Forget About Being Nice: Democrats Need To Tap The Anger Vein In Voters

Midterms are all about anger....and in some instances rage.  Polls never really show the exact extent of this.  There’s no identifiable or authoritative Anger Poll – a "how angry are you" poll. Personally, I’d like to see an anger poll.  Not another level of dissatisfaction with Congress poll or how much voters disapproves of President Obama poll.  And even though it’s something like news for the horse race gamblers, some of us get unbelievable headaches from survey after survey measuring how much half the public still detests the Affordable Care Act or "Obamacare" a it called.

But, an anger poll could go beyond the political divisions and reveal the root cause of electoral anxieties we see in polls and hear on the street.  The deciding factor in this upcoming midterm elections isn’t really about which party base is the most mobilized, but it’s more about how angry or anxious certain blocks of voters are.

This is problematic for both Democratic and Republican parties.  However, at this stage, it’s much more problematic for Democrats as the left has proven itself incapable of using voter anger as a valuable resource simply because they are too nice.  While progressives are writing diatribes and pity party scripts, conservatives are coming up with creative twists on anger and that strategy works everytime. Defensively, Democrats are earnestly rolling out a wave of populist themes designed to win the hearts and minds of lost base voters. From the minimum wage to equal pay, the issues seem solid on paper and in polling headlines bearing upbeat assessments of a Democratic Party comeback in this year’s highly critical midterm election.

Issues such as the minimum wage increase appeal to non-white voters at a much higher rate. But for any democrat to do well this november and win, he or she will have to go after the white vote. For all the talk about democrats needing to turnout their base, which will not be on the level of that of 2008 or 2012, white voters..those who are middle of the road, bluecollar will be the deciding bloc for democrats this year. If the Democratic party, is to thrive for instance like here in Georgia, it cannot simply accommodate itself to Republicans. The party needs to seize control of the battle for new ideas, reinvigorate its grassroots base, and develop new mechanisms for communicating its ideas to the public.

Jason Carter heads to Plains for Fundraiser this weekend

Jason Carter who is running for governor will be in Plains, Ga this weekend for a fundraiser hosted by his grandfather, former Georgia Governor & President James E. "Jimmy" Carter.

Jason Carter Campaign Ad - 10th Generation

Jason Carter Campaign AD - Our Kids

Negative Ads, Lies Key For GOP against Jason Carter

Candidate for Gov. Jason Carter

Negative campaigning is hardly new, and already the Republican Governors Association in association with Nathan Deal are already running a misleading ad against challenger Jason Carter as Deal'a approval rating has dipped way below 50% and polling shows Carter either neck & neck or with a slight lead over the incumbent. Mudslinging is crucial to the Republican plan for this year's midterm elections, because the party's hold on the governor's mansion power will hinge on shifting attention from the state's educational system, cuts to the Hope Scholarship, Jobs and Medicaid and other state issues that cut against him. And let's not forget about the Ethics problem that continue to haunt Deal since he left congress 4 years ago.

When people are looking at issues that are affecting Georgia and that are not breaking the way favorably for Deal & Co, what you want to do is focus on your opponent and that's what the latest RGA ad does against Carter, accusing him of supporting to expand Obamacare, where in fact he supports expanding medicaid. They took his support of expanding medicaid and twist it in a attempt to say he support expanding Obamacare. It's a tough tactic, one they hope will drive up Carter's negatives among Georgia voters especially among white swing voters.

Their strategy from now up to November is to define Carter immediately and unrelentingly. The strategy rests on the widely held belief that negative political ads make more of an impression on voters than positive one. Voters are in some ways more ready to accept the negative about politicians than the positive and they often say they would like to see a more reasoned debate in campaigns and more talk about the ideas, but in fact they often respond to negative ads because they tend to find them more credible.

So the question now for the Carter campaign is how to respond to a attack ad that takes his support of medicaid as a interpretation that he supports Obamacare, which are entirely two different things.