are more involved than ever before, and the Democratic Party would do well to pay attention.
2
This midterm has shown us how much it means not just to say "this is what we stand for" but to be able to point and say "that's who we are." Beto, Stacey and Andrew made that possible on a national level.
1
This piece highlights a deeper problem with the Democrats. It's not about figuring out which specific identity group to "target" or "inspire." Talking about the who the whites or who anyone else will vote for is the problem in the first place. Democrats need to craft a message that resonates with Americans regardless of their specific identity. While expanding equality and reducing discrimination is an important part of the Democratic platform, it can't be the only part. Continued pandering to specific groups based on gender, age, ethnicity, etc. is simply racism "lite" with the inferred insult that people who look the same vote the same and "we know what's best for you." Excessive emphasis on identity politics have driven many from the Democratic party and will continue to do so.
2
Obama wasn't progressive, in the way some of the new candidates are progressive. He was inspiring to a large cross-section of voters who don't want a mean-spirited society, and he convinced a lot of voters that he was competent, principled, and possessed of good judgment. That's exactly what we need against Trump.
4
I don't know if Phillips's hopes are the father of his judgment or not. I do know a lot of affluent Democrats here in New Jersey who are socially liberal and happy to do things for people of color and for the career prospects of their own upper middle class daughters, but who draw a sharp line at paying higher taxes or lessening their own children's prospects of gaining an elite education. I suspect that many of the voters in the suburban districts the Democrats flipped this year feel the same way. They are not the base of the party, but they are the center of gravity of the country. They are conservative, in the sense that they are doing alright in their own circumstances, see no reason for radical change, and don't want to be frightened. Right now, Trump and the yahoos he has given voice to frighten them more than the doctrinaire left, but that hasn't been true in the past and may not be true in the future. Without their votes and, as importantly, their money, I doubt that there are enough woke whites and people of color to win the presidency or, at the local level, to take back control of state legislatures before the next gerrymandering opportunity.
Far leftists will only win on the coasts. The majority of this country is moderate with the remainder being more conservative than liberal.
5
Interesting points but, well, Obama was a moderate. So should candidates be like Obama or not? Obama was not a progressive. He had a winning strategy, though.
3
The problem is the Democrats see some light and think voters will accept liberal crazy. They refuse to stay moderate with an "all or nothing attitude."
They ran on healthcare to win and I can see they have already jumped on other issues putting real healthcare on the back burner. Protecting pre existing conditions does not in itself solve the nation healthcare problems.
3
Governing is not just winning elections: it's relying on organized bases to continue their support - or to push our favorites when the times call for it - after the ballots are counted. The Obama campaign snipped the lines of communication with the base within nano-seconds of his thrilling, historic victory in 2008. It is great progress that the Dems nominated and seem still to support dazzling stars like Abrams and Guillen, and even Beto. We need actual sustaining organization.
1
Democrats flipped Republican held House seats in Kansas, South Carolina, Arizona and Oklahoma, not to mention seven governor positions. These successful candidates were not hardcore progressives, but pragmatic Democrats, running on a traditional Democratic platform - working for the middle class, working for the people. In my home state of very blue Massachusetts, progressive candidates will be successful, but this may not hold true across the country. Democrats need a presidential candidate that will capture the hearts and minds of Americans with a message that will resonate across the political spectrum - much like center-left President Obama did.
3
I don't think you can abandon the swing voters in the middle. It's a bad move strategically as well as indefensible from the standpoint of democracy. But does it even have to be a choice between tacking either center or left? SO many Americans across the spectrum agree it's past time to get the money out of politics. A Democrat consistent and tireless on *that* message has a chance of winning the left *and* the center.
It is clear to me that the Democrats need to campaign in ways that evoke positive emotions—in other words, their messages need to resonate at an intuitive level. This is why Obama was so effective. And in the negative sense that is why Trump was effective too—he evoked very strong emotions.
In contrast, Hillary did not generate a strong positive reaction—instead all her baggage from the last many years (including her defense of Bill’s philandering and her attacks against the women who accused him) and her policy-oriented approach simply dampened enthusiasm and thus kept many away from the polls—or else made them vote for Trump. Due to these reasons, she must NOT run again.
@A.G. You are correct. I voted for Stacey. It wasn't her progressive policies that make her so popular, it was her talent, her intelligence, and her personality, which excited people and motivated them to vote.
She's progressive, but also pragmatic. As minority leader, she worked across the aisle. We need more candidates with all of those qualities.
1
Politics in the US has a distorted definition of left wing liberal, which would be much more centrist in other democracies. Health care for all is best example.
Our media is still reluctant to properly explain alternatives to our voters, using real people examples. Thus our voters are more vulnerable to right wing propaganda.
The media should be comparing our politics in past generations when the middle class was rising, not weakening, when jobs were here, and tax rates more fair. And compare us to more advanced social democracies that are also capitalist.
The media keeps its coverage narrow, and spend their time bashing Trump as the easiest target---well deserved but not enough. Trump bashing without constructive ideas will keep our polarization widening as Trump’s base hardens to protect its hero. And as Trump gets more paranoid and lashes out. The pattern is predictable.
The media ignores how dozens of countries fund health care for generations, and it never even discusses campaign finance reform though most Americans want it.
A US politician has to be brave to even propose solutions that other democracies have used for generations.
That’s what happens in corporate subsidized US politics. Our media won’t go there.
Nice theory, but I don't think the evidence backs it up. First of all, the presidential election will most likely be decided in a few "purple" states, such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and yes, Florida. And the chances of a moderate candidate winning a purple state are greater than those of a more liberal candidate, almost by definition, since you have to assume that in the end, most liberals will still end up voting for the moderate Democrat, while moderate independents are less likely to end up voting for a more liberal candidate.
Of course, at the end of the day it does depend on the virtues of the specific candidates involved, and a highly appealing candidate, such as Barack Obama, can appeal to moderates, although to be fair, he didn't exactly run as a Bernie Sanders socialist!
It's also worth pointing out that the candidates Mr. Phillips mentions, Mr. Gillum in Florida, Ms. Abrams in Georgia, and Mr. O'Rourke in Texas, appear likely to lose, or have already lost, their elections. Meanwhile, a moderate Democrat that Mr. Phillips did not mention, Kyrsten Sinema, appears likely to win a Senate seat in Arizona, a state which is usually not even considered purple, but deep red. If Arizona can now be added to the list of purple states that might vote for a Democrat in the 2020 presidential election, it seems to me that is a further reason to go with a moderate candidate, rather than one whose main appeal lies in the mainstream blue states.
5
This sounds exactly like the strategy that helped President McGovern win.
10
I am what you would call a social democrat that leans left on most ideas, but I disagree with the author. People like Beto have focused on issues that might seem leftist, like universal education and healthcare. However, beyond the issues, I think he appealed to the masses because of HOW he delivered his message and also, how he funded his campaign. Voters, especially moderates on both sides, want to see a candidate free of PAC money, humble, WA outsider, that understands the struggle of the middle-lower class. They want candidates that SEE them, that SHOW UP in their towns.
3
Some of us have known this for quite a while, probably since Bill Clinton was President.
The game is lost when the opposition political party paints you as "socialist" and the politicians running the establishment in the Democratic party agree with that assessment and work behind the scenes to defund and discourage anyone not willing to accept the party line.
The newspapers of record don't help at all, they back the so-called moderate leadership or what I call, the GOP-lite.
If FDR ran for the Presidency today he would be painted as a socialist by his own political party.
There has to be not only a generational change in the Democratic Party leadership but the "conservative lite" leadership should have the brains to step aside and let the energetic younger leaders take over.
However from the looks of it, Ms. Pelosi and Co will not let go easily. I look forward to a wintry 2020.
Points well taken. It is abundantly clear that the only way for Democrats to ‘trump’ republican voter suppression and gerrymandering is via massive and OVERWHELMING VOTER Turnout. Candidates like Abrams and Gillum who are progressive and not extremists seem our best options.
I don’t know what more it should take than what we’ve had the past two years to movitvate the masses to vote democrats in but we better come up with something more effective than our present situation or we may be looking at trump and mcCONnell for 4 more disasterous years.
I like the concept of going all-out (or all-in, as it were). But it still comes down to state-by-state demographics and actual conditions on the political landscape. Some centrist candidates (moderate white Christian males) could still do well, depending on where they run.
Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a progressive Democrat with a moderate disposition, comes to mind. He's a great senator with a proven record who actually WINS - and wins decisively - for Democrats in Ohio. And he gets Republican votes, too, in a typically red state. He's a terrific candidate, that's why.
3
@eclambrou I so agree with you--I think he would be the perfect candidate! And I'm in NC.
2
Thanks for the plug. He's one of the best-kept open secrets in the Senate. Good man. Wish he'd run.
I remember the talk of demographic shifts in the US having made GOP permanently unable to win the presidency until the moment Donald Trump was elected. I know that this is an opinion piece the every writer of which claims they have the answer, but some 'answers' are easier to refute than others.
Millions of people who had voted for Obama voted for Trump. A better candidate to recapture those votes -- moderate or left?
2
The Times is obsessed with differences within the Democratic party. These differences are entirely healthy, unlike the rigid Republican requirement to embrace Trump and all he stands for. At the end of the day candidates need to appeal to their local constituency, and a Democrat from Des Moines is not likely to be a clone of a Democrat from San Francisco.
1
Mr Phillips, Thank you for the interesting and inspiring words for the next step. Everyone is putting their two cents in now about what Democrats should do next. I sincerely hope they follow your advice. Now if we can just persuade everyone to vote. One work of caution, if I may. You won't win many friends by telling people to "Do the math". It is a condescending cliche which implies you don't think much of your audience. Maybe you don't, but your article would be more effective if you concealed your disdain.
Steve Phillips is relying on some alternative facts. The Democrat who did the best in Florida in the past 20 years was not Obama or Gillum, but boring moderate Bill Nelson, who won the state in landslides twice. Do the math. I wanted Gillum and Abrams to win, but they lost. Their strategy didn't work. Al Gore also came closer to winning than Gillum. No, the winning strategy is hard work. It's to go back to those unglamourous Midwestern states like Wisconsin and Ohio and embrace organized labor while getting a candidate who can inspire both their white and black workers to come out and vote blue. Obama did it. Sherrod Brown just did it, as did Tammy Baldwin. They've got the math, not Gillum, Abrams or Beto.
5
So all those people who were interviewed who were Republicans crossing party lines to vote essentially against Trump, or for no pre-existing conditions, or for infrastructure or an end to cruelty they thought was "un-Christian" at the border were non-existent voters who should be dissed?
Cherry picking races in which the Democratic incumbent was likely to lose as a way of "proving" that appealing to all voters instead of antagonizing whole demographics is a losing strategy is neither "the math" nor statistically or logically accurate.
I think you need to learn to count, Mr. Phillips. After you learn to do that, we can discuss whether you are ready to learn to do math.
2
Can we PLEASE STOP prognosticating about 2020 already? I don't know about the rest of you, but I need a break from this constant 24-7 election cycle. Our election process is far too long with so many voices weighing in whether they know what they're talking about or not. Thanks for your insights, but I'm planning on turning on, tuning in, and dropping out of this particular news category for a while.
3
@Conrad Matiuk I understand your feelings, but am curious why you're reading through these comments.
As racial and economic polarization sharpen, a more extreme Democratic hopeful should probably run in 2020. To play it safe, though, and ensure electability, the party should work to encourage a wide range of candidates to enter the race.
Ultimately the candidate will run against Trump’s record and the man himself. There’s no telling if he’ll go off the rails before then, but you never know.
2
Analyses like this skim across the surface of the nation’s key issues and dilemmas using clichés to describe complex problems and typecast stereotypes of candidates and public servants. Polls dealing with specific issues often present a starkly different picture than those dealing with particular candidates – whose identities have often been blurred beyond comprehension by stereotypical labels.
We simply will have to come to grips with the fact that our nation is huge complex network that needs some calm analysis divorced from common preconceptions. I know that many will say “this is mind numbing – we want good slogans”. The fact is that crisp clear reasoning comes with a high dose of common sense and with some effort can be expressed with simple clarity.
Trying to fit everything into a “left, right, centrist” jigsaw is a losing game in our complex modern world. Let’s accept this and recognize that: “good ideas can come from a many different directions” – great leaders like Lincoln recognize this and use it as a rich resource.
Mr. Phillips certainly has articulated the right strategy for coming within 2 points of the Republican winner.
5
There is one glaring flaw in this article, the notion that ONE type of candidate, one strategy, applies to all elections, all races.
What Phillips suggests will probably work in many locations, as his examples show. But it will fail in some as well.
More importantly, it does not recognize the fundamental difference in strategy required for a presidential election, since it's actually about winning the Electoral College, rather than the population at large.
"Yes, the strategy of mobilizing voters of color and progressive whites is limited by the demographic composition of particular states. But what Mr. Obama showed twice is that it works in enough places to win the White House. And that is exactly the next electoral challenge."
No.
All presidential elections in our lifetimes have hinged on swing voters in a few swing states, PA, OH, WI, FL and a few others. Obama won over these voters NOT with messages meant to mobilize people of color. He mobilized them, as they are most often mobilized, as Trump mobilized them, with messages about the economy and an unfair system that is destroying jobs while the profits from their industries are being sent offshore and the labor sent to low wage nations.
The swing voters that chose Obama were rejecting the disastrous economy left behind by Bush in the 2008 crash.
Bernie Sanders understood this message and consistently out-polled Clinton in those industrial swing states. Trump won them handily with his message.
3
@J Jencks
Independent socialist Bernie couldn't even win primaries - and never ought have been allowed to play his conceit/deceit game using Democratic Party voters. He ought have been honest enough to run as a 3rd party candidate, which is what he was all his life and still is.
The Republican Party, at its basic level of caucus, where its delegates were elected, made the mistake of believing that far right, extreme, or just anyone should be elected. Had they gone the way of a Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, etc. this past election in 2016, we might of actually not had the division that exists today. Also, we have needed term limits since the whole system was put in place. It would be good if all of them, at both the state level, and federal level would self term limit themselves at 12 years, however, there is not enough humility on both sides of the aisle to do this.
1
Only one small caveat
Their policies don't work
Racial politics and laying claim to what someone else has earned fosters resentment and racism and discourages contributing.
Put another way, appealing to ethnicity and telling people that they are entitled to someone else's property may get votes, but it is unsustainable.
A better idea would be to go and make it yourself
5
It's not really a matter of moderateness or progressiveness.
It's scope of charisma to potential Democratic voters.
Obama was moderate, and charismatic to all Democratic voters.
Hillary was moderate, and not charismatic to progressive Democratic voters.
Beto, Gillum and Abrams were progressive, and charismatic to all Democratic voters.
Bernie was progressive, and not charismatic to Democratic voters of color.
McCaskill, Bredesen, and Donnolly were moderate, and not charismatic to progressive Democratic voters.
Chris Murphy in CT won by a far larger margin than any other statewide candidate, and any candidate for the House. He is progressive and charismatic.
Democratic candidates may inspire hatred in the opposition based on their positions on, say, gun control. But the opposition isn't going to vote for you; you need to inspire your voters to win elections. So, be true to oneself. Everyone hates a phony.
8
This article is so flawed. Interesting that the states that the Democrats will need to win are hardly mentioned in here. Obama was a very unique talent coming around at a particularly problematic historical conjuncture in 2008 (financial crisis, Iraq War). Sure, he could do this, but I think you saw what happened when someone else, Hilary Clinton, a far less talented politician tried the same thing in 2016 against a deeply flawed candidate like Trump. What is clear is that people like Phillips believe that states like Texas, Georgia, etc... will flip and they don't. Then the Democrats are against a wall. Keep the upper Midwest and move out from there. Then you win. That is where the Democrats clearly have the best chance. Warning signs are Florida, Iowa, and Ohio for Democrats - purple states that are breaking increasingly red. This demographic argument will win things for the Democrats in 20 years by which time the GOP will have made the country unrecognizable.
2
Mr. Phillips is right. The people that vote, as opposed to people who answer calls for polls, want to vote for someone with an authentic message. This is why Donald Trump won in 2016 - he was completely unfiltered and 100% authentic. The Democratic way of right down the middle, formulated by countless consultants in the HRC campaign, does not inspire voters to show up. I voted for Hillary in 2016, but even I don't really know what she stood for.
People look at Barack Obama as the moderate model of winning for the Democrats. Yes, he was moderate, but he also had an authentic life message. As America's first black, actually biracial, president he was the change that we aspire our country to be.
Let's run real candidates like Bernie, Beto, Stacy Abrams and Gillum, the polls be dammed. Don't follow the polls, inspire the voters and the polls will follow.
2
Cherry picked examples does not make an effective argument.
7
Here is a gigantic hole in the author’s theory about progressive candidates: the MD state governor’s race. Ben Jealous, an acolyte of Bernie Sanders and former head of the NAACP, lost to Larry Hogan, incumbent moderate republican governor, by nearly 14 points in a state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by over 2:1. Why? Because MD residents did not take to Jealous’s socialist progressive agenda. MD prefers moderates, and likewise the majority of seats picked up in the last election were by moderate candidates.
5
Are you just trying to dishearten us? We can do this. I beg to differ.
This article is the formula for failure. I hope these ideas are rejected. Beto, for exampke, would be Senator-elect Beto if he moved even a little bit toward the center. He ran a campaign that could come close, but never win in 2018. Texas. That is what the polls said and exactly what happened.
I want a Demicratic President in 2020. “Politics is the art of the possible.”
2
The New Deal works. It worked at the end of the Great Depression, and only stopped working when trickle down economics came into vogue. But trickle down economics did not work. It led us to the greatest financial disaster since the Great Depression. But the millennials came out of that disaster deeply influenced by the failure of trickle down, just as their grand parents and great grandparents were influenced by the failure of Republican economics that led to the Great Depression. And like their ancestors they are ready to embrace New Deal policies once again. Make no mistake, do not let Republicans and Hillary Clinton Democrats fool you, this is not socialism; this is how capitalism works in a democracy. If wealthy Republicans and moderate Democrats continue to embrace avarice and refuse to treat hard-working Americans with the respect and the paychecks they have earned, then it is Democracy's role to reset the equation. It's time to re-shuffle the deck and deliver another New Deal.
2
@colonelpanic "Another New Deal" requires either the exigencies of a crisis like the Depression or the inspired-and-created vision that doesn't exist in either party to underwrite it.
1
You're wrong, Mr. Phillips. My bet is that had Beto, Abrams, and Gillum run as just left-of-center, they'd have won - maybe handily. Do you have any hard data to support that people of color will only turn out in droves for a leftist candidate? Did you ever think that whatever success Gillum, Abrams, and O'Rourke did have was more of an anti-Trump thing than support for a leftist agenda. I guarantee that much of Beto's support was just anti-Ted Cruz rather than pro-progressive. You're either ignorant or forgetting that more people identify as independents than either republicans and independents, and this probably includes a lot of people of color.
@Kreton's Love Child. . . And because there are so many independents, neither party can ever galvanize enuf of their own base to push thru their agendas--for very long at least. That's what gets me whenever I hear so-called political experts and party officials say a party will win if they turn out the base. That's only part of any successful strategy.
yeah, like Dems who ran before them. That's why all these positions are occupied by Reps
Here's the easier question? How come after two years of marching, planning, voter registration drives and an easily defined cause, Democrats barely got the blue ripple? All Republicans had to do was shout 'invaders' and a few other racist dog whistles and Republican voters turned out in droves. Why is it so very hard to get young people, people of color, women to show up and vote for Democrats? Is the Republican cause so much more attractive that there voters show up with hardly any effort required aside from a few incendiary speeches.
1
Obama was a centrist candidate with oratorical gifts who motivated voters seeking "change". Perhaps his color represented a statement of such change. But he was not "of the left" except in the view of those who would think any African American candidate is by definition a "new idea". Voters want to vote for a candidate who both inspires them and speaks to their common sense. The Democrats have for some reason spent generations breeding the charisma out of their candidates. In the last election they voted for the better performer even though he spouted nonsense. If the Democrats offer a candidate of any ideological stripe who can speak convincingly to their better angels they can beat this clown.
@Isadore Huss
Obama had two things going for him, in addition to the DNC thumb on the scale since 2004: his gender and his race.
A white female said the same things Obama did in both 2008 and 23016. Her name is Hillary Clinton. Fact is, America is 10x more misogynist than it is racist. Shirley Chisholm famously put it out there decades earlier, stating that she had faced more discrimination because she was female than because she was black. I wish the U.S. still did have the voices of a Barbara Jordan and a Shirley Chisholm. But we don't and it is magical thinking to presume Abrams and others emerging into Democratic Party races are of that calibre.
@Maggie
Can't disagree. Very torn between, on the one hand not wanting to surrender to the idea that this country is not ready for a woman to be its President, but on the other hand not wanting to lose another generation trying and thereby sacrificing our country to a return to the 19th century in the process. How many Supreme Court justice spots, how many essential government programs and services, how much of our standing in the world and how much of our environment are we willing to give up to prove the point?
1
"Over the past 20 years, the best-performing Democratic candidates in statewide elections in Florida and Georgia have been Mr. Obama, Mr. Gillum and Ms. Abrams. (Hillary Clinton in 2016 was actually Florida’s highest Democratic vote-getter ever.)"
If you want to read only essays in which the author has thought about what he is writing, you can stop with the sentence above. Does Philips think that 2016 was not in the "past 20 years"? Does he think Obama took part in "statewide elections" in Florida and Georgia that Hilary Clinton did not? Maybe he thinks HC was not a democrat?
