“Can’t anyone here play this game?”
Legendary baseball man Casey Stengel said that, about the hapless New York Mets of the ’60s. In the aftermath of the Massachusetts misery, it seems appropriate. Let’s see, the Democratic leadership, focused for months on health care reform, stood idly by while one Martha Coakley threw the election that might have cost Democrats…you guessed it. Health care reform.
Why, you are asking yourself, is a team that proved its skill in the 2008 elections missing ground balls, taking called third strikes, dropping fly balls and losing games?
Consider this: Republicans are carrying water for big insurance on health care reform. Washington Democrats tried to compromise, when neither the Republicans nor big insurance ever intended to compromise. Now Democrats look like the lackies of insurance and Republicans look like the anti-establishment. This is so back-asswards it doesn’t seem possible.
But maybe it’s a blessing in disguise. Slugger Gil Hodges took over as manager of the Mets in ’68, and the Amazing Mets won the World Series in ’69.
It’s no secret that the voter unrest is driven by D.C.’s failure to understand the breadth and depth of the nation’s economic anxiety. Some pundits want to say the Massachusetts outcome was anti-health care reform. But that’s not it. The problem is reform hasn’t passed, it doesn’t go far enough. Combined with the perception that bankers and other Wall Street malefactors are getting off easy, the public wants to know why they are left outside on the ledge while the culprits enjoy martinis and big, plump-cushioned, comfortable chairs.
Looking at this from Texas, it’s good news that most Texas Democrats don’t suffer from East Coast smugness. They are, by and large, men and women of the people. Politics is personal, and individual needs and opportunities matter. This is the direction national Democrats should take. Screw the big powerful lobbyists. Get out on Main Street, listen to folk. Lead, but understand who you are leading.
As hard as right wingers try to call the Massachusetts outcome a referendum on health care reform or Obama, it wasn’t. Polls show Obama remains popular. They also showed Martha Coakley losing among those who like Obama. And, this wasn’t an election driven by irresistible or uncontrollable outside forces, like the 2002 mid-terms which were largely determined by the reaction to 9/11 and Bush’s Iraq War drums (and national Democrats’ failure to challenge Bush in the post-9/11 world).
Coakley’s campaign must have been awful. And, the White House must have dropped the ball or several balls when it didn’t step in sooner. This isn’t Obama’s fault. It’s a staff problem. Which brings me back to Gil Hodges, the new manager who took the Mets to the Series.
I think Obama has a staff that’s not well-matched to his needs or the needs of the country. I’m not gonna call names, because I’m not there and I don’t know. But I think they are inside players at a time that calls for big picture thinkers.
And, it’s time Democrats focused upon the individuals on Main Street. Enough talk about systems and statistics and blah blah and blah blah. Politics is about people. I’m betting a Democratic county commissioner in rural Texas could do a better job of seeing into the hearts of the people, of understanding their needs and hopes. That’s because of Texas Democrats personal approach to politics.
This is the approach Texas Democrats should emphasize in 2010. Republicans here will want to “nationalize” the election. Democrats need to personalize the election. Let’s all go talk to people. Listen to people. And let’s not talk to them about programs and policies. Let’s talk about their lives.
I’d put more weight on elitism as an explanatory factor than geography.
It’s true that Democratic elites have worked hard to convince the regular folks from the coast that the people in the middle (and South) are racist, uneducated rubes. Then again, Republican elites have done a similar job on people in the middle, telling them how awful everyone was from New York City and San Fran. Either way, a politics of division serves those at the top not all the rest of us.
I think smugness is a too common trait. If Texas Democratic politicians don’t suffer from it, it’s probably the result of politics, more than culture. There are plenty of us East Coasters who are just as sick of this as you are, and many of us are calling for the same remedies.
At the very least, we ought to at least all agree that there is no need to defer to the people running the Party, as they simply don’t know what they are doing. Listening to the rest of us would make a great start.
