The Washington Post has the article What really went wrong for Democrats. This covers a tiny subset of the issues mentioned in the subject article of my previous post Midterms 2014: The Red Wedding for Democrats. However, this article gives me a chance to re-emphasize some points I have been making on this blog. The key excerpt from the current article is:
Ultimately, stressing individual issues such as the minimum wage hike and pay equity wasn’t enough to get past that — even if they are quite popular — because these voters want to hear a more comprehensive message about how Democrats would move the economy forward. Pollster Celinda Lake, who polled on multiple races, says the broader failure to articulate this — from the President on down — led these voters to opt instead for vague promises of a change in direction.
The issue I want to emphasize is the Democrats’ mistaken notion that around election time you can rouse the voters by lots of phone calls and door knocking. If you can’t keep the voters aroused during non-election years, then it is far too late to try to get them involved when the election rolls around. The Republicans seem to get the concept very well. They are in permanent campaign mode. They make sure that they are in the news pushing their erroneous ideas at least several times a day in the off years. The Democrats think that in a few months of campaigning that they can correct the impression that the Republicans have planted.
The eye opener from the previous post is that if you look at the actual impact on the economy, the Democrats have managed to exacerbate the very trends in income inequality that they say they are against and the Republicans are actually for. To those of us who have been critics of Obama’s economic policies, enforcement policies, and trade policies, it should have been no surprise that the situation has only gotten worse under Obama. However, it was somewhat of a surprise to me because I have been so busy wishing that some of the good that Obama has done would outweigh what he has failed to do. Also I have been hoping away the bad stuff he has actively promoted.
At least I have been stating rather vociferously that Hillary Clinton is not the answer to what ails us. In fact, she is a huge part of the problem. I am coming to the conclusion that I may have to leave the Democratic Party if that is what it takes to fight against a Clinton presidential candidacy.