2
There's more going on here than we've been talking about, stand back and look at the whole picture; there's politics and there's the economy. There are the people who own the economy (whites), and those who do not (colored). People of color don't seem to really like the economy, they don't seem to 'get it'; saving, risk-taking, wealth accumulation, etc., they don't really trust it. They're not against working as such, but they would be more comfortable if the government controlled everything and instituted free programs and mailed them checks to substitute for saving and investing which they aren't really doing. To that end they crowd to the far left side of the political spectrum. That's ultimately not a successful strategy, there's not much more room for them to move left from where they are now. At some point they're going to have to get into the economy and start building for themselves and their families; this won't be easy, it takes time, hard work, and self-responsibility. When they do this they'll start moving first to the center, then the right. The Democrats aren't helping, they won't tell their followers that they must do this, it's not in their interest to do so, they'll have to find it out on their own.
@Ronald B. Duke Your comment exemplifies the problem. "whites" don't own the economy. Rich people, many of whom are white, do. There are plenty of poor, struggling, white people who surely do not "own" the economy and there are wealthy colored people who do. Simplifying this stuff into broad statements about race is well... racist and a major turn-off to moderates/independents.
The dichotomy of moderate v liberal is too simplistic. I don't claim to have the right formula for Democrats--as if there's any formula--but offer that progressivism has to be aspirational, grounded in recognizable values, while cautious in approach. Clear vision must be realistic--it must tell the truth and not avoid the questions of where taxes are coming from to pay for proposed programs.
But it must also love a larger base than the minority of progressives that will be inspired by any vision.
This is what I call the "truth and love" platform. Face the public with the realities that an active government can benefit the people more than current muddle-headed Democratic thinking, that taxation is the price we pay for a people's government that benefits all, that markets are only "free" when accessible to all, not when unregulated. Progress in enacting any governmentally active vision should be impeded if a majority of Americans don't buy into it.
Instead of relying on manipulation--a primary currency of modern politics--to convince voters they want or should want something they really don't, employ more education toward the many envisioning the benefits of a well-run government (what Republicans can't and won't do).
1
The problem with progressives is that they can't count. It is usually hard for a candidate to win an election if they don't get 50% of the vote and there are far more votes in the middle than at the edges. In the end to win you need a positive program and a pragmatic attitude. Who cares if a proposal is "progressive" or "conservative" as long as it works to solve a problem or address a national need? Matter of fact why should anyone care what party someone represent as long as their goal is to put the needs of the country first in a manner that is consistent with the basic principles on which our country was founded? That said, in regard to the latter guide lines, Trump and the present Congressional Republicans are out to lunch.
2
@W.A. Spitzer: the thing is, proposals that are actually designed to work and solve real problems wind up being, almost universally, progressive. Today's conservatives don't believe that government can solve problems, and when elected they go about proving it. (Hence all they can do to motivate their voters is gin up fear of false threats and conspiracies.)
1
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov11/beto-orourke-billie-sutton-democrat-strategy-midterms
The link above is to a Guardian article by Lawrence Lessig as to why the Democrats can only win with candidates who reach out to a broad purple base. Beto O'Rourke, an unabashedly progressive candidate with a huge increase in minority turnout, managed to improve on the Democratic performance against Trump in 2016 by 6.5% points, while Billie Sutton, running for governor in South Dakota improved the Dem's performance by 26.5% points by focusing on issues which voters from both sides agree on. Now that's some math to look at. The math of the electoral college, which was designed by the founding fathers to prevent the less populated parts of the country from being completely dominated by the more heavily populated parts, also will favor the party which has the broadest appeal. I have to disagree with the author's opinion here.
2
To win in 2020, the Democrats need the whole package: inspiring candidates, compelling issues, a robust voter mobilization ground game, and careful strategy that does not let Republicans take control of the messaging and recognizes that the flawed electoral college system makes some areas more crucial than others.
2
If I could make a suggestion to voters, especially democrats, STOP, "pinning labels" on those political candidates whose policies you think cannot win elections when, quite often, the evidence proves otherwise. Poll after poll after poll continually confirms that MOST Americans want some form of universal healthcare, gun control, a decent minimum wage, better educational opportunities, corporations paying their fair share of taxes, money out of politics, the importance of doing something about climate change, etc. etc. and the list goes on and on, so what does that tell you?
Even the most recent ultra right wing poll done by an arm of the Koch Bros, confirmed similar results!
For the most part, contrary to much of the misguided rhetoric, if one wants to continue to use "labels", the reality is Americans are neither center nor center right in their ideology, they are actually left of center in their wants and needs. The problem continues to exist that neither the corporately controlled politicians nor many voters that continue to elect the same types are paying attention to this reality, hence, nothing gets done.
You want a winning strategy? Forget the "labels" and start paying attention to these undeniable polls. Not paying attention got Trump elected because he told people what they wanted to hear.
The election results thus far are mixed. It could be argued that the Democrats were so severely hampered by Republican gerrymandering that the results would inevitably be disappointing. I don't buy that one bit. If Democrats want to turn the tide they need to learn how to speak to lower middle class white voters in a way that respects their anger and their very legitimate concerns.
Just once, I'd like to hear a Democrat, talk about the how globalization hurts working people; or the fact that the fabric of the American identity is frayed and faded and how that creates anxiety. This can be done without advocating for protectionism and xenophobic policies respectively. Bill Clinton was the last Democratic leader that understood this.
3
You speak a great deal about the "identity" thing being important and unfortunately it probably is. I say unfortunately because there are more important matters in the world than race, gender, "degree of brown," dog whistles, sexual orientation, etc. Those human characteristics can be handled and solved by the people themselves coming out to vote; all of them regardless of their characteristics.
What can really bring out the people is promoting "Medicare for All" and a serious redistribution of wealth away from the 1 to 10% top incomes. Wealth distribution is what governments do; not "identify" concepts.
Government takes your taxes and buys weapons and builds roads - it redistributes it where it is needed and wanted. Medical health is the most important critical factor in a persons life and millions cannot access care. It bankrupts millions. It reduces their freedom incredibly (e.g.,they cannot move from one job to another or get new skill training."' Drug prices are often so high people often have to let their health worsen. Most modern, wealthy countries have national health programs. Why not the United States?
2
@Frank
Because the U.S. unwisely doubled its population to 330 million via low wage, low education immigration since 1965 and other 1st world nations to which you refer are still mostly intact European demographics of 45 million.
I would blown off these comments in the past as too soon. But one can only hope that the Democrats are taking this sentiment to heart; indeed, they should have had this in mind way before now.
The party simply needs to be further left. And needs to collectively remember that campaign platforms are to a large degree wish-lists. Getting them into law, or even wanting them as law, is another story. The GOP capitalizes on this every election. About time the Democrats catch on.
1
keep in mind that the last two Republican presidents won in the Electoral College not the popular vote. The Democrats need to win more Governor-ships and winner take all states. I think the long term stability of jobs may be the best place to focus on. Temp jobs promote anti-family values.
2
There are any number of progressive issues for which polls show bipartisan support: gerrymandering reform, pre-existing conditions, a higher minimum wage, universal background checks for gun ownership,and a humane resolution of DACA. A platform built around these issues, coupled with relentless voter mobilization, registration, and disenfranchisement litigation should lead to a solid showing in 2020 for the Democrats.
On the other hand, throwing red meat to the far right is counterproductive; it simply mobilizes Republican turnout. While emotionally satisfying to some, it is a losing strategy.
To that end, the Democratic Party should condemn any form of harassment of public officials or opposition journalists. Antifa and its tactics should be condemned, regardless of provocation. #JobsNotMobs was a viral, highly effective meme that was essentially an Democratic own goal.
And finally, the Kavanaugh hearing should be honestly analyzed for lessons learned. It was badly handled. It significantly and wrongly harmed Ms. Ford. The general public could not stomach the lack of corroboration. It provided righteous motivation for Republican voters.
2
The U.S. needs a strong, viable third party. I have held my nose and voted for Democrats, but that will become far harder in the future if the party puts forward more extreme candidates. I am a moderate. I cannot in good conscience support the extremists in either party.
2
Extremism is not the path for the Democratic Party, and they all know it (Bernie Sanders isn’t a Democrat). No policy platform which is not moderate, to one degree or another, will ever be embraced in a political district which has any kind of longstanding bipartisan interests. And the American political system as a whole cannot function with only one Party. We need more nuance, not less unity.
We are so drowning in data and so starved of common sense.
"Doing the Math" advocates writing off many segments of the electorate. What's this - "evidence-based" politics? It's wrong.
Are we all closet nationalists here? I am again surprised by the focus apparent in this discussion on exclusively domestic issues in thinking about 2020. What about candidates' ability to articulate and guide wise foreign and climate policies? Reforming US healthcare is arguably harder to accomplish than saving the planet, so why would Dem strategists lead with the lie that they can fix that monstrous multi-headed mess? Where this sleight of hand leads us is a dead end road. Really, really dead.
What if Dems reframed the mission - changing the goal from merely winning, to engaging, educating and enlisting the electorate to think about, study and work on all the tough issues, domestic and foreign? What if we had more focus groups, debates, town meetings and fewer polls? Fewer foregone conclusions, more collaboration. What if the campaigns helped voters to make better choices because they understood more? What if we started that effort based not on winning but improving the process along the way to eventually get to better governing? Then, even if we lost an election, we would still have gained something. And just maybe saved the world, one voter at a time.
Call me a delusional stooge, but I just won't embrace ends justifies means. Ever. Not even now. Identity does not = destiny.
1
@Quite Contrary This is in essence why the O'Rourke campaign worked. We The People. Great candidates can be a civics course.
Mr. Phillips is discussing a "base only" strategy. It may be the best way for Dems to win in 2020, but this strategy (which both parties pursued in 2016) is a big part of what is dividing America.
3
Very good read.
Right now the Blues and Nancy Pelosi have an impossible task.
Most of the DEMS new wins (not the blues looking for reelection, but the ones that changed from red to blue), based their entire campaign on one thing: ‘elect me to get rid of Trump’.
This makes it impossible for Blue to get anything done at all.
If they concentrate on ousting the president, they will blow 2 years doing nothing for the country – and the GOP will campaign on exactly that, point to the DEMS and show that they did nothing at all for the country, so why hire them?
If they side with the GOP on anything, they are letting their voters down. Yet they need to be bipartisan to get anything done.
If the GOP brings up immigration reform, health care reform, the DEMS have to a, block it to show their supporters they mean business; or b, go with it, showing their supporters they planned to work with GOP all along.
If the DEMS want to enact anything new, they have to convince the socialists in their midst to approve, but those folk already said they want to make this a socialist country and won't toe the line.
If they manage to reign in their own people, they still have to fight the GOP, the Senate, the SCOTUS and the POTUS.
Out of this you cannot get one DEMS to appeal to the left and right; thus going into 2020 there is no second coming of Obama who can win, and Trump then wins 4 more years.
Some win. All because they appealed to the extreme left
In order to mobilize voters, a candidate has to offer a believable program. No one wants the “centrist” who will sell them out “in search of a solution”. Why not just cave at the outset and not bother to vote?
Most elements of the broadly-drawn progressive program are practical and cost-effective, as can be seen by studying their effects in many parts of the world, including the United States. A single-payer system for basic health care offers better outcomes at a lower cost, while still leaving scope for optional insurance and private treatment, e.g. for non-essential cosmetic surgery. Clean air and clean water save lives, and if the majority of those lives belong to poor black people in places like Flint, environmental standards bring justice as well.
Most voters do not own newspapers or television stations, nor are they paid to be influencers on social media. They are consumers, bombarded by advertising every moment of their lives, and the canvasser on the doorstep may be the only authentic voice they hear. Many visits may be needed, since the victims of our advertising culture may really be more in need of therapy than persuasion, even though they won’t admit it. A party must have clarity and consistency of purpose to reach and hold these people as voters.
However, just as the canvassers orient the voters, the voters orient the canvassers, and these are sometimes the only authentic voices reaching the political campaign. Mobilization works both ways.
Totally disagree. Extreme candidates from both parties generally were unsuccessful in the election and following the fringes is likely to result in disappointment. And frankly, I think most people are tired of fanatics on both side who cannot compromise and just want elected representatives who can get things done and improve life for everyone, however slowly.
My district is a prime example - comfortably middle class and suburban, it recently voted the incumbent Republican Eric Paulsen out for a moderate progressive, Dean Phillips. This happened all over the county. There is zero chance though that Warren or Sanders would ever be elected by the independants or moderates in these districts or in this state.
My family is socially liberal and fiscally conservative and even as a gay man I would never vote for extreme liberal candidates like Liz or Bernie because I don't at all agree with a democratic socialist agenda.
9
Tim walz is another example. He champions second amendment rights and won the election even after eight years of democrat mark dayton. His republican opponent, mr Johnson was as dull as they get whereas mr walz sounded energetic and upbeat. Often times it comes down to the candidates themselves. Do they inspire or feel retired. Attack adds rarely work or at least they don’t work like they once did. How many conservatives voted because they felt the need for the checks and balances in order for our democracy to stay on the road? Probably more than you would think. Trump does not necessarily own the Republican tent.
1
This is one more in a long line of miscast arguments about what Democrats need to do to win. The voters of the US have made it rather clear that they don't care about the details of policy. They respond to candidates who are charismatic and human and likable. That's what we need, plain and simple -- the candidate who can get our voters to go out to the polls, period, amen! It's not about moderate versus democratic-socialist. It's about relatable, human, decent, inspiring and charismatic. Please, can we learn this lesson before it's too late?
3
Why did Nelson do better in Florida than Gillum, despite the misplacement of the Senate election on the Broward ballot? Why did Sherrod Brown win in Ohio? Why did moderate dems win in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin? Phillips is focusing on the wrong states. Dems were unlikely to win in Missouri, Tennessee, and Georgia, and their hopes for 2020 don't depend on them. Their hopes depend on taking back Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Iowa. Moderation is key there. And the ability to speak to both people of colored and white working class voters who voted for Obama but then Trump.
2
"And mobilize and call forth a new American majority in a country that gets browner by the hour and will be even more diverse by November 2020." And younger.
My 90 year old aunt has been wringing her hands raw the last 2 years. My uncle and I have tried to shine a light her way saying that t rump is probably going to wake up enough people to work, again, for real democracy. Sure enough.
Democrats need to run, once again, on the New Deal. That bold progressive program that helped build the middle class and move the Nation into modern times.
Voters need to be reminded that 40 years after the New Deal America was humming right along. Building a new and modern Country.
Voters need to be reminded that 40 years after reaganomics We can barely fill our potholes.
Bill Clinton was basically a republican-lite and what it got him was impeached. And bush ii.
But as I have written here many times; it is not up to the Democratic Party to save the Nation.
It is up to We the People.
Let's get to work.
1
Let's continue to promote the fantastical thinking of the Bernie Sanders' wing of fantasy land.
Yup, that's how you win in 2020. Sure, right, got it.
8
Here’s a lineup worthy of consideration-
Beto O’Rourke
Joaquin Castro
And it would win Texas
What's most important is that the Democratic Party articulate a strong pro-worker message. In Western Pennsylvania, social moderate Conor Lamb won by championing unions, expanded health care, and tariffs. Likewise, SJW Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won in Queens by supporting labor and talking about working-class New Yorkers. Democrats must turn their back on Wall Street and the elites whom the Clintons and Obama courted and, rather sickeningy, extolled, while raising gobs of money from corporatists. Instead, Democrats must return to their Rooseveltian roots as the part of the poor, struggling, and working-class.
2
I agree! You are never going to change a Trump supporter's vote. They have chosen to forgo rational thinking in favor of willful ignorance and subservience to a first rate con man. If a voter is willing to accept Mr Trump's deplorable behavior-- towards his own wife, the media, elected officials, his own appointed officials ,like Sessions and the public at large--how could you possibly persuade them to vote for a democrat. Compromise has not existed for the republican party since the advent of the Tea Party and little hope of it returning in the current political climate. Organization and mobilization of democrats and independent voters is the only hope for our democracy.
What about the senate race in Arizona?
What about the governor's race in Kansas?
In AZ centrist Democrat Sinema with a 32K+ lead now will most likely win.
In the article about Laura Kelley's win in Kansas, this paper said
"Kansas’s big Democratic wins, it turned out, were by women with less bold platforms who emphasized working across the aisle. It seems that if Midwestern states are bound for a return to their democratic-socialist roots — prairie populism, it was once called — they will first require a return to center in female form."
I think if Beto was a bit more to the center he could have won in Texas.
2
Please actually do the math next time. The whole article reads like cherry-picking.
Whether or not Ms. Abrams garnered more votes (1.9 million) proves irrelevant compared to garnering the majority of votes. Georgia's population growth ranks among the top in the USA.
This article also confounds message and tactics. Arguing in support of early mobilization vs. persuasion should be separated from whatever message would be included in the mobilization efforts.
Would have loved to see specific data around what exactly 'inspired' voters for Mr. Gillum, Ms. Abrams and Mr. Obama vs. what the author states, unsupported, for ‘being unapologetically progressive.’ The rhetoric from President Obama’s first presidential campaign in particular should require analysis. During this early period President Obama praised George Bush senior, and first acquired national spotlight from his 2004 keynote speech defind by experts (including conservative opponents) as ‘centrist’.
4
BTW, when was the last red hot Democrat actually elected president?
like never.
1
This actually highlights the problems the Democrats have.
I used to be one and am now independent.
Race baiting, social outrage over the most innate issues, extreme political correctness. All major turnoffs for me.
Meanwhile policy that reflects what Americans want is still lacking. In no way shape or form did Obama's policies reflect on what's good for American workers. He destroyed the middle class with his globalist policies. He embraced trade packs such as TPP.
The Democrats used to be the party of the people. Now they are the party of the elite, Hollywood and a bunch of lemmings.
Doesn't work for me nor apparently does it work for many Americans who are rejecting the Democrats despite what you see on CNN, MSNBC and the NY Times.
4
While I agree that Democrats have become too elitist and cozy with Wall Street, the Republicans have, since after Teddy Roosevelt been even more corrupted by money. Why would a working person support the GOP that destroys unions, passes regressive tax measures that benefit mainly the super wealthy, and adopts policies that increase wealth inequality, is beyond belief.
The Clinton era is over. Thank God.
It may have worked for Bill and almost for Hillary, but it destroyed America by moving the Democratic Party to the Center Right- allowing the GOP to go crazy right.
What Bernie was campaigning on in 2016 was not some radical left wing agenda- it was where the Democratic Party stood a couple of decades ago. That would be the era Republicans remember as the good old days.
1
@David Gregory
Sunshine,
Hillary Clinton and Bernie had the same basic platform, which was the same policies as Obama in 2008, which was the same policies of Clinton since even prior to 2000.
1
Hot take, but perhaps candidate quality is more important than which faction of the Democratic party they hail from? AOC and Abrams were inspiring, Levi Tilleman and Saira Rao in CO were not- and got wiped out in primaries.
2
How did Obama win a majority and then lose in the following midterms? Purists didn’t show up and the GOP painted him as kowtowing to banks and the fear of healthcare reform. The left didn’t show up! They were too pure...think Nader Dems, or Barnieis the last election. There’s no difference, really! Politics is part of a culture and we had a choice, twice, to find a common set of truths and values, and enfold the white working class, bring back the former union members...sure they struggle with culture change. But do we have to feed that into hatred? Common values, common progressive goals...jobs, fairness, safety, infrastructure, science, hope, education...not a mystery. Texas is the testbed and rational values-based ideals almost beat Ted the dark lord of division.
2
Obama may have run as a "progressive", but he governed as a moderate, triangulating, Clintonian Neoliberal.
3
Anyone but Trump will win in 2020. The only way Dems don't win is for R's to nominate someone other than Trump.
2
Nothing to argue with here. But there is something missing. Beto, Stacey and Andrew smiled a lot and those smiles came off not as strained or trained but as the visible sign of the sense of humor that informed the smile. The top of the 20/20 ticket needs to be as quick on his or her feet with humor as they are with inspiration or facts. One of the reasons many of us love the Obamas, both the President and the First Lady, is because they laugh and they can make us laugh. Humor and the ability to wield it will disarm a bully, illuminate the confidence of a leader and at the same time, in the right hands can reveal humility. It can also reveal joy, the sense that all is not lost. All characteristics lacking not only in the current occupant of the White House but pretty much missing from this Administration as a whole.
10
There aren’t enough progressive voters to win a presidential election, so a campaign that fails to target the middle is doomed, no matter how well it mobilizes.
A successful candidate plays it both ways, throwing some red meat to the base, while mostly sounding more moderate to capture voters in the middle.
I think that’s exactly what Obama did, and the author misreads 2008 when he suggests otherwise. Obama always made sure to sound reasonable, which he was, and likeable, which he also was.
5
The person matters, not so much the ideology.. In late 2007, I didn't think Barack Obama had enough experience for the job, but after observing his campaign, the electorate thought he did, and I came around too. And the locale matters. Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Pennsylvania are not having major demographic revolutions, and I'm pretty sure Joe Biden would have easily beaten Trump in all four states. Then again, i think Bernie Sanders would have too. But who is the new, younger, ready to run, version of Joe Biden, or Bernie Sanders? Right now, i can't see my own Senator Kamila Harris, taking any of the above states, because to me she doesn't seem to have the common touch, I get the impression she has never meet many normal people. And I hope she proves me wrong, again.
3
We need 1) nonpartisan primaries, 2) ranked choice voting, 3) nonpartisan congressional district lines, and 4) matched donations up to $3,000.
4
I'm not sure that you can generalize the results to every race. Did EVERY moderate Democrat lose?Did the majority of moderate Democrats lose? The author didn't tell us so we are left talking about a handful of faces that were notable. While I would prefer a move towards a more progressive agenda it's not clear to me if this alone is what Democrats are lacking. On a related note the author seemed to say that Obama was a progressive candidate. While his message was one of hope the policies he initially endorsed in the campaign were not that progressive. His health care proposals were more conservative than HRC's. Don't get me wrong. I thought Obama was a great president, but I wouldn't call his policies progressive. The country has moved so far right over the past 40 years (in some but not all ways) that we have to claw our way back left to reach what used to be called moderate. The old moderate is today's radical left....
