Do you suppose that the Massachusetts Democratic Party will wake up to the fact that if a candidate does not excite people in one election, then trying the same ideas and candidate again may not be the best bet?  Of course the counter argument is who the Republicans managed to get into office.  However, in this case when both parties try the same old, same old, then one of them is bound to win.  In this election, the results showed that the majority of people could not agree on which one of the two major party candidates they wanted.  We had to leave it up to a plurality of 48% of the voters to choose Baker.

Do we want to place the same bet in the 2016 Presidential election?  Do we  want to  depend on the Republicans to put up Mitt Romney against Hillary Clinton?

My reading of the election results is that when you tell people that the current direction of the ruling party’s policy are making their lives better, but they feel in their gut that it isn’t true, then they are not coming out in droves to keep you in office.  If the people who are supposed to be on my side, don’t even know how bad it is for me, how can I possibly get their attention?  Or more likely, if these people won’t listen to me, why bother?

Giving the people the same old same old, which they have already rejected, won’t get them excited.  The Democrats need turn out to overcome the resources that the Republicans  have to throw at the elections.  If Martha Coakley was outspent 10:1 or 11:1, should she have been surprised, or should she have had a plan?

I know that sending pleading emails and phone calls asking for 10 times more money from a constituency that doesn’t have any money is not a plan.

I can also imagine that starting the planning for the 2016 Presidential campaign is something that should already be well underway.  If a Democrat is going to win, then a winning message needs to be delivered yesterday, today, and every day thereafter, until the election.  That winning message can’t be based on pushing ideas that your potential voters know are not true.  If you show by your actions that you care more about transferring wealth to the already wealthy, then any protestations that you are for the other 90% will be completely ignored.

The Republicans seem to have hot button issues that drive their supporters into a frenzy of activity and  voting.  The Democrats only issue that could possibly excite a large number of people to compensate for the ardor of the smaller base of Republicans, is the economics one – equality and justice.  Equality being not giving breaks to the wealthy that the non-wealthy don’t get.  Justice being to bring criminal charges against the biggest criminals imaginable, rather than doing everything you can to help them cover up  their crimes.  (See my previous post  The $9 Billion Witness: Meet JPMorgan Chase’s Worst Nightmare.)

The losers in an election like to think the voters are stupid.  May it is the losers just not being very smart.  The losers were given an issue on a silver platter, but they let their leaders fritter it away.  If we only have two versions of a Republican Party in this country, maybe it is time to recognize the fact that we need to bend one of those two parties in a new direction – or start another party.