You’re right. I shouldn’t have generalized geographically, although the elite in NYC-DC do seem a bit clubby in the geographic sense. But when you say “there are plenty of us East Coasters” you get right to my error, which is not unlike somebody blaming me or another Texan for Bush. Sorry.
Texas Democrats are a little more down-to-earth for a variety of reasons. They have been struggling since the civil rights act, and the struggle humbled them. They have remained closer to the constituents at home, it’s how some them survive in very Republican districts. Like ‘em all, they have their faults I guess. I’m trying to emphasize this connected part, though, to help them emphasize the personal side of politics.
Admittedly, we here in Massachusetts suck.
Sorry, America.
p.s. — I will never make another Rick Perry joke. Ever.
No debacle should stand in the way of Rick “Palin in Pants” Perry ridicule.
And, it’s not Massachusetts that sucks, so take heart. The voter anger is real, and it’s everywhere. It’s Democrats’ failure to recognize the anger.
My concern is that the hollowed-out dog and pony show of democracy is in free fall, being replaced by the heartless, ethics-free ugliness of corporatism on all fronts.
The failure of Republicans to represent anything but their own corporatism-related self interested ideology is no news. What is news, bad news, stinking news, is the inability of Democrats to define the broader public interest and represent it.
Maybe they’d really like to. But our corrupted, money-as-speech political system makes it impossible to be elected and function without compromising every principle on the way to elected office.
It’s a horror show, and the public bile and resentment redounds to Democrats, because they’re the ones who are supposed to set the system right. And they’re just not getting the job done.
The Bush/Cheney dark age was characterized by a shocking unwillingness to compromise or tell the truth about anything… there was only a relentless moving forward to force their way in every field.
The new Democratic age is characterized by capitulation of principles, and compromise, compromise, compromise. Public anger at the White House, Congress and state houses is well deserved.
And now we will suffer the chorus of analysts saying D’s must ‘move to the center’.
Nonsense. D’s must come out swinging, speak truth to power, and kick ass. Last chance.
I hate to say it but Brown played “the game” quite well. Cynical and disingenuous, indeed. Brown took the temp of the electorate and easily determined that people are pissed off at both parties. Even though he is a long time Republican, he simply changed the name on his uniform to “Independent” and repeated it often enough so that people forgot about the “R” beside his name. Cynical and disingenuous but it worked.
And, ever since the polls closed last night all I’ve heard from Republicans and pundits is that the election is a referendum and rejection of health care reform. That assessment doesn’t hold water. Massachusetts already basically has universal health care, a system that none other than Scott Brown voted for as a state legislator.
“Coakley’s campaign must have been awful. And, the White House must have dropped the ball or several balls when it didn’t step in sooner. This isn’t Obama’s fault. It’s a staff problem.” – Glenn
No disagreement that the Coakley campaign was poorly run, nor that the White House dropped several balls. But I do wonder about saying this isn’t Obama’s fault, or at least that he doesn’t have some (in my opinion, more than some) responsibility — this is his staff, his team, and he is very much involved in decision making. obama and team knew how to run a campaign, but governing is a very different game.
Whether in Massachusetts or Texas, or any other state, the Dem party and candidates really need to listen to the the anger, and fears, of the voters, or else this little story might be widespread: In an NPR Morning Edition interview this morning, a Brown voter identified himself as Dem, but explained his vote by saying, “It’s time for a change.” That’s quite a flip, in one year.
I only mean with regard to the status of a state campaign, Obama’s got to rely on the political professionals around him, and those professionals must have failed him. As far as the greater failures on positioning and policy, I do hold him accountable.
Okay, I get the distinction, and thanks for the clarification.
No, thank you. You raised an important question, and I should have been clearer.
No worries Glenn.
As for this “I’m trying to emphasize this connected part, though, to help them emphasize the personal side of politics” I couldn’t agree more.