5
Let me get this right...every dem should be using the strategy that got these candidates to lose an election?
10
A strategy for a national election needs to be different than for state elections. I live among red voters in red states. The appeal to them from Democrats in 2020 must be moderate and based on understanding the concerns and needs of flyover country.
Just because the coasts swing way liberal, they don't have enough electoral college votes to win. Please, please get it right the next time!!
5
@msternb I don't agree. Hillary lost to Trump has much for her centrist views. The DNC needs a shift in leadership. Centrist is more or less a moderate republican in most peoples eyes. A progressive candidate would increase voter turn out in every state.
1
Ever compare Hillary’s platform to Bernie’s? You might find it illuminating.
2
@Rick Martin
Hillary and Bernie had near identical platforms, which were nearly identical to Obama's.
The less than connected to reality Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein interlopers in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are why the U.S. and world is enduring Donald Trump.
1
It would help the Democrats greatly if they had leaders who were better at messaging. Where was Schumer when the Republicans were busy spreading the lies and hysteria about voter fraud, the caravan, crime, etc. etc.? I barely saw him mentioned. Why do progressive ballot measures do so much better than progressive Democrats in red states? Medicaid expansion, minimum wage, restoring voting rights to felons and other issues won big majorities in Utah, Missouri, Florida and elsewhere.
The Republicans have won so much because they are very good at getting out their base. The Democrats have a much bigger base if they can get them to vote and fight the Republicans' voter suppression efforts as well.
3
Pushing democrats further to the left and into taking more extreme positions will not work, it will backfire, and it will be the cause of continued dysfunction in US politics.
10
Phillips cherry-picks and his resultant fruit bowl is one that a huge swath of our nation won't partake. The U.S. has, as much of the West, moved right. Senate election results showed that (you won't argue that states comprise gerrymandered districts, will you?), and the House flip can rightly be seen as rebuking Trump's characterological / behavioral toxicity.
The American voting polity will not countenance Medicaid for All, for example, both on ideological and pragmatic grounds: If what is approaching 20% of the GDP becomes a right, are we going to force those to produce that 20% to do it, or to do it for this much and not more, or just let this latest human right break the federal bank? Too many Americans "get" this at an intuitive level.
We'll end up with Trump or Pence or some such if the Democrats go down this road. Don't believe me? Look at the 2016 and 2018 election results.
2
@Dennis, I quibble with the idea that the Senate went well for the GOP. Winning three of the reddest states in the country while losing Arizona, failing in Montana, and potentially losing in Florida aren't a great night.
Dems can easily take back the Senate in 2020, but I agree, I don't think that Dems have a good presidential candidate.
My heart is with you, but my head isn't!, and for all your expertise, I think you overlook or under-rate some signif. facts!
Obama "beat the spread" who knows why ... but 2 years later, what, 10 million people turned on him out of fear that they'd be assigned a new MD?! No, I'd argue they had buyer's regret over his SEEMING too mold-breaking ... and his ethnicity didn't help as the economy came back but the jobs didn't!
I'd argue that the sample size of elections in our current era (newspapers on life support, FB and others MUCH more influential and subject to manipulation) ... is so small that "pundits" can say anything and find (definitely by cherry-picking) "evidence" that they're right.
Stacy Abrams WAS too "out there" to win ... given how stacked the deck was. But what was true in GA this year is true as long as we have an Elec. College - the deck IS stacked. Goldwater WAS too far out of the mainstream; ditto, McGovern.... I suspect that's true of Ms. Warren & Ms. Harris, among others.
ANY DEM. Nominee who Trump and Fox can easily paint as a Socialist/internationalist strikes me as giving him his best shot at a 2nd term. Biden or Sherrod Brown probably wouldn't be Bernie's top choices (or yours), but if winning IS job #1, I'd flip your headline to "ONLY a Moderate Can Emerge Victorious!" ... Maybe Beto COULD peat Pence in 2024... if we live that long. Let's look for 8 Bill C.-like years starting in 2020! (Maybe, we could do better, but we DEFINITELY could do worse!)
1
Dems can look at Reps. In 2008 and 2012 they chose the moderate candidates and lost both time. In 2016 they filed the radical candidate and won. Too much for moderation.
1
Stay balanced, somewhere a little left of the middle.
Swing too far left and it'll be a damaging, crushing defeat.
Stick near to the center.
Trotting out young, idealistic sweethearts is not prudent either.
We need experience at the helm right now. Not spring lambs.
7
Gretchen Whitmer won solidly. Tony Evers beat Scott Walker. Laura Kelly beat Kobach. Abrams lost. Gillum lost. Beto lost. Excitement is no substitute for victory.
I don't know that a moderate would have done any better in Texas or Georgia; there we may have followed the best strategy. I think a moderate in place of Gillum would have had a reasonable chance of winning in Florida. Nelson did better than Gillum, even with the bad ballot design in Broward County.
5
I mostly agree with you, especially what I take to be the idea that Ds should have been happily and unapologetically running intelligent, authentic, politically talented people for office without regard to the race or gender of the candidate long before this.
I just want to caution that ideas like left, right, center, liberal, progressive, moderate, and libertarian are essentially heuristic devices that tend to take on a life of their own. There’s even an interesting and compelling case to be made for the idea that race is essentially a heuristic device.
And we don’t want to be prisoners of our own device.
1
I disagree with Mr Phillips. He does not mention that this election was a referendum on Mr Trump and in a very, very large number of Congressional races were won by moderate, female, veterans who ran on Health Care. Gilum, Beto and Abrams were all stretches who made red to purple races competitive.
The story of this election, be it PA or TX was how the suburbs went blue. That has a lot to do with Mr Trumps brash style and a GOP who has fought Health Care. The road to the White House will be won by a Moderate Democrat who can hold on to those suburbs and engaged voters of color.
3
The author’s premise has a presumption of validity. However, rural Americans who voted for Obama twice and then Trump in 2016, voted for the former president BECAUSE he wasn’t a progressive. Likewise, if Trump runs to the far right he will not win re election. It’s the middle that wins presidents elections. Far left and far right are seen as too extreme.
1
When they go (extreme) right, We go left. We don't need to go right. You cannot balance out Racism and Fascism by moving to the center.
3
progressive sure. independent yes. hard left obviously not
1
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Yes, Barack Obama was an excellent president -- charismatic, intelligent, moral, and moderate. But, America is racist. Obama's success was in spite of his color, not because of it. Democrats need a candidate in 2020 who can duplicate the qualities of Obama, but who is white and male. We need to face facts and bring this country together.
7
"Mr. Gillum offered one of the greatest lines in the history of American politics"
Ahem. The first rule of politics may be, "Don't believe the hype". Especially your own. It's funny how the author asserts that the Ossoff campaign was simply a losing effort -- while Michelle Goldberg told us last week it was the vital progenitor to last week's progressive victories.
Meanwhile, each week's Op-Ed page seesaws back and forth from "we need moderates" to "lefties only". I'm beginning to think there is no one-size-fits-all strategy for Dems. Anyone else think the same?
2
It's very hard for democrats to win in states lead by republicans who practice voter suppression and gerrymandering.
It is time to take voter registration and redistricting out of the hands of the states and into a non partisan commission
Kick the foxes out of the hen house
3
2016, when most of Americans reject Obama liberal views about the government, the silent majority who wanted to protect middle America from the extreme left, or far right... will definitely prevails in 2020...
Of course you run inspiring candidates who’re willing to do the shovel work. Of course you do. And Beto, Abrams, Gillum, probably had the best shot at winning in their states.
But so far, they did NOT win. And candidates more like Kristin Sinema often did.
This is a perverse reading of the results. It’s yet another of the leftish Tea Partyisme that’s all too likely to turn us into the mirror of Them. And I for one am way past tired of this kind of backhand sneering at the Manchins, the Testers, the Hillary Clintons, all the people who’ve fought just as hard for pretty much the same things (try comparing Hillary and Bernie’s 2016 platforms, if you think I’m kidding, and by the way, Hillary Clinton worked harder for women than Bernie ever did), only to get sneezed at like this.
So could we stop trying to become the POUM? could we maybe focus on who the Bad Guys are, keep the ol’ eyes on the prize a little?
2
Nelson is doing better than Gillum, so this self serving argument clearly is wrong.
4
@CitizenJ
Gillum is black, and therefore unappealing to racist white voters. That would explain all the difference. Even if Nelson weren't already the incumbent, which adds to his name recognition.
In short, if one is of somewhat conservative disposition, why vote for a fake Republican (Bredesen, McCaskill, Donnelly), when one can vote for a real one? Milquetoast Democrats who disdain or avoid progressive policy are as exciting as yesterday's toast.
2
@corvid Consider Kyrsten Sinema. Apparently the people of Arizona preferred a centrist Democrat to a Republican. Sinema is a member of the Blue Dog caucus in the House, does not fit this theory at all.
As other people in this conversation have said, conditions may be different in different places, and building a winning coalition may require different approaches in different places.
I'm truly curious - what about Mr. Gillum's or Ms Abrams platforms was inspiring? I heard endlessly from the Times about how each of these candidates (as well as Christine Hallquist who ran for governor in Vermont) was trying to become the first person from identity group X to be elected to position Y, but very little was said about what these people would do once in office.
I'm honestly not certain if this is merely because outlets like the Times are so interested in fawning over identity politics that they generally ignored the policy proposals of the candidates for fluff pieces about their minority status or if they truly lacked substantial policy bonafides. This much is certain though, outside of the liberal pockets of NYT readership, winning candidates need to do more than check a box of being from group X.
7
Too bad the idea of a political coalition is completely alien and unfathomable to modern-day Americans. It has to be all or nothing, no tolerance for those with differing but compatible views. That's why the Republicans have become an army of Trump clones, and why some Democrats are insisting that every single person in their party becomes a Sanders clone. There can be no such thing as a political coalition. Those are for real democracies, not for the USA. Good thing the party doesn't get to decide who the candidates are. The people do. If you're like most people and you don't bother to vote in the primaries, then you have no right to complain about the candidates who end up on the ballot.
To the Democrats who say the key to political victory should invariably involve moving to the squishy center and fighting with your own base: Please explain the success of the modern Republican party.
1
History is on the side of Democrats. Women, young people and minorities who tend to be progressive are a growing segment of our population while old white guys who control the GOP are thankfully dying off. But Democrats must learn to appeal to centrists and progressives and working people. While I did not support Sanders I’m convinced if nominated he would have defeated Trump.
I'm not sure this piece is 100% right across the board. How does he explain Beto's loss, or Joe Manchin's win? As for Claire McCaskill, I think her moderation worked fine for her for her previous elections, this year she had two SCOTUS nominees she voted against (but especially the last one) to drag her down. For every Cortez in NY there's a Lipinski in IL.
1
It’s seems there should be 5 or less issues that all of the Party could agree on regardless of geographic location. That the party should be focused on picking those few issues and and getting the word out. Frankly we lose because dems have given up the fact war. They are outdone by the repeated brazen lies, the refusal of republicans to call out the lies and what looks like an abdication of effort that results in comments that people are stupid or deplorables.
The dems need to find a way to break through the lies so policy suggestions can be rationally weighed. If we are to distracted by the demands of the various groups we have already lost 2020. If it’s to late for facts then turn out will be the only way to win. Turnout doesn’t really help with the governing part necessary to reelection though. Those who believe Fox News lies are afraid so Dems need to make intelligent choices and not corner the voter.
1
Lord, Dems, stand for Something!
The GOP makes it pretty clear these days they only believe in their own jobs and their donors' happiness.
The last thing any of us want to vote for is "GOP lite".
3
The real problem is not moderation but cognitive dissonance. Generally speaking, Democratic candidates make a reasonable effort to be truthful.
In my opinion, Trump won in 2016 for two reasons. 1) A stream of lies without shame for any occasion and; 2) The ability not to pay a price for his mendacity.
I am not a political operative. I do not know the "how." I just know that Democrats need to do a much better job of countering blatant dishonesty - promptly, forcefully and persuasively.
The answer might lie in patriotism. As a country we cannot afford to have "alternate facts," whether promoted by candidates or Fox News.
4
If the presidential election were held today, a Democrat would defeat Mr. Trump in the electoral college 278-260.
Interactive electoral college map:
- https://www.270towin.com/maps/wvDXz
PA (20), MI (16), and WI (10) would turn blue again, based on the results from Nov 6, 2018.
That is encouraging, but not good enough. We need to work for a landslide electoral victory - and the U.S. Senate - in 2020.
- We must always compete in FL (29) and OH (18).
- We can flip IA (6), and we have a shot at winning in AZ (11) and NC (15).
- And we need to work on GA (16) and TX (38) for the long-run. Those two states may not happen in 2020, but they will turn purple in the next decade. Democrats won 48+% of votes in statewide races in both GA and TX this year.
2
Rep. Tim Ryan, and others, warned us in 2016 not to ignore the plight of the working class. HRC managed not only to ignore them, but to insult them repeatedly.
We need leaders in the middle who will actually listen, and actually act. We need to add new voters, not drive them away. I don't know who the person is to do that, but I know if we keep Pelosi ( just another "old white guy", and the best poster face for the GOP ads), and if we don't embrace the needs of the people of the non-coasts, Trump will have better chance to win again. He doesn't really care about working people, but they think he does. We have to care too.
Remember too that Pelosi supported Pres. Obama's Simpson-Bowles commission plans to cut Social Security.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/27/nancy-pelosi-simpson-bowles-social-security-medicare_n_1453323.html
If we go too far Left, we lose the Middle, and the WH, again.
1
If the Democrats swing left, you will be watching Trump's second inauguration from your TV's, iPhones and tablets. The middle is the Democrats road to redemption and the White House.
4
This continues the either /or fallacy based argument going on within the Democratic party. It ignores the fact that the Democratic moderates and formally liberal republicans (yea there used to be liberal republicans) also make up a large part of the electorate across the country. It ignores the lessons here in Michigan where Gretchen Whitmer became Michigan’s second woman governor & her running mate, Garlin Gilchrist, became Michigan's first African-American lieutenant governor running a center left campaign against a Trump embracing conservative. It also ignores Tony Evers win in Wisconsin and the moderate Democrats that won there as well. There are places that favor liberals & places favoring moderates, you can have a winning strategy for both. I think one of the most important things is diverse candidates regardless of where they fall within the liberal to moderate range. More women, people of color, young people and yes white guys. It's the Democratic party that is the big tent party, the republicans are now reduced to Trumps little pup tent & he takes up most of the floor space.
4
Steve Phillips nails it. Equivocation and milk toast GOP lite candidates are a failed strategy. Honest articulate truth telling is what the Democratic Party needs. If we are to woo millennials we have to embrace Medicare for everyone, free college, reigning in Wall Street, ending mass incarceration and private prisons, and sensible gun control. We will not win running on fear of the GOP propaganda machine - we should confront it directly and call out the lies.
1
Mr. Phillips, I disagree. The majority of the country is not far right or far left. Hillary Clinton's problem was the effectiveness of the Republican propaganda machine to paint her as a socialist, when she really is just left of center, and on most things very center. Gun Control, women's health, education were all issues most Americans agreed with her on.
Nancy Pelosi was exceptional in her maintaining discipline in the House races. They stayed on message and won. That is the key to this next election. To have a smart platform and to stay with the talking points no matter how crazy Donald Trump gets.
345
@Joe Barnett Hillary Clinton's problem was that she was the 2nd most disliked candidate ever--and lost to the most disliked. Her approval rating has been 36% --lower than Trump's--for a year.
57
@Joe Barnett..... the problem is that in the US the center is really quite conservative in representing the needs and interests of the citizen majority---in health care, taxes, jobs, gun safety, education, etc. What's called 'left' here is in other countries accepted centrist politics.
Centrist policies are mild antidotes to the right wing GOP. Inevitable when big money interests fund politics and set policy limits. The GOP makes Dems look good by contrast, but we deserve better.
GOP persecution made the Clintons look better and get sympathy. But what did Hillary do with the millions she got for speeches to the Wall St banks who caused the crash?
And exactly what did she tell those banks and then ask for the votes of millions of average citizens hurt by the crash?
27
@Joe Barnett
The election showed that many people were willing to vote progressive on many issues on the ballot. The challenge for those espousing the more liberal path is to get the voters to connect what they want to the candidates.
It's not the issues, it's the perceptions.
22
Here begins the fight within the democratic Party, but do we really need this fight. Democrats generally agree on most things, infrastructure, justice issues, the need for health care for everyone and sensible gun control measures to mention just a few. Our differences mostly involve method and emphasis. So we need someone who can transcend the labels of moderate and progressive to bring us together around these issues and not fight each other as we did with Clinton and Sanders neither one of whom brought us together as President Obama did, someone pragmatic and sensible, but inspiring to a large swath of voters and tough enough to face down the Tumpists, someone with heart.
You fill in the blank, but Michelle Obama of O'Rourk from Texas may fit the bill. perhaps.
2
Don't do the Math, vote for whoever you like the most.
Don't listen to those who pretend they know better and they did the Math for you, and you must vote the way you're being told.
This is not democracy anymore, this is oligarchy and the first step towards populism and dictatorship.
113
@Erwan
Yes, if you vote for lesser evil, you end up with the two must unpopular candidates in presidential polling history. The lesser evil is still evil.
Don't let corporate media tell you which candidates are "viable." That is how they keep the best candidates from winning. Corporate media benefits from corporate tax cuts. They are not as impartial as they pretend.
4
@Erwan
Democrats ran a center candidate in 2016. We got a nationalist president with dictatorial aspirations. Can we try the other strategy now?
15
@Andy
The Democrats ran center candidates from 2010 - 2016 and lost about 1,000 seats across the country. Somehow, the same establishment Dems and their very expensive consultants STILL want to run to the center and try to woo over "moderate" Republicans. There are no "moderate" Republicans. Those who were left the party after the 2016 election, so good luck with that.
How can you loose 1,000 seats and continue to believe you know how races are won? Stunning. I say shut up and sit in the back. We aren't listening to you any more. (Not even when the NYT editors pronounce progressives as losing choices.
7
The Democrats must not take the black and minority vote for granted obviously. But the industrial heartland will determine the winner and the working class there is mainly concerned about their dwindling financial position in the country, with the 1% Bernie talks about being comprised mainly of coastal elites. I’m anxious to see how Sherrod Brown looks on the national stage.
3
Center? What Center? The GOP is still moving right at the speed of light under a President who deregulates the financial sector and cut taxes for corporations and the rich and gave a temporary small tax cut to workers. Of course the President of all the American people wants to slash healthcare (I have some beautiful cheap insurance for you) and supports offshore and onshore drilling and is a climate change denier and a hero to the racist Alt Right and a compulsive liar who has damaged our country and our alliances. The common ground between the GOP and Establishment Dems is that they are both corporatist. So keep moving right economically while talking Civility and in 2020 voters will still be wondering what the Democratic Party stands for.
The winning move is to get together with the Progressives who are out there talking to all kinds of Americans - they bent the fight for the House in favor of the Dems because their agenda helps ordinary people. That is the common ground between black and white and brown and purple and Christian and Muslim and non-religious. The majority wins.
242
@Saint999
It's funny when people say things like, "the GOP is still moving right at the speed of light." The conservative movement doesn't move; that's why they're conservative. They think the status quo is essentially good enough and want to keep things as they are. It is progressives that move. Very fast lately; so far do these progressives move relative to the GOP that I'm sure it appears to them that the GOP is moving quite fast. It's an illusion.
2
@Bill
Well, if conservatives are not actually moving, then they keep offering a MORE AND MORE EXTREME version of conservatism to voters. Initially arguing for balanced budgets and then arguing that deficits don't matter when it comes to their priorities would be one way. Coming up with the basic outline of Obama care and then voting 100% against it would be another. Cutting SOME taxes in the 80s, more taxes in the 2000s, and still more in 2018 would be another. Trying to reduce food stamps year after year would be another, appointing justices that are so conservative that it may be impossible for regulatory agencies to do anything without explicit support from Congress every step of the way would be another, going from compromise and supporting SS in the 1980s to talking about privatizing it in the 2000s and reducing it in 2017-8 would be yet another, voting to the renew the Voting Rights Act several times, and then appointing a new supreme court to invalidate the most key part of it would be another. Arguing that "Democrats always start wars in the 1970s, then engaging American in (however many) wars since the 1980s would be another, talking first about amnesty for immigrants and changing to "build the wall" would be yet another. You can call it what you want, but there is certainly a pattern of CHANGE there.
24
@Bill I strongly doubt past GOP leaders would agree with you - Eisenhower who warned against the Military Industrial Complex that Trump's foreign policy serves and profits, Lincoln who undoubtedly is turning over in his grave at the GOP's fueling of bigotry and divisiveness, and even Nixon, who created the now decimated EPA.
17
The argument about whether Democrats should go to the middle or to the left is best illustrated by the example of single payer health care for all. A recent poll (https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/28/most-americans-now-support-medicare-for-all-and-free-college-tuition.html) shows that a strong majority of the country wants it. But there is strong resistance from the centrist Democrats to embrace it.
Does that make sense? Or is it really the money that is driving the resistance of the centrist Democrats.
2
@Paul Stokes Yes it is money driving centrist Democrat resistance to these ideas. Specifically the question "Where is all this money going to come from?" is driving centrist opposition to these noble yet astronomically expensive ideas. And yes if we "got rid of the military" that might free up some money but nowhere near enough. So yes, you are correct. It's money.
@Charles K. Well, I agree, but as far as "where is all this money going to come from," it is well-established that single payer health care for all will be less expensive for the country than our current system. So the money I have in mind is that which the current health care industry gives to Democrats.
This commentary is nonsense.
Yes, Bredesen lost by 11 percent and McCaskill by six percent, but they were running in states where Trump won respectively by 26 percent and 19 percent. A more "progressive" candidate in those states would have lost by much bigger margins.
