Georgia Dems, Carter, Nunn, Barrow and the Future

Despite all of the hope and enthusiasm from Georgia Democrats, Tuesday night was a reminder that more work needs to be done in order to be competitive again here in the Peach State.

The biggest problem facing Democrats here in Georgia is their inability to attract white voters and having a message that can appeal to moderates and conservative democrats....plain & simple! Forget Independent Voters because there are no such thing as a TRUE independent voter....most lean either to the democrats or republicans.

Nunn and Carter got under 25% of the white vote, which is not enough to be competitive statewide int he near future. On the bright side, they got close to 30% of the black vote, so despite all the talk about black voters not turning out, they did this year despite voter turnout being at a record low across the country during Tuesday's election.

For all the talk about demographic changes and registering more minority voters they need to do a better job at attracting those who are already registered to vote, black and white. Too much they rely on urban and suburban areas of Atlanta, Lilburn, Albany for their votes and very little on rural, mid-sized areas of Fitzgerald, Swainsboro, Douglas, thus leaving huge swaths of the state to the GOP.

Look at the state legislature, democrats have done a poor job at candidate recruitment on the house and senate side and that starts with the leadership in both chambers. That needs to change and change soon and that starts with electing new leadership who knows that leaving 80% of the republican legislature unchallenged is not good for the state, nor the party. Now is the time for Rep. Scott Holcomb, yes I'm talking to you, to run for minority leader and to locate potential democratic candidates to add to a democratic house caucus that's (with the exception of a dozen legislators) made up of 'Dead Weight" or "Seat Warmers".

Michelle Nunn ran a good race, but she ran the type of race that made National Democrats proud, but on the flip side, this is still the south and this is still Georgia and she didn't put enough emphasis on Georgia and too much on National Issues. Even Rep. Jack Kingston said she didn't exert enough independence from the National Democrats and looking back on it, he's right! That Ferguson mailer did have a negative impact on both Nunn and Carter thus their white support fell below 25%.

DuBose Porter should run for the 12th Congressional District in '16, if he decides to bypass a full four year term as head of the Georgia Democratic Party. Porter came in under tough circumstances to rebuild the state party that hit rock bottom and now is a viable and fully functioning party. And there's always 2018 in which Porter will be in his 60s.

I for one do not see Nunn running for political office again. That's the feeling I get, but who knows.

Jason Carter also ran a good race, but you have to give the Deal Campaign credit for highlighting his experience, which I think hurt Carter towards the end. Why Carter didn't run on expanding medicaid is a question only he can answer. That was a winning issue, but he made very little mention of it. Everyone assumes he will the front runner for governor in 2018, but you better look out for Kasim Reed and possibly John Barrow.

And speaking of Barrow who I call the smartest politician in the entire state, I didn't expect to see him go down to Rick Allen who ran on absolutely nothing, except tying Barrow to Obama, just like Austin Scott who also ran on nothing when he defeated Jim Marshall in 2010 by tying him to Nancy Pelosi.

Barrow is the wildcard here because he has options. He gets to sit back and re-charge his batteries for another "likely" run for office...either for the U.S. Senate in 2016 or for a statewide office in 2018. And it's a longshot, but Barrow could be on a list of possible VP contenders for Hillary Clinton.

Another is Kasim Reed. You know and I know he's going to begin to lay the groundwork for a potential 2018 race. And look over to Columbus, Ga where Teresa Tomlinson (D) will be someone who may look to move up the political ladder if she has a successful second term as mayor of Columbus.

Part 1: The future of the Democratic Party in Georgia

This is the first of a two party series on the future of the Democratic Party of Georgia:

It isn't easy being a Democrat in Georgia these days.

Like many states across the South, Georgia has become a Republican stronghold over the last decade.

But it’s hard to overstate just how strongly that partisan trend has prevailed in the Peach State, or the difficulty Democrats face in turning it around.

In the Georgia State Legislature, for example, Republicans hold overwhelming majorities, comprising 34 of the state’s 56 Senate seats and 117 of the 180 House seats.

Democrats have not held a majority of seats in the state House since 2004 and the state Senate since 2002.