I do think that a revitalized Democratic Party is going to have to learn those lessons from the people who have already learned them. That means reaching out to Texans, to the folks who spend their time out here in the blogosphere, and to the people who live in the less well to do areas of Washington, DC (not necessarily to me, but my neighbors.)
It also means we need to reach out to each other – which is why I’m here!
There is nothing more important than that, which is why we are glad you’re here!!
I keep saying “nothing would surprise me” and almost every day something does. Who in the world would have thought that we would lose Kennedy’s seat? I sent Obama an e-mail about 6 months ago and told him that he was being way too casual with my country. I still feel that way. I don’t know who he is, what he stands for, where he wants to go, etc. and quite frankly, I don’t think he does either. It’s sickening.
It really is mind-boggling. To think, D.C. Democrats have somehow allowed Republicans, the party of insurance and banks, the party visibly carrying their water, to position themselves publicly as agents of change while Democrats get blamed. It really ought to have been impossible. I mean really. It doesn’t seem like ineptitude alone could create such a mess.
The problem is the incentives. Political operative are invested in existing ways of doing things, as are the big funders. Media types show they are savvy by embracing Village wisdom. Those who deviate are tossed out of the club – mocked as unserious. The people who hold the positions of power in the party have often done so by advocating for, and acting on the basis of, the idea that the greatest threat to the Democrats are their own base, and that American is “a center right nation.” Better to be ranking minority member or what have you than to see power shift away from you and your allies. Better to be hired to run a losing campaign than to see people run campaigns that don’t require your money raising and big media skills.
Voltaire’s bastards. Indeed.
So what are you suggesting? That it’s not ineptitude but by design? A while ago, even a short while, I might have considered that question impudent. But now, I’m wondering, is something else at work here? (And does this make me a conspiracy theorist?)
I’ve always said I was a yellow-dog Democrat, (for those that don’t know, this is a person who would vote for a yellow dog before they would vote for a Republican), but I found myself today thinking, “They’ve blown it and it serves them right! Why the (&*) didn’t they push, push, push it through when they had a chance instead of pissing away the time until something else happened to spoil the 60-vote shield? And now, they’ve pissed it away until it’s surely gone. They deserve what they get.
But we don’t.
Hell, I don’t even think they could do this by design. I guess I can’t toss out ineptitude as kind of umbrella term, but I also think it’s deeply flawed political philosophy. It’s a fundamental problem, in other words. And it leads to ridiculous things like believing Republicans won’t be relentless in opposition no matter how hard you try to reach out to them.
It’s difficult to avoid having a deeply flawed political philosophy if you pretend you don’t have any political philosophy. Like Orwell said (mangling the quote), it’s a lot easier to notice when you say something foolish when speak clearly. Nonsense talk about “pragmatism” and “what works” cloud our thinking. Some believe that politicians who deny they have an ideology are trying to pull the wool over their eyes – I tend to think those politicians have already done that to themselves. I also think they won’t learn unless we force them to.
It’s also a difficult problem to fix when we are so focused on the moment. Politics is a repeated game. Conservatives turned things around once they started thinking in terms of years or decades, rather than days. That’s even harder in the time of the interweb, but no less necessary.
How true.
A) The health care reform bill is a joke to both Democrats and Republicans (although for different reasons).
B) The center is where elections are won and the Democrats have not accomplished anything that they promised, so how can they expect to hold the center.
C) As a good friend of mine said “Our country is run by the Republicrats.” Teddy Roosevelt was the last president to stand up to the corporations and, temporarily, take back control of our government from vested interests. Naively, we (Democrats) thought that we had elected another Teddy, but what we got was a “talk like Teddy, but forget about the bully pulpit and the big stick” lackey of the international corporations and with the internet this fact cannot be hidden.
D) 2010 will be a bad year for incumbents.
It is going to require an irresistible rebellion of the people to change the status quo. Electeds, isolated from the folk, aren’t going to do it on their own.