In Florida, Gillum apparently did lose--in a state that Trump carried by only 1.2 percent--and in Georgia, Abrams lost. Both Gillum and Abrams were running against very poor candidates. And if Gillum and Abrams had run a less progressive campaign, would they have won? Texas and Georgia are a generation away from being purple states.
The next presidential election will be won or lost in the Midwest--Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania--and in the western states of Colorado and Nevada. And in those states, and elsewhere, a Democratic nominee who has the appeal of a Joe Biden will be the strongest candidate that the Democrats can field. But nominate someone like Warren, Harris, or Booker, and watch what happens.
5
My God, what is happing to our country!
The Republicans have gone so far to the right that they have become the white-nationalist party. Rather than use this as an opportunity to capture the rational centre, the Democrats want to go as far left as their identity politics will take them. Compromise is already a dirty word in Washington, what is going to happen when we have two parties representing the extreme wings of their ideologies?
I say pox on both their houses. What we need is a competent centrist party that wants to serve the majority of the people, who happen to be in and around the center.
2
@Voice The so-called "rational" center has brought us endless warfare, a gap between the richest and the rest of us that is befitting of the Roman Empire, and a crumbling infrastructure. So we should mollify those who supported Trump with more of the same? A true recipe for disaster. Item by Item, Americans approve a progressive approach.
Mr. Phillip actually makes the case why Democrats lose - unless they have a "celebrity" candidate, liberals and progressives won't come out.
It's funny how Republicans don't have this problem. They understand US Elections are binary choices and you are not voting for the PERSON but for the PARTY.
Liberals and Progressives usually think there are elections every four years and have to be "motivated" vote. Republicans know there are elections EVERY year and that is "motivation' enough for them to get up and go to the polls.
Sure, they may want another candidate in the primary but as soon as the candidate is picked, they shut up and go in the booth and vote for the Republican. They know you have to WIN elections in order to govern and that winning is much better than "protesting".
Till Liberals and "educated" progressives get politically smart and realize you vote for the Democrat regardless of whether you like the color of their shoes or not, their planet will be plundered, their abortion rights restricted and their freedom of speech will be curtailed.
And frankly, they will deserve it.
5
You forgot to mention Jon Tester, Joe Manchin, Amy Klobuchar, Tammy Baldwin, Sherrod Brown... You know, the moderates that did win.
Your strategy couldn't flip the governorship in deep-purple Florida in a year when Democrats won the national house vote by 8 points.
Here's a pro-tip: When a consultant starts their pitch with "I may have lost my last two races," they're selling you a bill of goods.
9
It's been downhill for the Dems ever since Bill Clinton signed NAFTA and supported the repeal of Glass-Steagal, both of which signaled that the Dems were moving more towards Wall Street and away from Main Street.
Additionally, the Democrats have lost two presidential elections in the Electoral College (2000 & 2016) because members of their base thought their candidate was too centrist and instead voted for the Green Party.
As the GOP has shown, keeping your base motivated and on board is just as important as trying to gain votes from undecided centrists.
2
Democrats can't win by pretending to be Republicans. Donald Trump won by promising the drain the swamp. Most rational people doubted him, but we are so desperate to get money out of politics, to make politicians responsive to us rather than donors, that a lot of people bought the snake oil.
Get money out of politics. Period. Full stop. If the Democrats can make progress on that, they will win, no matter what else they may oppose or support.
Traditional Republicans are the party of graft. On that point, Democrats must oppose them zealously and without fear.
222
@Justin
Yes, all that. Plus, the Democratic Party cannot engage in the same GOP behaviors it claims to stand in opposition to.
If the NYT is going with a photo of Stacey Abrams for so many of their articles exemplifying the new blood of the Democratic Party, then cover the entire story or others will.
Flying under the nose of the NYT and other national media: Ms. Abrams sister, Judge Leslie Abrams is an Obama appointee of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia, which on Friday granted the request of the GA Democratic Party (i.e. the Abrams campaign) for a ruling on the ballot issue.
2
@Justin. I agree. The Dems won this election by staying focused on Health Care. Next cycle they should keep that issue, but also focus like a laser beam on money in politics. Most of trumps supporters liked his drain the swamp message. Given his failure to deliver on that, it becomes a very potent issue, especially after this new Democratic congress reveals the level of corruption trump and his associates are currently engaged in. Election reform, make every vote count and get money out of politics; it's a winning message.
18
@Justin
You can't get money out of politics until the USSC undo it's dictum that money is speech.The presently constituted court is likely to decide that money is a person deserving of a seat in the house. Goes to show what a bunch of crack pots the majority of the USSC are. And yet we have to depend on them to dispense justice.
13
Lets be blunt about this; Democratic party leaders are always talking about "strategy" and "messaging" for winning because they have no true platform that would bring support from the middle class. *That* is "what happened" to Hillary. The DNC has actually been involved in suppressing progressive, populist elements within the party. The stink of that is going to take a long time to scrub off, and it will only start with the ejection of many of the old guard who lead the party. I'm a fairly highly paid, fifty five year old, tech job progressive, someone who should supposedly be right in the party's base, and yet I am so sick of their corporate servitude that I am looking to trigger the Nader Effect whenever I can. How's that for messaging?
Nancy Pelosi is already talking about milquetoast goals like shoring up the ACA and reducing drug costs. How about financial regulation and reversing the Republicans latest tax scam bill? How about re-enabling full property tax and mortgage interest deductions, the loss of which are hammering her own constituents?
224
@Jim K I hope you rethink that "Nader Effect" thing. How much chance do the policies you favor have if Trump is President in 2021?
27
@RM
Evidently Jim has not thought this through at all.
10
@Jim K Did you vote for Nader in 2000? If so, shame on you. Please take some credit for the Iraq War, etc.
18
The reason why Hillary lost in 2016 by just 70,000 votes in 3 states is because of this reason. She did not motivate young people and people of color to go out and vote for her. As a result she lost by that narrow margin in those 3 states. Sitting on the fence on issues and trying to gain the so-called white moderates is not a winning strategy, especially when the other side is doing just the opposite. Fighting fire with fire is the winning strategy. Sound off the other side with dire warnings that they are going to pull to pull the plug on everyone of color (because they say they are). That will motivate people of color to go out and vote for their own good.
6
@Theni
Clinton motivated more voters than Trump did by more than 3 million. The fly in the ointment was dipwad fringe left millennials, just as was the case in 2000, with a large helping of misogynist millennial males.
Do the arithmetic. America is 75% white European Judeo- Christian.
While they are aging and shrinking due to a below replacement level birthrate along with a decreasing life expectancy due to alcoholism, drug addiction, depression and suicide they still vote their color aka race caste instead of their socioeconomic educational class. And they are not color aka race blind. Nor are they Ray Charles Stevie Wonder blind.
Neither condescending paternalistic liberal white pity nor condescending paternalistic conservative white contempt accept the diverse individual humanity and agency of black folks.
3
I was unaware that McCaskill ran an ad that said “Claire’s not one of those crazy Democrats..."
It's no wonder she lost. It's not very inspiring, or confidence-inducing, when a candidate disparages her own teammates. It smacks of inauthenticity and lack of conviction. It invokes an unwillingness to fight for the principles of your presumed party.
Too many Democrats - and the consultants that work for them - remain scared of their own shadow (Chuck Schumer, anyone?). Despite the fact that most Americans support left-of-center economic policies such as higher minimum wage, Medicare for All and stringent bank regulations, many Dem politicians and strategists remain wary of embracing such policies out of fear that the public will reject them. Not only is it not true (some of Trump's appeal in 2016 is due to the economic populism he embraced during the campaign), but voters of both can see right through the inauthenticity.
Running milquetoast candidates isn't gonna cut it. To be sure, the answer is not necessarily to run leftist firebrands, but rather to run candidates that are not afraid of fully embracing Dem principles and candidates. This is why Sanders is popular. This is why Ocasio-Cortez, an unknown 20something, won her district. This is why Gilliam, Abrams and O'Rourke had more success in their states than any Dem in recent memory. These aren't hardcore leftists. They're authentic candidates that fully embrace progressive policies that are actually pretty mainstream.
8
Agreed that the focus on mobilization is an effective strategy for Democrats. Republicans also rely on a sort of self-mobilization of their supporters - so we have both parties dog-whistling to their supporters and neither party making an effort to reach voters on the other side. The loser is our democracy, for lack of serious public debate of the issues, and the result is the awful polarization that permeates our society. We see both sides when in power tending to autocracy (Bush and Obama increasingly used the executive order in lieu of legislation long before der Trump).
Among others, I blame in large part the professional strategists like Mr. Phillips who actually advise their clients and their canvassers not to discuss issues with voters from the other party or take positions other than shallow slogans on issues that have been carefully selected from polls conducted by the parties.
Here we go again who and what, today, is a moderate democrat? Since the days of Bill Clinton, Republicans have continually moved to the right and dragged the democratic party along with it and that includes democrats who started to collect money in the process and corporate/establishment democrats are now more beholden to their donors than they are to their constituents. What does it say about the democratic party when the Koch Bros. thought Bill Clinton was one of the best Presidents ever? Nancy Pelosi, Diane Feinstein and Chuck Schumer ALL refuse to endorse any form of universal healthcare and that is because they have collected considerable campaign finance money from that industry. In order to get things done, corporate money must be removed from the process and the corporate/establishment types still don't want to do it!
Harry Truman always said, "if you want to vote for a Republican, vote for the "real" one. The "Republican Lite" approach that the democratic party has been holding onto, over the last ten years, has cost the party almost 1000 seats at the state and federal levels and up until this election, two-thirds of the states have been controlled by Republicans who can gerrymander and manipulate elections.
Phillips is correct. This has to stop and instead of spending money on consultants, spend it where it belongs, at the grass roots level and it paid off in this first mid-term for many first time reps. who made the difference.
5
A moderate Democrat cannot win in 2020 because the prescription required to defeat President Trump is a comprehensive progressive economic agenda.
The current U.S. economy is conventionally strong with an historically low unemployment rate and the creation of thousands of new jobs each month.
This is not surprising. Trumponomics is modern-day Reaganomics, a supply-side economic plan designed to enrich the investor-class and corporations as a way to create broad prosperity, though it has never fulfilled this promise.
In fact, Trumponomics is on schedule to pick the same losers Reagan's supply-side economic plan did in the 1980s: crucially, working-class Americans in the middle and lower classes.
The only way to defeat Trump is to challenge the "strong economy" narrative by highlighting the major flaw in his economic plan: the aggravation of America's wealth and income inequality problem and the socioeconomic problems it worsens, including wage stagnation, the proliferation of low-wage jobs, rising healthcare costs, the opioid crisis, human-caused climate damage, and social group division.
A fiscally moderate Democrat would have an extremely difficult time accomplishing this task.
4
I'm afraid you have the wrong takeaway here. Claire McCaskill (Mo) was hanging by a thread for years, she and Heidi Heitkamp (SD) may have been impacted by their Kavanaugh votes. I do not believe Dems could have done better with a self-described "socialist" as a candidate in Missouri. You might fire up the urban progressives, but you'd still lose rural votes, and the GOP would scare the bejeebers out of independents, suburbia and middle class voters with images of Stalin and Lenin, as well as divisive "identity politics"......so don't count on these voters. Plus you don't have a realistic platform if you are promising too many social support policies without limiting immigration. You'd really need to iron this out in some way that makes sense to the average American voter. As is.....whatever urban votes a progressive candidate might gain would be offset by loss of independents, suburbia and the middle class. Seems to me urban progressive echo chambers encourage unrealistic over-confidence. You'd have to soberly analyze each state individually to be able to forecast how a progressive vs moderate candidacy would break.
9
Seriously? All the those wins in PA, WI, MI and event TX are due to extreme progressive agendas? No wonder we like to see what we want to see from data. How convenient! When I read most comments, apparently Steve Phillips need to do for some serious soul searching. I will only vote for moderates not extremes on both sides.
5
Only a true believer would be able to spin three high-profile losses into a victory. If we want to look at Senate races, let’s take the two seats we managed to flip: Rosen and Sinema, both centrist Democrats.
There’s no reason a more moderate candidate can’t work to expand the electorate as well.
6
I hope that after Trump is brought to justice during the upcoming Congressional sessions with new leadership in the House, there will be more support for candidates of color. There is a fact that bears mention: The oldest human remains are consistently found in Africa, meaning that we are all Africans genetically. Without our common ancestors of color the human species as we know it would not exist. It's time to embrace that fact--to mention it prominently in campaigning and to see it as a way to unite, rather than separate people. That said, the lethality of white nationalist parties must be monitored. An increase in gun safety nationwide is essential to increasing lawful behavior, along with decreasing the levels of violence in what is fast becoming one of the most violent nations within its own borders on the planet.
2
Lol this country is not looking for far left progressives or far right conservatives to lead us. What we want is people of integrity who will put the country first before the loud and monied minorities. Trump is President because the Democrats ignored Americans who are fearful of their financial future. If the Democrats move further left in 2020 we will have 4 more years of Trump. Idenity politics may play well in the liberal echo chambers but there is a whole lot more to America than that.
3
This is the same flawed thinking that forced millions of centrist Democratic Party voters into the arms of Ronald Reagan and the GOP after 15 years of liberal Democrat policies that finally became too much to bear. And that remained the case until out of the mist came a centrist policy wonk Democrat Bill Clinton - who knew math: balanced the budget, reduced the national debt to not just zero but left a surplus.
Good luck finding that pragmatic diplomacy, leadership and ability to reduce social pending among any of the current diversity flavor of the month Democrat darlings opportunistically looking to the be the next Obama v.2. Only half of America pays taxes and we keep bloating up our populations that remain on numerous variant forms of welfare their entire lives. We cannot spend our way out of $25 trillion debt.
3
I agree; the only solution is to trim a couple of hundred billion off the military budget.
1
Many of the comments below are indicative of how poorly the Democratic Party has educated ALL voters to make connections and understand the issues on a deeper level- but how can they when they take money from polluters, from Pharma, from Wall St., etc. and most of whom are financially set for life.
To think that Abrams, Gilliam and O'Rouke are at the far end of the Democratic party, not only shows ignorance but a lack of understanding of how far we have been indoctrinated, how afraid Americans are, and how far the Republican and Democratic Parties have swung right.
Americans are in debt from the moment they enter young adulthood until they die, student loans, mortgages, credit cards. As Rilke stated long ago, even in dying and death we are exploited-with the cost of caring for a sick person and the funeral.
Our infrastructure is falling apart, climate change and nuclear catastrophe loom ahead, wars that the industrialized nations created or helped along, are causing incredible suffering in Syria, Yemen, Palestine, and Afghanistan- and what does Elizabeth Warren discuss in the news cycle- her DNA. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Clintons, Shultz-Wasserman, Brazile, Schumer, and Pelosi should move aside. Their lack of leadership, inspiration, and courage brought Trump. Take heed from the newly elected representatives!
3
I think the better question is can Dems come up with a strategy that allows them to do both at the same time? They need to sway moderates and mobilize young people who don’t typically vote. But that might require walking and chewing gum at the same time. I haven’t seen a Dem leader with that talent in a long time.
1
@Ben Obama. At least in terms of rhetoric, he managed to do both. The problem was that he was a nice guy.
1
Of the progressive candidates receiving an unexpectedly large percentage of the vote, the top three -- Obama, Gillum and Abrams -- are, in addition, African-American. Surely a white progressive candidate would not attract as much enthusiasm among African-Americans. (This is not meant to be a criticism of anyone.) Can one really draw the lesson that progressives will carry elections without the great mobilization of the African-American community to push them over the threshold?
3
That's excellent. I agree that people want to be inspired to be better, more kind and compassionate people. President Obama really touched our hearts with his sincerity and compassion. Standing in the middle is not an aspiration. People want the truth. And people want inspiration. I hope that those considering a 2020 Presidential bid pay attention to the words here. Start now, there are people waiting to hear from you! People want to be part of something great.
3
Rhetorical calibration aside, the Democrats will never win another national election, and they will lose for the usual, well documented reasons.
The Democrats have opposed any and all specific border enforcement actions attempted by presidents of either party. This opposition amounts to a de facto open borders policy, which the majority oppose.
Like the word "communist" during the McCarthy era, the loaded word "socialist" triggers a powerful, visceral revulsion in the minds of conservative voters. The Republicans need only tag their opponents or their policies as "socialist" to win votes. Witness the ubiquitous television ads before the midterms: "A vote for any democrat is a vote for socialized medicine..."
Voters struggling to make ends me in punishing, unstable occupations see Democrats as the party that would raise their taxes to support their lazy neighbor down the street, who lives on welfare but has never done an honest day's work in his life. Or, to quote Reagan, "the strapping young buck at the supermarket, buying T-bone steak with food stamps while you buy hamburger."
These are deeply ingrained attitudes among much of the American electorate. Perhaps a truly charismatic leader will, through force of personal appeal, be able to rally the public behind him. Or perhaps not.
5
Or, maybe Democrats should give Republicans mouthful of their own poison, and start using the term "conservative" as the same political epithet, as the GOP used "liberal."
One big difference; the Democrats have evidence to back things up, if only they were smart enough to use them, and lucky enough to come across a Democratic strategist who was a "Lee Atwater-type."
4
@Robert M And just what is the GOP plan for borders? -----Build a wall wasting tax dollars because it just isn't that good a remedy.
---Imprison children for years at $800 a day, educate and provide medical care in internment camps until they are 18? Then a bus ticket to their original country?
---Ignore the problems that lead to immigration in our own hemisphere (once a real concern of America), cut off aid then wonder why more and more immigrants risk their lives to flee here?
---Forget climate change....full speed ahead on fossil fuels and worry about feeding all of us when we start dying?
At some point the world will be full of climate refugees...no walls will keep them back, but possibly ameliorating the problem might.
1
Philips is doing real harm with his claims here, which are anything but doing the math. Does he really not realize that his divisive approach will harm both the party's prospects and the nation's? Moderate Democrats won important fights. Think Kansas, Pennsylvania, Montana, etc. Moderate and progressive democrats agree on almost everything. Neither would have done well without the other this year. Neither will do well in 2020 without the other. Philips is wrong to claim that this year's turnout was due only to Abrams and Gillum. Trump was on every line of every ballot. Tennessee and Missouri went to Trump by giant margins. No Democratic candidate for senator could have done better than McCaskill or Bredesen this year. Gillum and Abrams might not, in the end, win. But they clearly brought along other candidates. As did the moderates who did well. McBath won precisely because Osoff had run one year earlier. Her victory was the opposite of a rebuke to Osoff and his policies and supporters. Nobody disagrees with mobilization. I was the precinct captain for one of the most progressive districts in the country. We visited every home and turned in a completely unexpected victory for Clinton over Sanders.
14
This article promised evidence against moderate politics, and delivered hand waving and moralizing. Moderates won in a landslide this election, it's plain and simple arithmetic.
This is critical for both parties and independents to apprehend now: this country is tired of extremism, and that was the lesson of 2018.
13
Nice theory in the big picture sense but given the existence of the electoral college, the route to a presidential victory is through OH, WI, MN, PA, MI. Where candidates like Sherrod Brown and Amy Knoblaucher win. Conveniently the article mentions neither of them.
10
The old answers, establishment down-the-middle center right and left no longer move people. Their answer of more of the same is not going to cut it when that is not solving our problems. Bernie and Trump pointed to new directions (the former would have probably beaten Trump if given the chance), as did the Democrats Mr. Phillips cited.
This is not just an American phenomenon. As reported in The Times a month ago, as Angela Merkel's star fades in Germany, the state of Bavaria shifted its votes to the far right and to the leftist Green Party. The "same old same old" is no longer seen as providing answers.
The Republicans offer an outlet for fear and anger via scapegoating, which is very appealing. Blame it on the Jews, the Blacks, the Mexicans, the Muslims. Progressives offer a new direction designed to deal with economic inequality, a poor health care system, and the scapegoating of the Republicans. The centrist Dems can only go so far in dealing with the white working class because, like the Republicans, they are tied to their corporate donors. While their rhetoric may shift with the political climate, and they tinker around the edges, change threatens ties to donors.
What this country (and the Democrats) need are full throated progressives (like Bernie and Beto) who also have the personality to give some hope for us getting out of our current mess.
3
Bernie Sanders couldn’t even beat Hillary Clinton and Beto couldn’t even beat Ted Cruz. History is written by the victors and neither of these candidates were such.
2
@Peter Wolf Split the ticket progressive and moderate for the two offices of President and Vice President.
@Emily Sanchez
A reminder, Hillary Clinton LOST in the 2008 primary and because she was the epitome of the establishment and "annointed" by the democratic party, in 2016, she LOST the Presidential election to the candidate with the lowest approval rating in history.
Compared to Sanders who has won multiple Senatorial and Congressional races and Beto who ran for the first time and almost defeated a long-time incumbent in a "deeply red" part of Texas, I would submit, their history will be considerably more positive going forward than that of Hillary Clinton who lost even when she was expected to win.
1
This analysis of Democrat Party is just what Republicans should want to hear. Democrats' embrace of "progressive" policies elected many Republicans dispite a narcissistic, racist troglodyte at the head of the Party. If the Republicans ever recover their integrity and replace Trump with an ethical, honest person, and any politician black or white who plays the race card by flogging people with phony charges of racism will be consigned to the ash bin of American history.
President Obama won because he was not white. Blacks but especially whites elected him twice. Americans proved conclusively that not being white was no longer an impediment to political success in America, nor in any other endeavor. With a sigh of relief, white Americans in general could finally believe they no longer deserved the epithet racist. They had put a man of color atop the nation's most esteemed pedestal. Odious but once necessary affirmative action would thankfully no longer be necessary.
Obama's embrace of progressive politics and policies was grudgingly overlooked in his 2012 reelection as white Americans again decided multiculturalism sufficed to put up with the control-freak nature of Obama's progressivism. However, by 2016 it was all too much for most Americans to tolerate. Obama was gone, leaving behind an assortment of mostly white progressives like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders trying to push their mantra of control down the throats of reluctant Americans.