At the national level, things are no different. Georgia has not had a Democratic U.S. senator since 2004, following Max Cleland’s loss to Republican Saxby Chambliss in 2002 & Johnny Isakson's win in 2004.

Here, there’s no doubt who will win the state’s electoral votes  in November Georgia gave John McCain 52% to Barack Obama 47%. Expect Mitt Romney to get a higher percentage than McCain in November.

So how did the Republican Party gain such a large majority, and what, if anything, can Democrats do to chip away at it?

The first question is one of population changes that occurred during the 1990s and the Republican Party’s masterful ability to capitalize on them.

Then look at the National Democratic Party. Since the New Deal era of Franklin Roosevelt and the civil rights battles of the 1960s, the national Democratic Party has earned an image of promoting “big government.” The belief is that the government, for all its faults, can still do some things better than the individual, whether it’s building and maintaining highways, regulating the harmful impacts of industry, or using the tax system to provide assistance to the working poor or disabled.

The national image of the two parties is that the Democratic Party is for centralized control and the Republican Party is for decentralized control. You see that reflected in any number of policies & gun control, any type of policy where the image generally is one of the national government imposing restrictions on the state.

Despite the state's republican trend, a  democratic gubernatorial candidate can still do well in this state. Voters across the state , I believe tend to be more likely to pay attention to who is running for governor than for their local legislative district. As a result, they’d more likely to consider their vote, rather than just pull the lever for whoever belongs to the dominant political party.

Secondly, if democratic candidates running for governor tend to focus less on national partisan issues and more on issues related directly to Georgia, he/she would do very well here. For that reason, voters may be more willing to vote for a Democrat they feel understands Georgia issues in spite of, rather than because of, his/her party affiliation.

Gubernatorial democratic candidates in 2014 can do well by appealing to the independents in the electorate. It’s much easier in a U.S. Senate or House race to characterize your Democratic opponent as symbolizing the national party. You can’t do that to the same extent when you have a gubernatorial candidate that, at the time they were elected, had no real connections to the national party.

The downside to that is that down-ballot Democrats need better infrastructure for getting their names out into the public sphere if they want to enjoy similar electoral success And the biggest roadblock to that is fundraising.

Given the spread-out nature of Georgia, fundraising can’t be ignored. Even if candidates don’t necessarily spend a lot on television ads, they still need to cover the costs of crisscrossing this huge state

The Democratic Party after the 2010 elections: Part 1

Okay, here’s the deal. Election day was brutal, crushing, utterly demoralizing. There’s been much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth and general despair about what this means for Democrats in the future; what it says about the mood, needs, and intelligence of the electorate; and what will become of the state under Republican control of the house.

Got that out of your system yet? If so, good! We have work to do. If not, then hurry it up. We have work to do.

I’m not irrational. I’m simply seeing things very clearly. I think I understand exactly what caused voters to choose as they did, and it’s far from simple. But the answer to what we, as Democrats, need to do to reverse those voter choices is quite simple, although it’s far from easy. It’s going to take a lot of work, a lot of time, and most importantly, a relentlessly positive attitude. It’s going to require us to believe in our own power to succeed even when the odds seem stacked against us.

There was no one magical thing that Republicans did to win so many of the elections a few weeks ago. They did it with empty promises, backed by no specifics or utter nonsense (“We’ll reduce the deficit by lowering taxes.”) and an epic tsunami of corporate money that was funneled through groups that, I suspect, will someday once again be legally barred from funding political campaign ads as they did this year.

Let's face it people, republicans won by utilizing a massive media machine that masquerades as a “news network,” but which most of us recognize as the unofficial propaganda apparatus of the Republican party. Some have said they won by igniting, fueling, and ultimately harnessing the inarticulate rage of a class of people who are fundamentally ignorant about politics, economics, social justice, and our political process and governmental procedures.

Then they used the misery and suffering of the general population – which they themselves caused and prolonged – to amplify their campaign message, which boiled down to “Democrats did it! Don’t vote for them!”

None of these tactics is appropriate for Democrats to adopt and modify as their own. They are not going to defeat the destructive, negative influence of the Republican party by becoming a mirror image of it. And more importantly, they don’t have to do that to win. No way the party need a liberal Fox News and they don’t need to pump the American people full of lies that cast Republicans as villains and Democrats as knights on white chargers.

