The problem had literally nothing to do with muh technocrats, it was Ossoff losing that demoralized them. You said as much yourself. I said to tell them that the special elections looked like this in 2005, before the giant 2006 wave. That would be a hell of a lot more effective at convincing non atlas peeps then "10 point point swing.".
The analysis you cited was A. obviously agenda based, and B.studied only 2 states. It didn't address whether Obama Trumpers switched because of a perception of democrats favoring the wealthy, or if partisanship led these voters to say yes to the question that made democrats (which opposed trump) look bad. Also remember that a decent chunk of these people likely voted for bush.
I really see no point in regurgitating the same points I've made to you countless times. But here it goes yet again: I live in exactly the kind of sunbelt Romney-Clinton suburban affluent district that has diversified over the years. You know, the kind that people like you constantly harp about being the future of the Party.
These voters will not vote for anybody to the Left of Jon Ossoff. The inevitable Democratic candidate here, Harley Rouda, is running the same exact Ossoff strategy (pushing for a balanced budget, keeping the ACA with no desire for single payer, not a single mention of taxing the wealthy, etc.). The DCCC is literally banking on these kind of lifelong Republican voters to flip even though they have little to no interest in ever voting for a Democrat to go to D.C. to represent the agenda of *gasp* Nancy Pelosi. Oh and never mind the fact that this centrist style platform isn't gonna excite nearly enough Democrats to overcome the deficit here either (The GOP candidate, Rohrabacher, won by 17 points in 2016). The whole point of this campaign, (which even volunteers at the training session told me they were interested in) wasn't necessarily to win here but at least build Party infrastructure in place for future elections down the line.
2018 is ultimately gonna come down to if we have a business cycle recession or not. Every Democratic wave in the Reagan era (1980-now) comes from an economic decline while the GOP is in power for a reason. If there's no recession, we're not taking back the House.
Virginia,
We have a few objectives:
1. Get people registered as Democrats; not Republicans.
2. Make sure people register to have a sample ballot or mail in vote. People are far more likely to vote if they see a sample ballot beforehand.
3. Convince mixed households (say a Democrat wife living win a Republican husband) to vote for the Democratic Party.
4. Gather data on which issues are most important to Democrats. So far it's been healthcare in my experience; NOT Russia.
5. Hand out Harley Rouda pamphlets and other campaign literature from his campaign.
Not 2006
Much like the midwestern farm depression that anticipated the Great Depression, or the Farm Crisis that preceded the recession of the early 1990s, there was a protracted period of rural economic stagnation all the way back to 2003.