1
@Ned Netterville I like Obama, but he was no progressive. C'mon, this is the guy who pushed for the TPP.
2
“Over the past 20 years, the best-performing Democratic candidates in statewide elections in Florida and Georgia have been Mr. Obama, Mr. Gillum and Ms. Abrams. (Hillary Clinton in 2016 was actually Florida’s highest Democratic vote-getter ever.)”
So what you’re really saying is that Hillary Clinton won the most votes in the past 20 years, followed by the others. Why the last-minute, parenthetical mention? Because you don’t think she fits your thesis. No mention of Jon Tester, who won his red state election. Or of people like Kim Schrier, who flipped WA-8 to D for the first time ever. And no mention of Nelson, who is right in it w Gillum. Guess they’re not “inspiring” enough either.
O’Roarke lost. Gillum and Abrams may have lost. Don’t get me wrong — I’m saddened by that, and they are certainly inspiring. But so are all the others I’ve mentioned, and many more.
No more parenthetical asides, please.
8
Democrats worry too much about moderate versus progressive (over whatever the term of the day is for somebody with ideals) and trying to decipher which is favored by the mood of the country. But worry far too little about discussing personality and traits such as "inspiring" or ability to connect with voters. Sanders, deeply progressive, was able to connect with voters and voters believed he wanted to help them (and I believe would have trounced Trump, not just in California). On the other hand, Obama was epitomized moderation, except that he inspired people with the aura of dignity he and his family projected. On the other hand, Trump is (insert invective) but he projected an eagerness to do battle with an establishment that many, many people rightly believed had ignored them. Bill Clinton connected with people; JFK inspired people. Carter was the only Democrat in recent times elected because he fit the mood of the times (and at least he was authentic). Nominate somebody who has a sincere desire to make things better that people will believe in, and, yes, such a progressive could easily beat Trump. Such a moderate could, too. And think about voting for a candidate that transcends all our little divisions, rather than one that just reflects oneself and one's little enclave or one single characteristic.
7
@John Great points. Winners and big achievers all have different strengths. I am reading a book about JFK and LBJ. Had it not been for Vietnam, LBJ today would have been seen as a great president. He had an impressive track record on delivering progressive policies. And he was from Texas.
Trump? All he really managed to do was sneak a win by unexpectedly taking a few states he wasn’t expected to win and he has been whingeing about not being taken seriously since, despite not giving any cause to do so. His only lasting achievement is appointing a lot of conservative judges.
@Philip M
LBJ totally goofed on rewriting U.S. immigration law in 1965, to the immediate and long term detriment of the nation. We are today living with that mistake.
Of course the argument pushed by Mr Phillips rests on the view that winning with a progressive agenda is better than not winning with a moderate one. I’m not so sure the supporters of Govs Northrum in Virginia and Cooper in NC would agree. I certainly wouldn’t. Despite a lifetime of voting for democrats if my only option in 2020 is Bernie Sanders or someone with his agenda, and despite the stakes knowing what we know about the current GOP, I will sooner stay home. Is that a winning strategy? Maybe. But with those choices I’d sit out on Election Day and I suspect a few others may as well.
2
The proposed strategy pushes Democrats further left, and that drift risks alienating voters in traditionally Democratic states like Minnesota.
6
"Progressivism" is one thing, but what these Democrats really mean is "socialism." They will spend and tax and destroy and spend and tax and destroy some more. You will have California's and Illinois' budget mess and corruption in every state, with unfunded pensions most of all.
California has installed many gigawatts of so-called green energy. What is seldom mentioned is that we pay much more for our energy per kilowatt-hour than any other state. It is part of the reason businesses are leaving our state (the cost of housing being another).
Be careful of what you wish for.
5
@publicitus But most states (governments, the people on average) would rather be a CA than a state like MI. CA, to the extent it has problems, is a victim of its own success.
1
Considering the selection isn't even over yet I suggest this opinion is premature. No one will know the political climate of a year from now.
2
It might be a good idea if the democratic candidates didn’t have arrangements to pay taxes owed to the IRS in installments.
4
Work to do from now to 2020-- and beyond!!
The Indivisible Organizations- among others- are doing just this kind of work and energizing the regular Democratic parties in many states, including all over Minnesota.
Go Indivisible.
If you want to work with one: google them!
A powerful article and so true to my experience recently.
Thank you
1
It doesn’t matter what the people want as it is the DNC who will determine who the people’s choice for the Democratic nominee will be.
Ask Bernie.
Also, please get your house in order Democrats or it is going to be a long time until you’re back in the People’s House.
2
Hmm, I dunno about you, but I didn’t give a damn about what the dnc did or didn’t want. What I wanted was a candidate who didn’t try to cheat by hacking into his opponent’s database, or by his delegates trying to overturn the results of the Nevada caucus. What I wanted was a candidate who stood up for my reproductive rights, rather than claiming they’re negotiable and dissing planned parenthood. What I wanted was a candidate who released her tax returns, and finalised her FEC filings. Who could answer questions about her basic policies, rather than skating by on demagoguery and slogans.
Ask me. I’m a voter. I, and 4 million more of me, chose Hillary for good reasons.
The time for moderation has passed. The fact is the new GOP readily smothers reality with constant lies. We’re already in a struggle against the fascists, authoritarians, theocrats and totalitarians controlling the GOP. History has taught us, with the blood of our fathers and grandfathers, that you don’t beat fascists by trying to keep them calm or by compromising with them, you beat them by crushing them with your voice and your vote, while you still have a voice and a vote.
5
I wonder if the procedure is not more important than the substance, assuming the Democratic candidate holds views that are anywhere left of center.
To Susan
Susan
Billings, NY who wrote:
This is the most important sentence in the article: “Invest in the infrastructure and staffing to engage and mobilize voters.” That’s what happened in NY-19, and that’s why Antonio Delgado, a charismatic candidate of color in a rural district that is 87% white, won.
NOT why
1. District 19 lies partially in the northernmost region of the New York metropolitan area - to call it rural is misleading
2. NY -19, incorporating the NY Metropolitan area votedtraditionally Democratic
President Obama won the district by 6.2% in 2012.
@Gerhard -- the election in the 19th district was a very special one this cycle, and using it draw wider inferences is particularly foolish (using any single election is clearly statistical nonsense).
If you think the district is so liberal, why was Faso the incumbent?
You are spouting nonsense with the "it's part of New York City" idea ... except for the fact that there are a lot of people in the city who have second homes there. But they almost never register to vote in the 19th, because that changes one's primary residence, & has tax implications for people who own homes in the city.
NY 19 is a rather schizophrenic district; reasonably liberal along the Hudson (both sides) ... increasingly conservative as one goes out west.
1
The most radical candidate that could run is Hillary. I may have to give it up. She probably doesn't have the stamina and the Bill thing is still wrong.
1
Here's a little known fact: In 2008, with Obama at the top of the ticket, Texas Democrats nearly took the Speakership.
During the Presidential Democratic Primary of that year, conventional wisdom among TX Democratic pols dictated that Clinton, not Obama, would be the safest choice for down ballot races. There was so much pol hand-wringing in Austin when Barak won the nomination, you would have thought the state party was facing absolute destruction.
The results belied those assumptions. With Obama at the top of the ticket, Democrats made huge gains in the TX House, coming within 2 seats of the Speakership, 74-76!
Despite evidence that a strong, inspiring progressive at the top of the ticket delivers Democratic votes up and down the ballot in TX, the subsequent Gubernatorial runs by Bill White and Wendy Davis ran the same ol' losing playbook - put a D by your name and attempt to usurp the Republican talking points. (How much contempt for the electorate could they have, believing that people couldn't see through their clumsy political sleight of hand?)
It's great to see that after nearly 15 years of running uninspiring candidates whistling a Republican tune - just maybe - that old TX Democratic pol playbook is changing.
3
Exactly what Democrats should not do.
4
Said the Welshman - part of a nation that voted for Brexit, one the biggest mistakes in modern British history. No, we're not likely to take advice from the British right now.
1
Obama was not unapologetically progressive. In 2008, Obama was against gay marriage. Obama also loosened federal gun regulations, increased the number of deportations and conducted a brutal drone war that upset many progressives.
What Obama actually was was a smart tactician. He skillfully muted progressive outrage while simultaneously swinging to the right on a number of key issues. That is how he won the white working class in the rust belt, a voter block that Hillary eventually lost in 2016. I can't imagine Obama ever doing something so stupid as to call for the abolishment of ICE like Beto did.
If we want to win in 2020, our candidate needs to figure out how to end the relentless temper tantrums on the far left while also playing to the right when it is required.
11
Sure, "relentless temper tantrums on the far left" are something to be called out while making no mention of the relentless racism and bigotry and fascism that the right spews on a daily basis.
I will not vote for any candidate who does not support Medicare for for all. This is a life or death issue for me and many Americans. We’ve waited long enough.
4
@Zejee
Let us know how you plan to pay for 330 million and rapidly increasing Medicare for all plans - including 1 million newly minted immigrants EVERY YEAR. Half the nation pays no taxes. Med for all is fiscally impossible, esp. since most of Medicare/Medicaid is borne by the states, not the federal govt.
1
There's nothing in the middle of the road except two yellow lines and a dead possum.
5
@MidtownATL
Most Americans are centrists when it comes to governance and policy (if they actually make an effort to step beyond the candidate's slippery PR persona and review the candidate's platform).`
The issue in the U.S. for decades has been that half the voters don't vote.
The Republicans will never learn and with Trump as a lead weight it's for the Democrats to loose.
Winning elections, by turning out clueless people, shoving a sheet of paper in their face, and telling them how to vote doesn’t seem to be a very good strategy for making a better country. It seems like a strategy to simply “win.”
Well, I did the math, and according to my calculation, the three progressive candidates you are touting all lost. Meanwhile, Kansas has its third female Democratic governor, there's a Democrat in the Oklahoma Congressional cohort, Arizona looks like it will elect its first Democratic Senator since 1988, and in fact, few of the winning Democrats from the last election could be considered progressives. Maybe they teach math differently in your school?
6
@Everyman
Well said, thanks--
The lessons of the midterms:
Spending most of your money on trying to flip the Senate, considering who was up, was a mistake.
The effort would have been better devoted to taking a solid 2/3rds of the House, going after the next band of suburbs out from the ones you don’t have.
That meant not only finding attractive candidates, but giving them campaign managers who would make them campaign.
Taking the area I know best - Suffolk County, NY, has 2.5 districts in a population deserving of at least 3.
They drastically change shape once a decade, to assure 1 Democratic and 1!Republican ‘safe seats’, though this year all three would have been competitive.
In the 2nd CD, shifted mostly into Nassau despite Suffolk’s growing population, for the benefit of incumbent Pete King, the Democrats put up a politically attractive candidate, Lubia Gretchen-Shirley, who nearly beat the 9-or-so term incumbent.
She would have though King was given a buy by the GOP leadership, voting against the Trump Tax bill,campaigned through yard signs.
King could have been trounced by Gretchen-Shirley, but the Times-endorsed candidate didn’t campaign at all and lost 53-47%
She was invisible.
No house parties, district walks, just a couple of bad pieces of direct mail. No Newsday/NY news radio stand-ups. If Sen Kirsten Gillibrand had made ONE late appearance with her, she would have nailed the 4 points she needed for the flip.
It seemed like that across the region.
That is not the way to build political power.
49
@Eatoin Shrdlu
Instead of throwing wads of money at Beto, Stacey and Andrew in losing Texas, Georgia and Florida races, the DNC ought have been protecting its already won flank, which it then lost to the GOP: Senators Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) and Heidi Heitkamp (D-North Dakota). Now, the Senate is minus 2 women and 2 Democrats that would've made that tally 48-49, removing the 51 blanket majority which the GOP gained on Nov. 6.
Forest for the trees identity politics is a loser. The DNC still has yet to learn to play the long game or the short game, even when it holds an advantage.
7
@Eatoin Shrdlu Tom Perez is one of the first house cleaning tasks that needs to be undertaken. Nancy still has merit in terms of her political skills and knowing where land mines lay in legislating but it must be made clear the patch for new leadership must be opened and mentoring begun.
2
@Eatoin Shrdlu
Going after the Senate was a mistake? How many Senate seats were you willing to risk losing exactly? A single term in Senate lasts a lot longer than the House. A big loss in 2018 would have handed Republicans the Senate for a decade. Meanwhile 2/3rds in the house wouldn't change much for Democrats. What are you going to do with the extra votes? Use colorful language?
You're barking up the wrong tree,
7
Mr. Phillips recommends the strategy of mobilizing voters of color and progressives, based on evidence from the votes for Gillum, Abrams and O'Rourke. The only problem with this evidence is that O'Rourke lost and Gillum and Abrams are behind in the current vote totals. Sounds like a losing strategy to me. The goal is not just to mobilize voters but to win. Trump is an existential threat to our democracy and Democrats need to do whatever it takes to win in 2020.
6
They lost in the close race in the red states, and the moderates lost with wider margin in the purple States where many of them were incumbent. Is it a proof that moderation work? Especially considering how extreme Trump was and is, and yet he won in 2016. Seems like moderation is really overrated
3
@yulia -- "They lost in the close race in the red states, and the moderates lost with wider margin in the purple States where many of them were incumbent. Is it a proof that moderation work?"
No, this isn't proof of anything because the states where Abrams and O'Rorke ran had large ethnic minorities that usually don't vote. Get them out to vote and you can do well as a Democrat.
McCaskill and Bredesen ran in core Trump country: mostly rural whites, no large pool of low-turnout Democrats.
1
In 2016 voters were expressing deep frustration and wanted to upend the system, and ended up throwing out the baby with the bathwater. In 2020, after another 2 years of Trump chaos, they'll mostly crave less turbulence. Inspiring candidates -- yes! Whiplash generating movements to the left, e.g., abolish ICE, single payer healthcare system -- not! The Democrats need to set out a broadly appealing agenda, be adults, and not allow Republicans make cartoonish images of them.
8
I am a left leaning centrist. I vote for moderate Dems and I vote third party when forced between choosing between leftist Dems and Republicans.
4
Should Dems cater to you or to the left-leaning guy who will vote for third party candidate if Dems are not left enough? Didn't that what happened last Presidential elections?
@Nick
3rd party? Then you elected Trump in 2016 and Bush in 2000.
@Maggie No, he didn't elect them. He voted his conscience as all ethical people should.
As the saying goes: "You win with people." That is people with character that stems from moral fiber in the belief that before I make up my mind about you, I approach every person, every citizen, every resident of this nation, that they have worth and dignity. Each and every candidate that the Democrats put up must adhere to that principle. It will shine through, and carry a great weight toward having a chance to lead this nation to its destiny to be the "shining beacon on the hill." Without such candidates with this type of moral fiber, anything they have to say, will not be heard.
5
Indeed, I also think this article was written from a bubble of sorts. Additionally, you have to give some credit to DJT for taking what was already a progressively polarized nation and pushing the polarization much further. Hate to say it, but the conventional wisdom you spoke works pretty well when we're not so polarized. At such extreme polarization, more liberal (and more conservative) candidates play better than middle of the road candidates.
1
A nice piece, but still cherry-picks from anecdotes only. (Where is the hard data?).
There are counter arguments. Jon Tester (Senate democrat) won in Montana (red/purple state), with moderate policies. He went against Trump on many things, but still favors less restrictive gun policies and other moderate positions that reflect his state. On the other hand, Heidi H (Senate democrat) from North Dakota, lost her state, and much of that was attributed to her against-Kavanaugh vote. There are examples everywhere that prove and counter this hypothesis.
In Senate/House seats, the most important thing is that the candidate reflects the values of *that* voting population(be it district or state) most accurately. And those values shift, so it's a tricky business.
In terms of the Presidential election, the problem isn't the popular vote, even Hillary won the popular vote. The problem is the electoral college. And as long as the electoral college exists, whether we like it or not the most important states will be purple states-- which are by historical data states that are "usually red"- but will occasionally go blue for the right candidate. The right candidate requires moderate policy. I hate to tell the left, but Barack Obama's don't come around every day.
I'd like a more progressive candidate as much as anyone, but I don't see that working on a presidential level. Unless you want to have another situation where the Dems win the popular vote but lose the electoral college.
5
Might want to check your facts and stats. Minnesota's new governor is a progressive, but he's also a moderate and a pragmatist. Our Democratic congressional reps run the gamut from Ilhan Omar to Collin Peterson. Definitely different philosophies, but neither could have won in the other's district. You're too narrow-minded in your analysis. In many cases, all politics is local.
9
Unfortunately any Democrat who wins will be a moderate regardless of the words and phrases that prove alluring. THe only difference practically will be what they always are, a little move of the hour hand within a five minute differential -- the GOP parsimony/debt versus the Dem tokenism/debt. The reforms needed must be bipartisan but they go past today's and doubtless will issue in a crisis that renders today's politics inoperative. How that plays out depends on an acceptance of the end of oil and the obsolescence of today's social and economic design whch is a choice always.
Cherrypicking at its best, I can give you another example: democrats lost in Texas, Georgia, and Florida, and they were all liberal candidates and that would not be the right conclusion either.
You need inspiring candidates at the need of the day. Obama was, is a moderate, and he won because he got people excited about the future of this country, Hillary was a moderate but she was wooden to put it mildly. Democrats who won in the Midwest and west are by and large moderates. In my opinion that is what this country needs.
6
@VS
As white male Dem in one of the bluest states,I can say easily that the Democratic Party lost me years ago.
I'm tired of seeing people branded as "racist"simply because they disagree, or "warmongers"because they believe in a strong national defense.
The author of this article forgets that the Democratic Party at it's own peril forgets the people that work for a living, serve in its armed forces, and are your traditional ethic voters disagree the The Liz Warren's, Cary Bookers, Hillary Clinton types.They are simply moderates-something the liberal wing of the Dem's have forgotten.
3
Obama was a radical candidate just by virtue that he was a black candidate. And yet he won, because he inspired all progressives plus minorities. And he ran against moderate Reps: McCain (war hero) and Romney, both of them lost popular and electoral college. So tell again, why should we believe in the power of moderation?
@James George
I agree with you, as a naturalized citizen I see nothing wrong with having secured borders. I am voting straight Democrat as opposition to Trump and also so that Supreme Court doesn’t move too far to the right. Once I find a candidate who believes in “reasonable” taxes, science (climate change), Women’s rights (pro choice), I am voting for that person.
1
I never passed a math course in my life except one. But I can add 1 and 1 and come up with the fact that HClinton won 20 states. Trump won 30. Since the election doesn't depend on running up the tallies in CA and NY the electoral College favors Repubs. To win, moderate or "purple states" have to turn blue. How is a red/purple state to turn blue if the Dems push their platform and candidate over the edge of responsibility with their Dem/Socialist ideas? Not going to happen. Arguably O'Rourke went too far in Texas with the Bernie Bro platform and Texas, may have loved him but voted against him... and worse they voted for a candidate, Cruz who was disliked, really disliked. The next election is for the middle. The middle will win. And right now the Repubs seem closer to the middle. WAKE UP DEMS or it's 4 more years of a name I will not type.
7
But that is the point, Beto came close in the deep Red state, while many moderate Dems in the purple states did lose with significant margin
5
@marrtyy there is nothing 'socialist' about unions, environmental concerns, or taxing wealthy folks.
what is infuriating to people on the left, is the constant banging of the drum by the right about how we are all communists.
at this point, it is unclear if the right is really that stupid, or using this label as any smear attempt. it certainly works to shut up alot of democratic politicians and leave them scurrying for explanations.
why try to meet people like you half-way...when you are REALLY telling us to give you what you want, not what we want.
enough of the moderate approach. we end up with Republican-lite. that's nearly as bad as what we have.
1
@Jack
My mother was a French communist. In France you get away with it. In the US you don't. Socialist/Communist...it's a no go. If the Dems want to win, they have to broaden the appeal. They can't get lost in cultural issues and tax the rich schemes. All negative in purple states.
"Moderate " Dems did win the governorship of crucial states rust belt states and even Kanas while loosing in Ohio.
This operative political question is what is "moderate" ? Another point is McCaskill and Bredesen are older and considered career politicians unlike Abrams, Beto, and Gillium.
Thus, the under 30 vote, which is notoriously fickle in voting, must be turned out. Second, one must win the Senate to govern or end up with Obama's second term of blockage by Republican Senate. Third, the suburban moderate to center-right women's voter would not embrace the Sander's ideology and would abstain or vote Trump endangering the House. All of the above is also dependent on the economy, clouds indicating a recession in 2020 could elect a center left progressive. No doubt Trump would tie Sanders to Hugo Chavez in billion dollar add blitz, unearthing every Sander's quote in the last 50 years. Sanders has never face such a campaign before-basically he has had the "kid gloves" treatment.
I still think Seth Moulton has youth and a compelling bio in stark contrast to Trump and is not a career politician. Pair him with Kamala Harris for a youthful ticket. Or, this a pipe dream but Oprah as VP and watch the debate with Mike Pence break all viewing records.
1
Yes We Can Create A Great New America for All!
Abrams/Gillum 2020
2
@Zareen Hah! Why not?
@Zareen
ROFL.
Too early for Happy Hour, Z.
you are comparing apples and oranges. Georgia and Florida were able to tap into the minority vote which nationwide is normally historically low and are more multi-racial then they were twenty years ago. Missouri and North Dakota are much more monolithic and tend to be more conservative. The most conservative Democrat in the country won reelection in West Virginia. What appeals to voters in New York, California and the increasingly diverse Florida and Georgia does not necessarily work in the middle of the country. Be careful how you pontificate. What is liberal and progressive in Missouri is actually pretty conservative to those of us in New York. One size does not fit all
12
It is true, but Dems could not file the President candidates separately for each state. They have to file the one that for not all but most enough. What state has more electoral votes Kansas or Florida? I thought Florida, so it is better to fit candidate for Florida rather for Kansas.