All we need to do is tell the truth.

Now, I can hear some of you already shouting in response that “We already did that! We told the truth, but the people couldn’t hear us over the sound of Fox News and Glenn Beck and the tea party rallies! The people believed the lies because that’s all they were hearing!” And you’re right about that. Therein lies the real problem – that the American people aren’t hearing us.

But the answer is not to get a bigger megaphone. I think this election made it pretty clear that corporate America is almost entirely in the Republican corner. Any megaphone Dems build is going to be dwarfed by the one they can buy. Theirs will always be bigger, fancier, and louder. But they won’t need a megaphone anyway, because we’re going to reach the people by talking to them. One at a time.

People don’t want Republicans or Democrats. They want people with real answers to real problems. They want someone to hear their pleas for help and respond with actions that make their lives better. They will elect anyone who seems to get what they are going through and has ideas that make sense to them. This year, they went mostly with Republicans because of that messaging infrastructure they have. But Dems messaging structure will be even more powerful.

What Dems must do is to meet people where they are. They can’t judge them for their views, whether they are tea party or lifelong Republicans or libertarians or whatever. They need to get out among them and help them. If they are down, they should help them up. If they have a problem, they should work alongside them to help solve it. They will teach them by example what it means to be a Democrat; that “liberal” is not a dirty word; that “progressive” is not an epithet & that "conservative", yes, "conservative democrats" have a place in the party as well. (Or I hope they still do)

This is going to take patience, it’s going to take time, and it’s going to take hard work. The temptation to lecture people will be overwhelming, but that’s not what will win them over. They can’t win elections by arguing with the people, because most of the population has forgotten or never learned the art of debate. They think what they think because they have been appealed to emotionally; logic and reason were contorted to serve the emotional purpose. Dems can’t tell them what to think, but we can show them who and what we really are. And in the end, that will be the key.

Dems spent the past two years fretting over what the Republicans have done, laughing at the ignorance of the tea party people (some are ignorant, but not all), and browbeating our elected Democrats for their perceived failures. But what dems need to understand is that this administration and this Democratic Congress have faced a combination of obstacles unprecedented in our history.

They were up against a corporate media machinery that served Republicans interests far more often than it served up the truth, plus the exhorbitantly partisan voice of Fox News. They were up against a Republican party that publicly decided not to help govern, but instead fought every every single bill that would have aided the economy or made life easier for suffering constituents. They were up against a corporate conspiracy that not only laid off far more workers than necessary when the recession hit, but deliberately failed to start rehiring when it ended, thus keeping the economy weakened and prolonging the misery of voters in my opinion.

And Democrats were up against a conservative “grassroots” movement that has been carefully nurtured and extravagantly bankrolled by billionaires intent on keeping America the promised land for corporations and the ultraric. I think dems fell into polarization mode – which is perfectly understandable and expected – but that in doing so, we played right into the hands of the Republican puppetmasters.

But this isn’t all a bunch of hippy-dippy, kumbaya crap. There are very pragmatic, concrete things to be gained by keeping the message positive. For one thing, it’s a lot more efficient – maintaining a negative attitude and constantly attacking uses far more energy. It also takes a spiritual toll and tends to make one petty, mean, and embittered. I think they can all agree that petty, mean, embittered people are far less attractive to others, less fun to be around. And that brings me to another practical concern: young people

Young people are much more likely to be motivated to take part in politics – as activists, and even as voters – when there is positive energy. One look at a tea party rally should tell you that; how many young adults do you typically see there? And young people turned out in droves to organize, politic, and vote in 2008. Why? Because Barack Obama’s positive message and energy inspired them. I’m not a young person, but that’s what drew me in.

It worked in 2008, and it will work now. Notice that I didn’t say “it will work in 2012.” Dems can’t wait for official campaigning to begin our new ground game. If we want to educate voters about the realities of Democratic policies, we have to start now. Where do we start? Well, there’s a meeting of my county Democratic party next week. I’m going to attend. That will be the first time I’ve ever done that.