Cherrypicking the data misleads and insults the reader.
18
The 2020 General Election should not only involve a winning strategy that seeks and inspires NEW voters, but winning candidates. I am speaking about Senator Warren, who will not win, and should not run. She would be a more effective activist senator stirring issues and people up than being a failed presidential candidate. I see nothing wrong with a female candidate, in spite of what Avenatti's essentially racist sexist ideas, an inspiring female candidate of color, (the opposite end of the spectrum) could ignite an electorate that a white male candidate ever would.
3
Didn't we hear that Obama is too radical for America? We know the results
1
The problem with faux-moderate in American politics is that what does that even mean? What's a moderate these days? Especially since the GOP has continued to goose-step ever rightward? What it means is that the pretend-moderate is functionally a right-of-center neoconservative.
It's why they come off weak and unsatisfying to voters.
Democrats need a strong and definitive voice and stance well apart from the GOP, with new ideas and visions, versus carrying their coattails as false-centrists/-moderates.
6
@Daibhidh
A "strong leader"? Beware the allure of power politics!
Keep your eye on Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii in 2020. Female, young, progressive, fearless, independent of the DNC, an inspirational speaker -- and with a military background.
6
We did the math.
Most hardcore progressives lost. They won in 75%+ Dem vote districts - aka forgone conclusion situations.
8
@Mtnman1963
Which, once again, dispels the notion of one size fits all. Also, a comparison of how progressives did in previous elections would be edifying.
Yeah, but the moderate list even in relatively moderate states
1
@Mtnman1963
Well, it doesn't help, especially in the Gubernatorial race in Maryland where many senior democrat types threw their support behind the existing Republican candidate over the "Progressive democrat" Ben Jealous.
Let's face it, because progressives want money out of politics, wish to operate on a grass roots level, rather than spending millions on consultants, they represent a threat to corporate/establishment types who are more interested in collecting money than winning elections.
Many progressives ran for the first time, their day will come.
I'm so sick of all the endless wasted ink - especially from the commenters - on the liberal vs. moderate argument regarding who should be the Democratic nominee. It's not like this is decided in a smoke-filled room by Tom Perez and his cronies. (At least it shouldn't be.)
Here's an idea: Why don't we let the voters decide in the primaries? The best candidate will emerge from the will of the people.
Vote your conscience. Vote for who you believe is the best person for the job with the best policies for America. (Don't vote for who you think others will support.)
---
The truth is that there is only one Democrat sure to lose against Donald Trump in 2020. And that is the one we tried in 2016.
15
@MidtownATL There are many Dems who could lose to #NotMyPresident in 2020. The party must be very careful to nominate a winning ticket of two dynamic individuals. Sending out internet "questionnaires" naming people who are not electable will not help this situation. No to Bernie Hillary, Biden - we need fresher more electable people than these. We also need to fight for an end to the electoral college, which if done away with by 2016, we would be engaged in an entirely different conversation.
1
@UMASSMAN
"The party must be very careful to nominate a winning ticket of two dynamic individuals."
i completely agree. That is why I advised people to vote their conscience in the primary, rather than voting for someone for whom they think _other people_ will vote.
2
@MidtownATL
I say vote with your conscience in the primaries. But vote pragmatically in the general election.
3
if you stand for nothing what will you fall for?
5
Do the Math!! Beto O' Rourke for President in 2020!!!
4
@john
Based on which of his policies and stances on government management? Do you even know his policies and stances, or you just like his name, good looks and a lot of ink devoted to turning Texas purple?
I disagree. The Dems need to flip 3-4 key states in the electoral college. They don't need to run extremists in states that narrowly went for Trump. That would cost them more elsewhere.
5
When Dems say “extremists “ they mean FDR Democrats, Democrats who think Americans should have what citizens of every other first world nation have had for decades: free health care and college education.
3
@Dana Charbonneau
The existing corporate/establishment(so-called moderates) democrats, in the last ten years, lost almost 1000 seats at the state and federal levels. After being behind early on in the primary, Bernie Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton in the TWO key states of Michigan and Wisconsin and many voters in those states stated had Sanders been the candidate they would have voted for him and NOT Trump.
Sanders and progressive candidates appeal to working people whose votes in the key states you refer to elected Trump and not Hillary who took those states for granted and hardly ever visited them in the
Presidential campaign. This is the reality, she was the epitome of the establishment that more and more voters were learning to despise and to pick another candidate of the same ilk would be a disaster for the democrats.
Democrats must offer a "REAL" alternative to Republicans, NOT "Republican Lite". It was a failure before and if the same approach is taken in 2020, it will be a failure again.
Do the Math Beto O'Rourke for President in 2020!!!!
2
@john,
When asked by the UK’s Sky news reporter day after the election, whether he'd consider running again in 2020, Mr. O’Rourke gave clear, sober and emphatic answer. He simply and loudly said “No.” He said he had neglected his wife and children for too long and have some catching up to do. He clearly said that he’d be looking forward to raising children with his wife. I was impressed with Mr. O’Rourke sober and magnificent answer. The best way to deal with the existential angst in life is to be married, and have children and family─ there’s nothing like it in this entire universe! Is there? Hoping the Government will change your life is the biggest lie that Democrats and the media have sold the American people.
2
During the mid-term campaign Nancy Pelosi promised that she would only be a “transitional speaker.” But now it seems that’s highly unlikely. Political power is the ultimate aphrodisiac, like an addictive drug. In her insatiable greed for power, Ms. Pelosi is suppressing new voices, input, resources, and all her party's new political talent─ depriving her party of developing leadership and our nation with newness and change. We’ve had Ms. Pelosi’s as the Speaker of the House for many years, clearly more than many of us want her. That includes her own party members. Meanwhile, Ms. Pelosi is also brushing off Democratic Party’s Black Caucus’s appeal for inclusion in the leadership in the US Congress.
3
Yeah, the moderate democrats really got crushed in West Virginia. Oh wait..
8
Do the math. Minorities constitute about 30% of the electorate and generally have low voter turnout. The Democratic strategy of appealing to them by vilifying whites with constant accusations of racism dismisses the 70% white majority, only a small part of which are urban progressives. The identity politics offered here are a formula for permanent Republican control of the federal government. Why can't the Dems produce a message of unification rather than corrosive division?
15
The question is why should they, if the guy who won ran on the divisiveness?
1
Oh. You mean something more like Trump’s nationalist appeals to right-wing bigots, dominionist evangelicals, and a whole passel of nutjobs.
Good thinking; boy, he’s really unified us, ain’t he?
‘Scuse me all to blazes, but I think that when it comes to goose-stepping together, include me OUT.
1
@Jeremy Bounce Rumblethud Well said. I half wonder if Mr. Phillips is funded by Republicans hoping to divide the Democratic voters.
Stacy Abrams' success is also attributed to her leadership in expanding the voting rolls by getting thousands of Georgians elected. This tried and true strategy was once commonly used by the Democratic Party. Voting registration should become prominent throughout every year and throughout the year.
2
@GIsrael
It's the Obama playbook: Blacks turn out to vote black -especially black male voters but won't for other candidates - especially white female candidates.
Voters need to be able to tell the difference between the candidates. I recall the presidential election of 2000, when a third of the voters were undecided three days before the election.
By saying "Look at me, I'm not like those *other* Democrats that Fox News and AM radio have taught you to hate," i.e. an attempt to peel off committed Republican voters, Democratic candidates both imply that the Republicans' stereotypes about Democrats are correct and reinforce the common belief that both parties are exactly the same. By echoing the Republican line too closely, Democratic candidates also risk alienating Democratic-leaning voters in Missouri who don't think their party is crazy or those in Tennessee who were appalled at Kavanaugh's nomination.
Different tactics work in different parts of the country, but Democratic hopefuls need to understand their constituents' needs and desires, especially those that the Republicans either work against or do not address, and run on those points.
Beto failed to unseat Ted Cruz, but he got new Democratic voters registered and made a case for his party. Even when districts and states do not flip overnight, they sometimes flip after a couple of election cycles of attractive candidates forcefully presenting their party as a real alternative to the status quo.
4
Ironic, isn't it? Obama's optimism and appeal to our best American values brought out all kinds of people to support him, not the centrist Republican. Trump's negativism, cynicism, and appeal to the resentment of certain people earned just enough votes in those three states to win the Electoral College, but not the popular vote.
4
Medicare-For-All has somehow been painted (successfully thus far) as a far-left socialist concept when, in fact, it is a fiscally conservative concept that should be presented as such.
For example: Americans pay 18% of GDP for health care while all other developed countries pay an average of 11% GDP. That 7% differential, in our economy, represents nearly $1 Trillion in annual overall health care cost savings.
MFA is NOT socialized medicine, as Republicans would like us to believe, it is socialized HEALTH INSURANCE----- that provides a way to eliminate a huge tape worm-like parasite in our health care system.
If Dems want to win over Independents and, yes, some Republicans to MFA, then they need to promote the potential cost savings rather than the humane aspects of the program.
11
@Bobcb
330+ million people on a govt. plan is fiscally unworkable. It will be paid for by states, not the federal govt. Many states cannot afford Med for all.
@Maggie And just where did you pull that information from?
It works in Canada, and they pay less than half what we pay per capita for health care in the U.S.
1
Mr. Phillips is cherry-picking the data. The important lesson for Democrats in these midterm elections is to choose candidates that fit each district and each state. Examples that disprove Mr. Phillips's theory are Conor Lamb in western Pennsylvania, Kyrsten Sinema in Arizona, the Rouda/Rohrabacher and other races in southern California, governor races in Wisconsin, Michigan and Kansas. More liberal candidates in all of these places would have lost. It is true that the Democrats need to run candidates with showmanship skills, and yes, go with more liberal ones where it makes sense. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a good fit for her district. Let the Democratic Party be a big tent. Win elections everywhere possible. Then sort out differences once in office. This is not a cynical approach. House members and senators are supposed to be representatives of their constituents. That's their job.
37
@Jeff
The trouble with the democratic "big tent" approach you refer to is corporate/establishment democrats have proven they really have no interest in such a scenario. For eg. in a number of states during the primaries, many establishment members of the party went out of their way to demonize progressives who were running against existing party hacks and during this mid-term it came to light in the Governor's race in Maryland that many senior democrats threw their support behind the Republican candidate instead of the democrat, Progressive Ben Jealous.
Don't talk about one big tent when a party is more interested in collecting money than winning elections.
You either stand for something or you don't.
1
@Deus
My main point is that Democrats should nominate candidates who have a chance of winning. Ben Jealous won three counties, but was trounced everywhere else. No reflection on him, but a very progressive candidate has no chance of winning statewide office in Maryland. Making such nominations — ones that do not fit district or state — is exactly what the Democrats should not do in 2020.
I will indeed talk about the Democratic big tent. It is what we see in the new group of winning candidates this year. As I say, sort out differences after we are in office.
2
I am sorely hurt by this article - because it does not talk at all about what policies the democratic party needs to embrace and their merits. The article concerns itself merely with 'winning'. Weather the Democrats win, or the Republicans, the lot of the ordinary people will not improve without good governance. In its zeal for 'winning', the author had no problems driving a wedge through our nation based on color, creed, sexual orientation... it is uses like moderate, progressive, conservative. What do they mean?
3
The Democrats didn't win in 2018, the Progressives did. They won because they knocked on doors for two years. They will knock on many more doors between now and 2020 and they will win again.
Pelosi and her Democrats have not knocked on a single door for decades. That's why they lost.
7
@Fourteen
Um, the center held. Only in a handful of left of center urban districts did the far left prevail.
1
This is, to the most part, following the Republican playbook, which has been quite successful, including electing the most unlikely and unqualified President in history. .
Moderates: What is it about this strategy you don't understand? As Jim Hightower stated quite a while back: "There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road but Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos".
4
"No, but it does call for candidates who can inspire voters of color."
Oh. OK. I get it now, for a minute I was confused.
So, using race as a political tool is OK when Democrats do it.
Got it.
3
@Objectivist
Really objective criticism there, Objectivist. Appealing to everyone--and being inclusive of historically marginalized groups--is an amiable goal. Race-baiting, and preying on historically marginalized groups--is not.
I have some sympathy for you if you are a young person--say, under 25 years old--or are merely being fed fallacious arguments daily by people like Dave Rubin and Jordan Peterson. Because if you're that person, it's really hard to get out of that trap. I was that person. If you are that person: seriously try to seek out arguments from the other side. Rubin and Peterson do not steel-man the other side like they say they do. They are just rhetoricians.
But if you have seriously thought about these issues and deconstructed the good arguments that you oppose and found them wanting--then you're wrong. And your pseudo-supremacist side will lose.
3
*completely ignoring the white identity politics fueling the Republican base since Nixon*
2
@Objectivist, so, using race as a political tool is OK when the Republicans and Trump do it?! Tell me how he hasn't used the "white" race as a tool?!!!! It's so funny how the past 400+ years of dominance by European descendants was somehow "color-less" and therefore neutral, but now that people who identify with other genealogies are asserting their rights, everything is about "race," and white people are calling foul. White people who have gotten accustomed to using their race as a proxy for merit now have to compete with everyone else - get used to it!
1
The writer neglected to mention that Trump beat Clinton in Tennessee by 26% and in Missouri by 18.5%.
According to those figures, Bredeson and McCasskill outperformed Gillum and Abrams, even as all four lost (or so it appears). Trump won Florida by 1.2% and Georgia by 5.2%
"Do the math," indeed.
9
The three policy positions Phillips cites-- Medicaid expansion, criminal justice reform and gun control-- are, or should be, mainstream Democratic positions. To those one could add environmental protection, fair and progressive taxation, civil rights, higher minimum wages, reasonable immigration reform and several other issues. These are things all Democrats should agree with that provide clear contrast with the Republican stance, which is no, no, no on all of them. On the other hand, Democrats should stay away from empty slogans like "Abolish ICE," which is at best misleading and at worst irresponsible.
12
@fbraconi
Democrats need to just make things work that we already have, which they ignore as much as Republicans do but always advocate overhauling and spending more on...with a couple hundred new tax 'n' spend programs. We have strong gun laws that no one enforces; Bill Clinton signed a law banning semi-automatic weapons, then Bush refused to extend that law in 2004.
And no, most Americans will not vote for convicted felons to be treated like kings. Those men harmed society and left victims in their wake. They do not get to do it again and again - then gain the right to vote for who becomes a sheriff and judge and lawmakers designing our criminal justice and prison policies.
A progressive candidate is probably less important than an authentic one who doesn't give canned answers and who shows up everywhere.
13
the problem with "moderate democrats" quite simply is that they don't stand for anything, and don't plan to do anything when most people think that there is alot that needs doing. "Moderate Democrats" are why Obamacare wasn't more generous, didn't work better, and thus wasn't very popular when it was introduced. "Moderate Democrats" are the people who agree with the Republicans that we need "entitlement reform," which most people know means taking away stuff their gonna need to survive when they get old. "Moderate Democrats" gave us "banking reform" which practically destroyed the world's economy.
People are not gonna show up to vote for somebody who's basically promising not to do anything.
31
@conesnail If it's a choice between more Trumpism or on ongoing slide into full socialism, then I will definitely vote for someone who will advocate "doing nothing" as you put it, and I think many Americans would agree.
The author here is cherry-picking results. In Florida, (the moderate) Bill Nelson won about the same number of votes as (the progressive) Andrew Gillum. If not for a confusing ballot design in Broward County, it's likely that Nelson would have prevailed while Gillum fell just short.
Unfortunately, most voters don't vote based on policies. Good candidates can win, and voters will support their policies afterwards. Poor candidates will lose, no matter what policies they endorse.
Inspiring voters is key. Progressivism is not.
17
Mr. Phillips' analysis may be correct for state-wide races where local issues prevail. But unless the economy is faltering - and there is a legitimate debate on what constitutes the "economy" - the bulk of tax paying Americans will not vote for someone they think wants to increase their taxes, increase the cost of everyday goods or spend too much time and effort focused on protecting non-workers without also incentivizing them to work. Gillum, Abrams and O'Rourke are each qualified and promising, but they were running in deep red states and the outcomes of their races should inform us that are probably at the edge of the spectrum for what may be acceptable on the national stage. A moderate Democrat with financial savvy could win the White House, however, a true Progressive in the Bernie Sanders or Ocasio-Cotez vein is doomed to hand the election over to the Republicans.
4
@Dr. Strangelove Yes, right. We cannot afford to lose this one. No time for sentiment or wishful thinking. Hard headed pragmatism must prevail. Personally, I'd vote for literally anyone the Democrats put up. But many others won't. This is Game 7; everything is at stake. Why would we nominate someone for the most important game in many years who has an 0-1 record? As Robert Redford says in The Natural: "Pick me out a winner."
2
Nice theory, Mr. Phillips, but the fact is moderate Senator Nelson received more votes than Ron DeSantis - and Senator Nelson is going home and DeSantis is going to the Governor's mansion. Democrats had a chance to nominate a candidate for Governor who could actually win but went with the Bernie Sanders backed Mr. Gillum who makes Progressive hearts go all aflutter but whose positions on ICE and Medicare for all will never win in a general election. The Democrats who helped flip the House were not Bernie Sanders types. Here in Virginia we defeated the odious Dave Brat in a conservative district with a female former CIA operative who studiously avoided the grievance driven, identity is destiny politics which too many Democrats demand. Take your ideological blinders off and see what really happened last Tuesday, Mr. Phillips, if you want to help defeat Trump in 2020 instead of helping to re-elect him.
7
I think the key is to find an inspirational candidate who can talk to and motivate voters. Beto O'Rourke was an inspirational progressive candidate - I would argue that it was his ability to inspire that put him within a few points of winning not his progressive policies. Hilary Clinton was not inspirational, and her entire pitch was vote for me, I am not Trump. Whoever the Dems back in 2020 better have more a compelling message than I am not Trump, otherwise the Dems will lose.
6
No. The victories in Iowa, Michigan and Wisconsin are more important. Those kinds of candidates actually win elections. MI and WI were reliably blue not that long ago. GA wasn't in a long time and FL has been a toss up for quite some time.
3
Great article. One big concern:
Can we stop calling the McCaskill and Bredesen types "moderate" Democrats? If they were moderates, their voting records would be in the middle of the democratic pack. They are not. They are at the far end of the conservative spectrum of the party.
9
If 'Indepedent voters' are the key to winning elections; your thesis culd not be more flawed. The Republicans go far to the right and your answer is the Democrats should go far to the left?
Interesting logic given that Trump will be using Pelosi as a 'rally cry' for 2020 and will most likely win.
"Go left" young man/woman is hardly a winning formula for the nation but it probably works in key bastions of liberal voters where you and I live...
3
@JK: What is far-left about being essentially a New Deal Democrat? Note that voters in solid red states approved referenda and initiatives for things like raising the minimum wage, allowing medical marijuana, and expanding Medicaid.
The Republican noise machine has poisoned the Democratic brand name in the red states, but actual left-of-center policies are popular.
2
In an article that says that moderate and non-progressive Hillary Clinton has the most votes of any Democrat ever in Florida, the author claims that progressive candidates are the key to winning elections. No, one key to winning the next election is to convince Independents and moderate Republicans that they do not have a Socialist (that is how they view progressives) as the alternative to Trump. And the other key is for progressive voters to learn that elections are won by candidates appealing to the median voter and it is better to vote for the lesser of two evils (that is, the moderate Democrat) than to either not vote (shifting the median voter to the right) or vote for a third party.
4
@wd40 Did you read this piece? The key isn’t moderate or independent voters, it is the occasional or non-voter. Do you think a middle of the road politician will appeal to them? Such a person is perceived as the usual, and gives people a reason not to vote. The key to victory is a passionate person that does not seem to be the usual. Don't appeal to the median voter, appeal to the non voter and change who the median voter is. No one wants to vote for the lesser of two evils, so the election is decided by those that don’t vote at all.
2
@wd40: You are assuming that the 50% of the adult population that does not vote is conservative and just waiting for a "moderate" (i.e. namby-pamby) Democratic candidate.
If the non-voters were actually conservative, they would vote Republican. If they were political junkies who understand the nuances of the political process and the tremendous range of ideologies in the Democratic Party, they would vote Democratic.
They are neither. They are frustrated, convinced that their lives will be difficult no matter who is in power. They are looking for politicians who will advocate strongly for them, not for someone who depends on focus groups or the whims of wealthy donors.
1
@Mark Allen
You are assuming that the non-voter is a progressive. It is not at all clear that non-voters tend to be progressive, but if they are, I have already said that they should vote for the better of the two candidates, and with the trumpets in power, it is no longer the case (if there ever was one) that there is little difference between the Republicans and moderate Democrats.
1
I happen to agree. If long shot candidates are falling within the margin of error in tough terrain, you already have your answer for 2020. A retreat to the center isn't convincing anyone who doesn't already reject Trump. The race hinges on energetic candidates who can turnout voters with inspiration. If that means unapologetically progressive candidates, so be it.
The one thing Democrats need to watch out for though is identity politics. Attacking racism head on is perfectly fine. However, you'll notice how Obama made his narrative everyone's story. There's a large portion of America who were unwilling to look past his heritage or his political affiliation. For that election determining middle though, Obama had a message that transcended identity politics.
In short: My story isn't just my story; it's your story too. That inclusiveness is exactly what put Obama over the top, twice. We can talk about race and identity. There's no reason to avoid the subjects. However, we need to make sure there's enough room under the tent for everyone. That's the Democratic path to victory in 2020.
23
You mean there'll end up being a Red Wave in 2020 fueled by every American who can't stomach Bernie Sanders, Olivia Ocasio Cortez and Linda Sarsour?
If Diogenes appeared on the street today, carrying his lantern, he'd probably say, "I'm looking for a man or woman who can't be bought."
Sadly, a number of our Democratic torchbearers have proven that Green is the New Brown/White.
4
Man, what a lot of old people must be reading and commenting on this post! Moderation! Moderation! Moderation! Meanwhile, in California 31 people so far have died in fires directly related to climate change, America has MILLIONS of people who live in abject poverty while billionaires pay almost no taxes, millions who go bankrupt because they become ill and have terrible profit driven health insurance. I could go on, but you know, let's all just tinker while the planet burns and drowns and the wealthy buy gold plated hamburgers.
7
The author is right - Democrats have to wake up and do what works, and follow through once elected. That last be - follow through - is what Obama dropped once in office.
They should start today. Follow the example of Obama,Abrahms and more - get outwhenever you can in front of voters and tell them what you stand for.
Democrats have got to leave big money and its pursuit behind. Organize, turnout,exctement - build every day. If they want to, they have a very powerful slate to offer: healthcare with cost controls, infrastructure jobs, public health messures like clean air and water, science over opinion, tax the rich, strengthen the safety net, promote good governemnt, promote national childcare and other family values.
8
Abrams and Gillum also project Charisma. Americans are so jaded that they need more than just a message.
7
Hillary Clinton will be the 2020 democrat nominee.
1
Sorry but this kind of speculation strikes me as junk journalism--so much can happen before 2020. Who really knows what will occur before the next POTUS election. Yes, I skimmed the article but didn't waste much time with it. The neighborhood bar patrons have about credibility.
2
"Does this strategy require a candidate of color? No, but it does call for candidates who can inspire voters of color."
Very true, but the larger truth is that the Democrats must select progressive candidates who appeal to ALL voters, especially poor, working class and middle class ones.
Many (most?) Trump voters are never going to vote Democratic. That said not everyone who voted for Trump and his GOP is ignorant, a hypocrite or a racist. Many are simply frustrated, frightened or dupes and victims of the 40 plus year propaganda campaign waged by the right. The Democrats can't persuade all of these people to vote for them but they can certainly convince enough.
5
I am not convinced by this argument. Trump's egregious attack on the principles that make this country great is a major reason why participation was so high this election. People I know on the ground in GA would have worked overtime for many different candidates, not just Stacy. Democrats need to use their power to work for the good of this country. Healthcare and infrastructure!
3
By Mr. Phillips's own argument it's not WHAT these candidates were saying so much as HOW they did it: organizing early and being clear about what they stood for. Simply following a progressive platform isn't enough, especially in Red states. All of these candidates that Mr. Phillips touts lost, and while they made it much closer than most pundits predicted, they still lost.
Moral victories won't win back control of government, only ACTUAL victories will, and in that regard the Democrats need to drop the divisive identity politics and focus on what MOST Americans want: Good, sustainable jobs, affordable, accessible health care, good education - not just for college-bound kids, but for those who want to learn and work a trade, an answer to gun violence - NOT gun control, perhaps most importantly that their government actually cares for them and not just the wealthy and powerful. And they must make a concerted effort to listen to what those voters in the "flyover" parts of the country, the voters that they've come to dismiss as "ignorant", want, because most of them want these same things.
If you don't WIN, you don't get to govern, it's that simple.
3
We hear so much about the need for compromise, and the need for centrist candidates to combat the tide of far-right and far-left extremism in this country. And then the same people argue we should abandon all pretense of persuasion and double down on ideological and racial tribalism. Pick one folks.
4
Citing two candidates who did NOT win in this election (Abrams and Gillum), Mr. Phillips tells us we're doing it wrong.
Why don't we let the primaries work as they should (without DNC interference) and have the people choose who they want to support in the main election? Else we'll end up with another situation where a non-trivial portion of the democratic base defects and throws their vote away by supporting Jill Stein-esque candidates. I dare say this kind of article encourages that behavior.
@S. Obermeyer: They did not win, but they came awfully close, so close that there are now recounts in both Georgia and Florida.
They registered new voters and influenced down-ballot races.
When a state is considered solidly red, as Georgia is, and when its last Democratic governors were old-style Southern Democrats whose policies were barely distinguishable from those of the Republicans, a near-victory by an unabashedly progressive black woman is worth noticing.
2
I think the author has failed to recognize how well, and why, some of Trump's messages resonate with groups who traditionally vote Democrat, or to appreciate the extent to which the canned Democrat response still turns some Democratic voters off.
1
Give us smart, eloquent and energetic. Not easy to possess in combination but more than enough to beat the standard opposition.
3
For 2020, the Democrats will need a "cult of personality" without a ton of baggage to drive turnout and defeat Trump. Being good on policy (whether left or center) will be necessary but not sufficient.
Beto O'Rouke comes to mind.
1
This is not either/or. Sherrod Brown is a progressive and managed to win handily in Ohio. Trump cannot win without Ohio. Sherrod Brown 2020, folks.
4
If I may summarize: Mr. Phillips' exhortation is an example of the old saying "The Wish is Father to the Thought."
And as a Republican, I say "Hear! Hear!"
1
This is brilliant. “Mobilization over persuasion.” Democrats need to not only win, but win big to overcome the rigged election system that has a built-in bias for the minority over the majority.
But this is disturbing: “Democrats can go the old route that has consistently failed to come close to winning and demoralized supporters down the line.” Going the old route is what the Democrats are good at. It’s a private, old-school club with an aging membership. Can you teach an old dog new tricks? The ball is in the Democrats court and theirs to lose.
As we look ahead the Democrats’ biggest challenge will not be the Republicans, but themselves.
2
This is what should work: Be honest. State what you stand for, what your values are. Keep it broad and don't discuss specific policies; e.g., safety, keeping Americans healthy, equality, justice, decorum.
Use short, general and positive messages.
Stop wooing. Stop slicing and dicing demographics. Be authentic. I believe that is what attracted voters to O'Rourke, Abrams and Gillum.
Stop using and accepting labels. Don't defend (as in "I'm not") Explain when necessary what a "label" (e.g. socialist) does and does not mean as applied to the candidate; otherwise avoid. Don't attack. If need be, explain what you know about the opponent and provide clear, truthful evidence ("he accepted money from the NRA; he personally gained $ from giving the gov't contract to a friend; he voted for...).
Repeat: Be honest, sincere, and authentic and consistent with stated values.
4
Do the math? Learn the "right" lessons? Baloney. Picking data points that support your thesis - and ignoring others - is the hallmark of "How to Lie With Statistics" - a book I highly recommend reading, BTW. Florida and Georgia and Texas - all races that were at best too close to call? The idea that "going Progressive" is the best course is of course favored - by Progressives. But that doesn't mean that appealing to the broad middle is a bad strategy; it only means you are a Progressive! The Upper Midwest Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin were the states that handed Trump his electoral margin in 2016. They were states where Democrats all actually WON statewide offices in 2018. You'd do better to look at the candidates and the strategies that were successful there, rather than cherry picking dubious examples that only tell us where the Progressive playbook was followed to your satisfaction, not where Democrats actually played to win.
3
O'Rourke/O'Bama in 2020. the former president can resign on Inauguration Day. If the Congress can't agree on confirming a new VP, there is nothing in the Constitution that requires that a VP be filled. That is why it is critical to find a Dem House Speaker ready for the job of President before 2020.
2
A very strange arguement. You completely ignore the decisive takeover of the House by issue-focused Democrats and cite losing canidates to support your preference for divisive polarizing identity politics.
5
Mr. Phillips may have a more convincing case if any of the candidates he named, Abrams, Gillum and Beto actually won their race.
The headline should read: Identity politics will keep the democrats from winning in 2020.
4
Simply stated, Phillips is for racial strife. It's how he proposes to win.
This is not a good idea for America.
And it will lead to another Civil war, or else breakup of our former Nation.
The Democrats are becoming the party of divisiveness.
Or, "have become".
3
No doubt the Dems need somebody to top their 2020 ticket that can inspire. But if they try to lead with identity politics, that will fail. So far, there is not a single viable Blue presidential candidate on the horizon. It's a vacuum yet to be filled. Time will tell.
4
Sorry. But I fear that this gets it backwards.
With relatively few exceptions, the darlings of the "run to the left" strategy lost. And most of the Democratic candidates who flipped the House and several statehouses were more "moderate".
The path to a Democratic victory in 2020 runs from Pennsylvania through the upper Midwest. That's where the votes that will decide the electoral college live. So the candidates needed to win those states look like those who won there: Bob Casey, Connor Lamb, Amy Klobuchar, Gretchen Whitmer, Tammy Baldwin, Tony Evers, Debbie Stebenow, Sherrod Brown, and others like them.
6
Authenticity is the key ingredient voters are looking for. Referring to candidates as "moderate" or "progressive", etc. misses the point entirely. So-called "centrists" are too often the most insincere of candidates and have adopted policy perspectives based upon perceived opinions and statistics. It is all too obvious which candidates are little more than robots, such as Hilary Clinton, so Democrats had better wake up to a new reality. Voters want to elect people who truly believe in what they say. That is why Obama won two terms and Beto O'Rourke may well be our next President.
3
Steve, could first, could we get this election's winners sworn in before we jump into 2020? Second, you are ignoring the scores of races around the country where more moderate Dems did win. The strategy depends on where you are running. And finally, let's not set a strategy in stone now. Who knows what's coming down the pike in the next few months.
2
It is now more than two years since the Presidential election of 2016 and we’ve learned lots of lessons that Democrats have used this time to win back lost seats. So please, please can Bernie voters move on from the “if only” weepiness? ALL Dems felt awful after that election, especially since we won the popular vote! You guys have to remember that Dems lost because of the massive gerrymandering and voter suppression NOT because of a massively less popular candidate. Most Americans understand that the Republican Party, whatever else it says, is a party that is profoundly against an economy that supports workers as well as owners. The social conservatism of the judiciary, now being weaponized by the McConnell Senate, will cramp all individual citizens in coming years as it glorifies the rights of business and corporations over individual rights — starting with the right to make decisions about your own body. Time to look to tomorrow’s battles and let go of yesterday’s disappointments.
3
So how can Democrats nullify the Electoral College, the voter suppression laws and the gerrymandering? Is there any hope of moving the Interstate Covenant (see Wiki) and would it be constitutional? Can Democratic flips in state legislatures now result in overturning voter suppression laws? Some state referendums passed independent committees to undo gerrymandering. That is where the action and money should go before 2020.
1
I also love what a few states have done, passing laws that in order to get on the ballot, candidates have to release tax returns from the last 10 years. I’d add, and have to finalise all FEC filings from previous elections.
That gets people like Trump off the ballot. And Bernie too, on both counts.
I have to disagree with the author's main argument concerning the source of our victory this year and what is needed going forward to 2020. His problem is viewing the issue through a progressive lens, while failing to step back and seeing the big picture. The big picture is simple: Democrats win when we are unified, and we lose when we are splintered.
Consider...
In this year's midterms some progressives won their primaries over centrists, while in others the centrists won their primaries over the progressives. This is as it should be, as the primaries are the place where arguments for the direction of our party are made and decided upon by our voters, with the candidates with the most convincing arguments moving on to challenge our opponents in the general with the full unified support of our party at their backs. That's what happened this year, as it happened in 2006 and 2008... a unified Democratic party is VERY hard to beat, even with the full array of Republican dirty tricks poised against us.
As we also learned in 2000 and most recently in 2016, when we allow ourselves to be splintered we lose. I know that a lot of progressives put their hopes and dreams behind Bernie Sanders in 2016, but when he lost his primary (and he did lose it decisively, by every conceivable metric) they needed to have rallied behind Hillary Clinton as she did with Barack Obama in 2008 in order to have any hope of winning... they chose not to.
2
@James Constantino...
A unified political party, left or right, wins.
But the problem that the Democrats have is that the further left they go, the more they cut themselves off from the political middle, a group that has the ability to decide elections.
This is true when it comes time for national elections but is also essential at every level down the ballot.
The liberal/progressive needs to be wary of the dynamics that caused Stephenson, Humphrey, McCarthy, McGovern, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry to lose their bids.
(There are too many other reasons for the loss to put Hillary Clinton on that list, although a part of her loss can be ascribed to the aversion of the voters to the more liberal spectrum of politics.
2
Democrat dark money donors flooded close election with tens of millions during the last two weeks of the election. They are not going to be able to hold those seats won by less than a percent in 2020 unless the Democrat House figures out how to compromise and passes some legislation that is acceptable to the Republican Senate and Trump.
Democrats flipped the House in 2006 using a strategy of putting forth candidates who appeared moderate. They kept their seats riding the top of the ticket in 2008, but were cast out in 2010 after voting for the profoundly unpopular Obamacare.
1
@ebmem
Obamacare? Didn't the republicans just lose a bunch of seats by trying to repeal Obamacare? They tried to lie about what they did, but by and large it didn't work.
Obamacare is no longer "profoundly unpopular." People want government to actually do something. I hope you guys keep trying to repeal it, take away protections for people (at some point all of us) with pre-existing conditions. It'll be the death of you.
Oh, and please roll Mitch out some more to talk about "reforming entitlements." Most people now know that means taking my SS and Medicare away so I can die in a ditch when I'm old.
3
@ebmem
The great middle is the source of most political clout.
But there is also the question of leadership. With the voices that are leading the Democrats now, there isn't that leadership. And in the two years until the next election, it will be difficult to put a face and a voice forward that will enhance their chances.
My advice to the Democrats?
Put up a leader, a fresh face, an articulate face, a moderate face.
But more importantly, put up a face, one face that can be the sole voice of the Democrats, a face that is known, and a face that can deliver the message.
In the absence of a clear, upcoming leader, Joe Biden could easily be the body double to do the job.
The Democrats need one voice that can speak for all whom all of The People are willing to listen.
1
I will note that Hillary Clinton, despite the "flaws" people insist on noting (would someone please show me an un-flawed candidate?), won three million more votes than Donald Trump. (Speaking of flaws...)
That said, I agree, Mr. Phillips, that inspiration matters. It makes us eager to vote, it renews our faith in our nation, and it fills us with energy to accomplish great things.
My concern is that one person's inspiration is another person's opposition. Donald Trump inspired his base. Inspiration flirts with demagoguery.
Let's be clear. Inspiration combined with competence, honesty, and a focus on the whole nation. Anyone can win based on inspiration (as we and other countries have seen). We need more than that.
1
I understand the need or reason to view things in the context of strategy for winning. On the other hand, the views the "progressive" candidates represented in the campaign referenced in this piece, to me, are simply candidates supporting views that are intrinsically right, versus intrinsically wrong. We all know what is right morally and I believe a majority of voters strongly support positions that are right. Reference David Leonharts piece on Democracy winning. People of all persuasions voted for voter enfrancisement and against gerrymandering. Candidates should say what they feel is right, and the voters will follow them.
1
How can it be said Gillum was a high performer in Florida without noting that Bill Nelson came closer to winning last week than Gillum did? Nelson is a centrist Democrat who votes with his party. Mr. Phillips cherry-picks his facts, and his argument is not persuasive.
8
Thank you for this column. Not only do Democrats lose elections by running milk-toast, lackluster, Republican-lite candidates, but in doing so Democrats dilute their brand.
Brands are made less effective and less valuable through use on products that don’t fit. When you slap a label of "Democrat" on people who are Republican-lite, Democrats should expect confusion and eroding support. Worse, when you have "Democrats" denigrating or disavowing the fundamental progressive values of the Democratic Party, you might as well just hand the election to Republicans. Ah, but it's too late, we already did that in 2010, 2014, and 2016. At some point you just have to ask the DNC - how's that working out for you?
2
All politics is local, as they say. A broad Democratic party strategy has been its downfall heretofore. For every McCaskill there is a Manchin where a progressive candidate would not have a prayer.
Let the candidates bubble up from the localities. Take control from the local party bosses. That way the Democratic party will find its way eventually.
There is no "one size fits all" here and its about time that political consultants realized that.
20
@Patty Mutkoski amen.
@Patty Mutkoski While I sympathize with your sentiments, I am compelled to point out that parties don't run a team for the presidency; they have to coalesce around a single person. How that person is perceived by all voters determines the election outcome.
1
And above all, if you win, follow up on campaign promises. Creating trust in the electorate--and not just talking points during the campaign or a "strategy" to "win" the election--is crucial.
There's too much talk of "strategy" here as if it were about playing a game. It turns voters off.
7
We Democrats tend to revere our candidates when they lose, but are very hard on our winning candidates once they’re in office.
There’s nothing we like more than an uplifting moral victory, especially in losing races.
What a boon to the right we are.
9
Expending resources trying to convince lazy, uninformed people why they should vote, instead of appealing to people who will vote but need something substantive to vote for, is a losing strategy. The critical swing vote for Democrats in the age of D...ump is independents, unaffiliated and what's left of "moderate" Republicans. This large bloc of voters, myself included, wants fiscally sensible and reasonably progressive policies, not impractical, unsustainable 'tax the rich, give it to everybody else' entitlements espoused by today's Bernie Sanders liberals that this article espouses. Stop conflating "moderate" with non-progressive. In fact, many of the so-called 'rich' are those who contribute alot of money to progressive causes and campaigns. The ultra-left Berners killed the Dems in 2016 and it was only the utter despicability of Trump et al that lifted Dems in 2018. Dems must address their priorities if they want to win in 2020.
16
Right. Hillary Clinton actually won by "mobilization, not persuasion." Tell me about Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania. And more progressive candidates would have fared better in Tennessee and Missouri. Right.
And can we trust Democrats bearing "progressive" gifts? Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama talked progressive talk and once in office walked a Rockefeller Republicanism walk, further cementing the Reagan Restoration.
Aside from dubious rhetoric from so-called progressive Democrats, the biggest objection I have with this piece is that it continues the divisive false dichotomy that has been the Democrats' yoke. Is it necessarily an either-or choice? Whatever happened to the "big tent?" And hasn't the Democratic Party learned its lesson after all these years that it emphasizes - emphasizes, not just respects - color and gender at its peril, by an erroneous Manichean calculus that in effect dismisses blue collar, rural and the economically disadvantaged?
No, this is small-mindedness. The Democrats need a transcendent approach, and a transcendent candidate, for 2020. It's still the economy, stupid. Not the short-term economy so much - though the numbers mask structural nonparticipation - but the bigger picture of worsening structured inequality, of education, retraining and support in the face of automation and globalization, of real opportunity, of serious contemplation of guaranteed income.
Main Street, not Wall Street. Main Streets everywhere. MLK felt so.
9
@rockyboy
Democrats held the presidency for 20 years until Eisenhower was elected. They held a majority of the House for 40 years ending during the Clinton administration. The Senate and presidency flipped back and forth during the second half of the twentieth century, but we were a Democrat majority country, with state governments predominantly Democrat in the South through the 1990's.
Democrats whine about Reagan, but forget that he had a Democrat House for all of his administration and a Democrat Senate for most of his administration. Medicare and Social Security were stabilized for a generation [with a substantial tax increase] the top individual tax rate was dropped from 70% to 28%; inflation dropped from double digits; and employment dropped from double digits. Bipartisan rule worked.
Democrats are no longer in the majority, and they do not understand why. It is because they have systematically thrown people out of the tent, and have been so vicious in the way they did it that they are going to have a major problem getting them back.
The first reliable group evicted was religious people of faith, evangelicals and devout Catholics. Bill Clinton's position was abortion should be legal and rare, the position of 80% of Americans. Hillary's says it should be available until the moment before birth and paid for by the government.
The second group out was fiscally conservative and states rights Democrats. Followed by working class whites, and educated minorities.
Actually, Mr. Phillips' "wisdom" is what loses elections. Voters response to Mr. Gillum or Ms. Abrams is no guarantee that their racial identities or even political positions are templates for success. They are strong candidates who worked hard and didn't say anything egregiously stupid. The same could not be said of Claire McCaskill or Hillary Clinton. Of course, nobody says dumber stuff than Donald Trump but once again, there's no indication in this piece that this pollster or anybody else learned anything from his unexpected victory in 2016. I want Democrats to win elections. They won't do so if they cede the mantle of old-fashioned patriotism to nutjobs like Trump so easily. "That's not who we are" is mealy-mouthed. We need candidates who affirm American greatness, along with our capacity for improvement. Do that and the votes will come.
6
Delusional nonsense. The Democrats are turning into the party of the fringe, inclusive of everyone EXCEPT the center. There is absolutely no way a party like that can prosper, and nor should it.
It's like the opposite of the oft-misused Einstein quote: if at first you don't succeed, double down on what makes you fail.
The country is ready for moderation and leadership, not yet more factional, pandering identity politics.
As Bill Clinton once said, "Maximize the differences, minimize the similarities". That style of politics must end. Politics is more than a petty marketing exercise: it's the *resolution* of competing yet mutually legitimate interests. E.g., the industrial town that dumps toxic waste into a river upstream of an agricultural community both have legitimate interests to protect: the role of politics should be to resolve the conflict, not lead them to war.
10
@Hans
Very well said. Politics is indeed "more than a petty marketing exercise" (one flavor of which is "governing by opinion polls"), but some of our recent presidents and presidential candidates did not seem to get that memo. As a result, we have seen a lot of unforced errors in policy, sometimes leading to avoidable disasters.
2
@Hans
If a party can only win by being moderate, then how did Trump manage to win?
>It's like the opposite of the oft-misused Einstein quote: if at first you don't succeed, double down on what makes you fail.
What? They lost with a moderate candidate in 2016. If they stay moderate, then they are doubling down on failure.
4
@Hans
If a bipartisan Congress advanced the following bill, Trump would sign it and we would be better off. Eighty percent of Americans would agree the new law was a step in the right direction.
Convert DACA to permanent legal status with no path to citizenship for the 700,000 people who came out of the shadows. Participants who qualify for citizenship under other programs, like marriage to an American or an honorable discharge from the military can become citizens, but having lived ones adult life in America does not provide a pathway to citizenship.
Make eVerify robust and reliable; establish due process for individuals erroneously identified as ineligible for work to get the government to promptly correct their status; grant a safe harbor against lawsuits if employers rely upon eVerify; set a deadline [1/1/2000] after which all new employees will have a positive return from eVerify; set a deadline [1/1/2022] after which all existing employees will have a positive return from eVerify; set criminal penalties [including jail time] plus high fines for anyone convicted of hiring ineligible workers.
Fund enhancements to virtual wall on the southern border at $10 billion in areas not amenable to a physical wall. Fund the establishment of a tracking system for visa entrance and exit at $10 billion.
Bite off a couple of pieces of the illegal alien problem that are common cause and manageable, and save the divisive issues for later negotiations.
Who would have ever guessed, in 2018, that loudly rejecting racism would be labeled as a very progressive, far left ideal.... and as a Democrat, ignoring it makes you more moderate. But here we are.
As a white voter, I am constantly looking for candidates who stand up to racism. Democratic candidates need to stop walking on eggshells with regards to this topic. If moderate Democrats have a problem with candidates who address Trump and the GOP’s blatant racism, then the party shouldn’t be fighting for their vote anyway.
5
@Dave
You need to find candidates who stand up to misogyny. More than half the nation is female.
Among the rancid roster of misogynists all across America are are a dangerous pantload of not just white males but also black and latino males. The 2016 election was not just a window into more female candidates running for office but more females getting out to vote.
This is a pretty unconvincing argument, all the more so for resting on statistics from two (likely) losing campaigns. We have no way of knowing how a moderate candidate would have performed in GIllum or Abrams's place in a year of massive record setting turnouts across the country (compare literally almost any race from 2018 against 2014 statistically and you'll find similar jumps in turnout). The author points to McCaskill and Bredesen as if their losses are meaningful to his point of view, but similarly, we just have no clue how a progressive fares this year in those particular places, and no good reason to think they would have done any better. Doug Jones, moderate, winner? Ben Jealous, progressive, loser? Lamb? Manchin? Tester? Sinema? There are plenty of counterexamples to this thesis all over the realigned political map of the Trump world. And all this focus on race runs the danger of assuming the non-white candidates who won last Tuesday were particularly progressive. Sharice Davids and Antonio Delgado hardly ran to the far left in their positions (in Delgado's case, arguably he was less progressive than the 2016 candidate in his district, Zephyr Teachout). Maybe the takeaway should instead be that every county, district, state is different and we need to support whatever candidates the primary process puts forward, trusting that local Dem voters will try to find the best candidate who can win there instead of forcing a national one size fits all agenda on everyone?
6
Ms. Abrams and Mr. Gillum are moderate. Look at their positions. There is nothing extreme in what they propose. Moreover, their is no longer a continuum in American politics. Instead we have reached a fork in the road. The Republican Party have clearly decided that they are just fine with the bigotry, race baiting, and illegal behavior of Donald Trump. No longer can the Republican Party truthfully assert they support the ideals of equality and fair elections. Any fair minded voter listening to the race baiting vitriol used by some Republican candidates will vote for an alternative. When a sitting senator votes for a Supreme Court nominee who is an ideologue, who has been accused of attempted rape (he was a high school student, but that is not an excuse), that senator whether they be Republican or Democrat is not a moderate. Hopefully come 2020 this will be very obvious. One suggestion, stop looking at labels. A book review written by the publisher is inherently misleading.
3
Disgust with Trump himself has obliged a small number of lifelong Republicans to vote Democrat recently, which is great. They helped elect Doug Jones. But those voters won't become Democrats - they'd happily elect any Republican selling the awful conservative brand in a more palatable way.
The future for Democrats is definitely progressive. Although a few high profile progressives lost their elections last week, numerous winning Dems ran on programs that were considered fringe in 2016, such as Medicare for All. A majority of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, are in favor of a single payer healthcare system. Most Americans support climate action, a guaranteed jobs program, and employee representation on corporate boards.
Progressive ideas are popular and galvanizing. The instinct to tack moderate is only beneficial to the shrinking number of people who benefit from the current status quo. Luckily, mainstream ideas for Democrats have shifted left, and should continue to do so as they prove popular with constituents desperate for change.
3
Claire McCaskill deserved to lose her election after calling other Democrats "crazy." One wonders how many of those "crazy" Democrats stayed home or voted for a third party candidate after hearing that.
6
Having worked on 2 campaigns in Florida after the last election cycle, here's what I learned: Gillum had an army of people he'd been building for a long time. He had no money in the beginning, but he had passionate unpaid organizers. Gwen Graham, the moderate candidate, hired the same consultants who'd been around for ever, who used the same old strategies and lost- little face-to-face voter contact, large fundraisers, slick ads, mailers. It has nothing to do with their particular politics, but rather the innovative strategies progressives used that afforded their gains. Any candidate can do that.
4
We Democrats lost the White House and many other election to the right because we have strayed too far left. We do not promote, fund and -campaign for those Democrats who have a record of being able to do the job but for those who are women of color no matter how inexperienced they are. We do not reach out to the more conservative white voters, instead we demonize them. In my Congressional District, which ls somewhat conservative, for the last 3 congressional Elections, the Democrats have run unknown women who have had absolutely no political experience. They do very well in the liberal urban areas but are not voted for in the rural, more conservative areas, partly because they spend all their campaigning in the liberal areas. Until we put forward candidates based on ability and experience, the Republicans will continue to dominate the elections.
4
Certain Democrats do better in growing FL and GA compared to increasingly "conservative" (or, if one prefers, "pro-Trump") MO and TN, and this is supposed to be proof of something? This seems, at first glance, absurd.
Before the 2020 primaries, remember the goal is to win just over half the Electoral College, not to score "feel good" victories in new states. If a candidate cannot carry the Great Lakes states, their BEST scenario seems to be a nail-biter of a race all across the South and Southwest, and some of those states may turn out to be closer to long shots than toss ups.
By all means, run progressives in local and state races where it is likely to help turnout (some form of mixed ballot may in fact maximize turnout), but let's not lose sight of the big picture.
2
Well, at least one Democrat freely admits what the others only mumble -- that their party's electoral strategy is based on the same old identity politics.
The cynical use of identity politics contributed to alienating white working class voters who had voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and/or 2012 and driving them to vote for Trump in 2016.
In 2018, the Democrats got some of those votes back again -- and a majority in the House. But those votes are on only on loan. They will go back to Trump in 2020 if the Democrats take take Steve Phillips's advice and continue to play the race card.
7
@Ian Maitland Just what do you mean by "cynical use of identity politics"? Examples are needed.
@czarnajama
I mean what Mark Lilla described a year ago. As America became more diverse, Democratic strategists spied an opportunity to profit electorally. They decided that this change meant "that the Republican right is doomed to demographic extinction in the long run — which means liberals have only to wait for the country to fall into their laps."
So Dems chose to divide and conquer. They turned browns against whites by means of the "narrative" that white Americans are implacably opposed to allowing brown Americans their place in the sun.
Lilla gave the example of how how in 2016 on campaign stops Hillary Clinton would call out to "African-American, Latino, L.G.B.T. and women voters." NEVER the white working class.
The white working class became the fall guys in the Democrats' narrative and are routinely scapegoated as racists and deplorables. These voters didn't leave the Democratic party. It left them.
2
@Ian Maitland Yes! Well said and spot on.
Maybe Phillips is right. But, I think for the POTUS election of 2020, unfortunately, charisma will count more than experience, policy, or ideology. We need a candidate that can personally inspire a big voter turnout. That a progressive is more likely to fit this role than a moderate is clear. But in this strange, irrational, political climate, we should keep our options open. Even a moderate Democrat could emerge as our best bet.
3
If we must have labels, the only ones that count are Democrat and Republican. Republicans would prefer it otherwise, but It's counterproductive to try to divide the Democratic party in other ways. One person's moderate is another person's liberal, is another persons' progressive, is another person's liberal. Democratic leaders can be all of the above, depending upon a particular issue. For all intents and purposes, the Republican Party is not conservative, whatever that may have meant in the past, but monolithically illiberal and regressive.
2
Mr. Phillips learns from history, it's just the wrong lesson he learned.
All 3 progressive darlings of the left lost. Gillum in particular shows the weakness of his argument.
Gillum received less than a third of the votes in the Florida Democratic primary. He got the nomination because 3 moderate candidates split the vote. DeSantis was a very weak candidate with ethical issues and he trailed in nearly every poll until election day by roughly 5% of the vote.
Not only did Gillum lose but he received fewer votes than the Democratic nominee for Senate, creaky, white, old Bill Nelson. Apparently, rather than inspire voters Democrats voted for Bill Nelson and DeSantis.
The Kavanaugh hearings demonstrated this if "progressive" means destroying a man without a single piece of evidence Americans will not support progressive candidates. The 3 Democratic Senate candidates in the exact states the Democrats will need to win in 2020 were defeated because they voted against Kavanaugh, the one who did not was reelected.
"Progressive" candidates can do well in large metropolitan areas and places the Democrats traditionally win. They can't win anywhere else. The Democrats did very well in critical states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by nominating moderate candidates.
Please nominate someone moderate in 2020. I dislike Trump but my dedication to due process and fairness exceeds my dislike of him.
I want a choice. Please give me one.
5
@jkemp O'Rourke did better than any Texas Democratic candidate for statewide office has in decades. Of more immediate significance, he turned out enough Democratic voters to flip 2 U.S. House seats, 14 seats in the Texas state legislature, and dozens of state judgeships. Contrary to your statement neither Abrams nor Gillum has yet lost. But even if both do, they have, Abrams, at least, has done better than any Georgia Democrat in a long time, and both had very positive effects on down ballot races. Finally, there is no evidence that there was any "Kavanaugh effect." We're trying t give you a choice other than Republican and Republican-lite. Whether you take that choice is up to you.
3
I live in Orange County, California's 45th congressional district. We still don't who won last week's race between the incumbent, Mimi Walters, and her Democratic challenger, Katie Porter, a strong liberal voice. So far Ms. Walters is winning in a district that Hillary Clinton won two years earlier with 61.7% of the vote.
I'm certain there are many in the country who want you to continue to argue that only extreme liberals can win. Many are Republicans and they know Donald Trump's reelection depends on you being succcessful.
4
@John Archer Right. Because running a moderate, establishment candidate worked so well in the 2016 Presidential race. It is stunning to me that, after decades of tacking to the center and, as a result, finding themselves as devoid of power as they have been since before FDR's first term following 2016, the response of so many is "More of the same, please."
5
good example: Katie Porter is trailing, but next door, Harley Rouda, a moderate, flipped the 48th district
2
@John Archer, and @Randy ... both you guys are off-base here.
Despite HRC taking the district handily in 2016, it is a very conservative district. HRC won the vote in 2016 because it's a district full of the type of Republicans who can't stand Trump.
Walters is a very conservative Republican, but she doesn't carry Trump's personal baggage, particularly with women voters.
Katie Porter has run a strong campaign, done well, not badly, given that district.
But unless a miracle occurs she will remain about 2,000 votes short.
Both of your arguments are obviously looking at an ink blot, and seeing it as proof of what you want to see.
2
I think another lesson is the more persuasive one to take from this election: run candidates who best suit your district and speak to their needs. If it's a moderate district who want a moderate to represent them, choose a moderate. If it's a progressive district or state, do likewise. It's not an either or. There is no cookie-cutter solution, and no one, left, right or center should be pretending there is one. San Francisco is not Des Moines. Missouri is not Minnesota. In other words, I can sum up the real lesson of this election in four simple words:
Listen. to. the. people!
9
Exactly right. While old school Democrats like Pelosi are walking back progressive values or just ignoring them...candidates like Abrams and O'Rourke give us issues to get behind. They are the future.
5
@Jay Strickler It's more important to win in the present than to think about winning in the future. Winners govern and losers go home.
This article uses 3 progressive candidates as examples (Gillum, Abrams, Beto) to support the thesis that moderate democrats is not the key to success. What?? All 3 lost or are losing right now while there was a wave election in the House by the Dems based mostly on the fact that the Dems flipped once Repub congressional seats in the suburbs. Even suburbs in red states went Dem. And those seats were won by...wait for it...MODERATES! For sure, Dems need a candidate that can inspire the progressive base. But looking at this midterm election and drawing the conclusion that running a moderate will not work is completely myopic.
20
@SHH Not all of these seats were won by moderates. Reliably red Staten Island was won by a candidate campaigning on Medicare for all and a $15 minimum wage. The Georgia 6th (Newt Gingrich's old seat) was won by a gun control advocate. Even in the 3 states you highlight, down ballot progressives won a lot of seats, thanks to increased Democratic voter enthusiasm inspired by O'Rourke, Gillum, and Abrams.
2
Absolutely correct. The conventional "wisdom" this brilliant analysis refutes has always been the product not of savvy political strategists, but of corporate interests and the corrupt politicians they control on the Democratic side. That "wisdom" has also been echoed and trumpeted relentlessly by a corporate-controlled mainstream news media as if it were irrefutable truth.
The evidence is as plain as the nose on your face. In the 2018 midterms, only 47.5% of eligible voters bothered to vote, which was the highest percentage since the 1960's! Less than half the people who could have voted left their house and did so. You think those people who stayed home were Trump's base, Fox News watchers, evangelicals, people terrified of the caravan, or those furious at the unjust treatment of Brett Kavanaugh? Of course not.
The people who stayed home are people who feel unrepresented; minorities; progressive young people; people who feel their voice doesn't matter; who feel the system doesn't care about them. There are well over 100 million of those eligible voters who still need to be reached out to and encouraged to engage. Those are the voters the Democratic party needs to reach out to, not the so-called swing voters or Trump voters who may be suffering from regret.
Get turnout to at least 75% and the revolution will be unstoppable.
8
@Joe -- yeah, well ... good luck with that.
1
In the absence of a move to the left on economic issues, the prescription in this op-ed sounds a lot like what Clinton did in 2016, and she lost. The author is absolutely right that engaging the base, building campaign infrastructure early, and owning progressive policy positions is critical, but the positions have to go beyond social liberalism. Advocating for Medicare for All, increased social security benefits, higher taxes on millionaires and billionaires, etc., not only fires up the base but also give everyone a reason to vote for Democrats.
7
@R: IMHO, Clinton lost in 2016 because the young "liberal" Democrats bought into the (probably Russian) trope that Clinton was corrupt and was just as bad as Trump. Believing that, they either voted for Jill Stein or refused to vote, thereby giving the election to Trump and the far-right Republicans.
1
Mr. Phillips has an interesting theory; however, he fails to mention that in this election Democrats were running against Trump. I doubt that the numbers both Ms. Abrams and Mr. Gillum received would be what they are without the voters marking their ballots for these candidates as a vote against Calligula.
3
This is a very good opinion piece, but it doesn’t recognize the REAL reason that led to Tuesday’s results: last January’s Women’s March on Washington - a phenomenon illustrating the difference between actual, true populism (which ALWAYS is a ground-up process) versus a phony or perhaps fairly legitimate effort by candidates to convey a populist message (because selecting political candidates is a top-down process). Now the folks who translated what happened at the Women’s March (around the country) into a “how-to” manual were the folks associated with Indivisible, who were preaching the best way for people to get organized and we saw immediate results the first time in 2017 Congress tried to repeal ACA/Obamacare. But take note of how many people (disproportionately women) were inspired to run for political office for the first time - of all the candidates Dems fielded that I saw interviewed in the run-up to the mid-terms, I can’t recall a single instance where that candidate wasn’t qualified.
It’s real easy to talk about the importance of Dems putting up a candidate who inspires voters - Obama had and has that talent; I think Liz Warren is capable of this, and maybe Joe Biden but they are both too old and their message is way too oriented to white voters - it might conceivably resonate with people of color. Beto definitely has it, but he won’t be make it through any preliminary rounds culling candidates down.
2
As a former (and nearly right-leaning) moderate Democrat, I absolutely agree with this. Even we moderates are now radicalized. Everyone I know is now radicalized. I'm also in an older demographic, and am white. But I can think of nothing better than a slate of young, progressive, radical candidates of all hues. This what we need right now. This is what we crave. Otherwise, I fear that all is lost.
21
@actualintent So what you propound is a wonderful Democracy of everyone except working white people and the wealthy! That's certainly inclusive.
1
No one can argue with the importance of mobilization, but what happened in Georgia and Texas doesn't establish the conclusion that the Democrats should go with more progressive candidates rather than moderates who can pick up swing voters. First, and most important, Phillips doesn't take account of the dramatic impact in this election of anti-Trump sentiment. This, combined with demographic changes in both Georgia and Texas may very well have given a moderate Democratic candidate unprecedented support in these states. This may especially have been the case in Georgia, where a Sam Nunn-type Democrat might very well have picked up considerably more independent voters than Abrams did. Second, people often vote for the candidate as much as, or more than, the party, and in Texas Beto had two advantages: a.) he had a unique personal appeal, and b.) he was running against a man with practically no appeal but his party label, a man lots of Republicans (including most Republicans in the Senate) find off-putting, if not foul. Moreover, Beto didn't really run as the type of progressive that Phillips extols. Missouri presented a different situation. It hasn't been experiencing the same demographic changes as Georgia and Texas, and Claire McCaskill was not an inspiring (or, in the eyes of many, a very principled) candidate.
4
@Greg Weis
But Clair McCaskill did pick up the swing voters. Both of them.
As the article pointed out, mobilization is what counts, and inspiration leads to mobilization. If voting were mandatory and everyone obeyed, or if elections were done door to door like the census used to be (not something I'm recommending), the numbers might be different, but in the US it's turnout that makes the difference.
1
it is all about the voting machines, the gerrymandering , the manipulation of the media in some states to misinform voters, the reduction of voting places and changes in some districts, the changes in the voting rights act,the unequal representation of higher populations in states such as California in the senate.
The majority of people have voted for change but the above issues have disenfranchised voters , so we have the minority ruling the majority.
4
Start by asking people about specific ISSUES, and you find out that the majority are in favor of more "progressive" approaches, and reputable polling confirms this. It's the lazy dependence on labels that gets us in trouble, and fear of offending others who don't share those ideas.
As long as we stay away from the word "socialist", it should be a good approach. Unfortunately, Bernie and Ocasio-Cortez will never win a NATIONAL election after using that word. Europeans who have actual socialist programs won't even touch it. As much as it doesn't really scare me, most Americans still associate it with the actual real name of Hitler and Stalin's movements. The nonstop carpet bombing of ads before the last primary in CA showed images of Soviet gulags and the logo of Hitler's party with Bernie's face superimposed. We know there are a lot of Americans out there for whom that would be enough to vote for anyone EXCEPT that candidate.
7
Us progressives have a problem when the "winning strategy" has had no winners since President Obama.
5
Is mobilization incompatible with moderate candidates, especially if using paid staff? I do agree that dumping ever more amounts into advertising is ineffective or even counterproductive, considering the reaction to it is often "I hate elections and darned if I'm going to go out and vote for these disgusting idiots".
Barak was/is a clintonian moderate. Gillum brought in Hillary to stimp with him. Abrams went with the big O. Her and Beto the only real progressives the DNC has. But your right, only hope, just dont see Obama being a torchbearer.
Democrats Can’t Play It Safe. They Need Inspiring Candidates. Abrams was NOT one of these. By the way, we are ALL voters of color, one color or another! And please stop equating 'progressive' with stupid.
4
There is a very simple way for Democrats to win almost everywhere: get out the vote. Most Americans identify as Democrats or support progressive Democrat policies. The problem is that they don't vote. If they voted, the US would be a very different place.
8
Be authentic!!
Voters respect people who know what they stand for and are not pandering to the polls.
This is why people say that Trump of 6,000 lies is honest.
5
I have yet to see any columnist give Mitch McConnell the credit he soooooo deserves for motivating at least some voters to get off their duffs and vote against the Republicans.
Mitch, two weeks before the election, openly stated that, to balance that pesky budget, that the Republicans would be going after "entitlements" - Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Forget the fact that he had just ushered in that $1.5+ TRILLION tax cut bill.....
...and forget that 1 TRILLION Dollars military budget....
....and that the federal deficit is up to $973 Billion, a mere $27 billion away from ONE TRILLION DOLLARS....
But, no - Mitch is going after Social Security.
Now, SS has no problem on funding.... except one: It stops taking SS taxes at $128,400.
That is so those who are upper-middle to upper class (you know, the same ones who are taking 80% of that 'tax cut' that Mitch just passed. Same bunch.), that's so that they don't have to pay for SS on every dollar they make....
That 'glory' is saved for the poor and lower-middle-class.
They get to pay SS tax on 100% of their income.
Not the rich, though...
So, yes, I think that Mitch may have motivated quite a few Old Ones to get to that booth and vote Democratic.
MITCH:
Here's a hint: Be the first on your block to demand the repeal of your "tax-cut" - or you can count on the R's losing next time, too. Bigly.
(And just how much did you make off that "tax-cut", Mitch?)
11
The Times's editorial board preached moderation for the Democrats after the midterms. No! The Dems need firebrands, movers, and shakers in order to wipe out the insidious fascism of this current administration. Moderates and moderation do not affect demagogues and maniacs. We need drastic action, and people willing to take it.
3
It’s a sad time to be a moderate in America.
Republicans showed that one can win elections by pandered to its base/worst elements.
Democrats now want to emulate the idiotic Republicans by moving towards their base instead of seizing the middle.
“Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am stuck in the middle”......
6
@NYC Moderate O those leftist clowns. Advocating higher minimum wages like $15/hr, medicare for all, free public higher education, reducing carbon emissions, limits on corporate political spending, limits on gun purchasing, reduced military adventurism, workplace safety, environmental protection, progressive taxation. Do save us from those leftist clowns.
@David A. All noble ideas but when the "clowns" show up to drastically increase your taxes in order to pay for them (or redistribute your "means of production"), you might want some protection from said clowns.