Wow, this thread is certainly something I haven't seen before on this website.
Of course Democrats lost this election, we lost badly, we lost 7 (up to 9 depending on Alaska and Louisiana) Senate seats mostly in the South and in the West, we lost the Governorship battles in every competitive race (with the exception of Colorado, bless you Hickenlooper) and in some strong Democratic states (Massachusetts, Maryland).
I don't think any of us predicted the Republicans would have such a wonderful night, not even Talleyrand. Nobody thought the Republicans would gain Governorships (let alone three of them), nobody thought this new congress would be the most Republican since the 1920's, nobody thought that this election would be worse than 2010. And it was.
This election is very frustrating for us lefties, and especially those who thought Democrats would outperform their poll numbers like every other election since Obama's election, but in reality every poll oversampled Democrats, hell, we nearly lost in
Virginia!
The problem with this thread is that so many of you are predicting it is the end of the Democratic Party, that Americans are idiots, but what really happened is that we didn't turn out our base.
The 2014 electorate had strange demographics, the racial composition was similar to 2004 totals, but the % per racial group was essentially unchanged (except for Asians, but maybe it is a reversal to normal, pre-Obama levels). The problem with these demographics is that we lost the white vote 60-40, and that cannot be the case in an election where 75% of the electorate was white.
I feel that it's unlikely Democrats will gain among whites in future years, so we need to turn out the Obama coalition every single election. It'll be hard, and Democrats need to change their voter outreach programs all across the country, where we need to excite young people, non-white people, and women to turn out and vote. We can't rely on dixiecrat support anymore, we weren't able now, we won't be able to in 2016, not ever.
What this election provides us is a unique opportunity. We have a clean slate, anybody with baggage has lost (except for those people New Yorkers keep electing) and we have to rebuild state parties where the Democrats have received nothing but thrashings in 2010 and 2014, states like Ohio, Florida, Nevada, and Iowa. We have a unique chance, when 2016 rolls around, to elect candidates that can excite the base and win statewide. People like that, like Patrick Murphy (won with 60% of the vote) and Gwen Graham (51% of the vote) are rising stars in the Florida Democratic Party, and can help us win future statewide elections.
The Democratic Party is not going away, the United States is not "voting against it's future", rather, we did not turn out our own voters. They never even voted for their future. Staggering statistics, like in California, where 40% of
likely voters didn't even know Brown was running for re-election, that is where a lot of our problems are. We pay no attention to safe seats, and look what happens. We lost Maryland, we lost Illinois, our highest vote % was 58, in California.
We can't just ignore these states, states with high non-white populations, states where we can find national candidates. The Obama campaigns had excellent ground game, motivating voters and leading to two electoral college landslides. In the past few years, we could win elections with that alone. Unfortunately, the Republicans are now matching (or in some cases, exceeding) our ground game in these states. Our statewide candidates continue to do the same thing over and over. They say some bs like "Obamacare needs to be changed" and continue to say they are a moderate who'd work with both sides (when everybody already knows they're a liberal) while completely ignoring winning progressive issues like medicare/medicaid expansion and universal background checks that excite the base and please moderates. Some even run one issue campaigns (Mark Uterus) and those campaigns are desperate and dividing, something we cannot afford right now.
Democrats must run on Democratic accomplishments, which is really saying Democrats need to run on Obamacare and point out all the good it's done in people's lives. The only reason that this program is remotely unpopular is the extensive campaign the Republicans have put with making this program (which they proposed in the 90's) as negatively viewed as possible. Democrats need to show people that this program has done some real good in the community, and we need to expand the program, if anything.
Democrats lost this election because it's very important to turn out their base, and the base didn't come. The base wasn't contacted. We just assumed the base would turn out, when the Obama campaign made sure they pledged to vote. Democrats need to run on winning progressive causes, we need to run on medicare expansion and actually do something about it. Democrats now have the opportunity to grow their party in fresh soil, and they must not repeat the same mistakes of this year's elections.
R: "Maybe we should balance the budget."
D: "YOU WANT TO STARVE POOR BLACK CHILDREN! ABORTION!"
We cannot try to appeal to conservatives like this anymore, we can win without their support, and win comfortably, but we need to turn out our base, not treat them like we already have their vote.
Now we get to move on to 2016, which is likely to be a very favorable election with Presidential year turnout, and with the Clinton machine (she will be the nominee, it's an unavoidable fact, and it's not like other Democrats would be any different from her) we can win the Presidency and the Senate. We can move onto 2018 and bring some strong candidates onto the table, we can run our rising stars and in the mean time, invest into our infrastructure in (not atlas) blue and purple states. We saw that in Georgia, where, although there was a national tsunami, we kept those races to 2012 presidential levels. 2016 and 2020 are both Presidential years, and the Republicans in those races will be very vulnerable, Burr, Ernst, Johnson, etc. I am confident we can win the Senate, some Governorships and the Presidency, and the next few cycles will see some very exciting races, and it's something we can all look forward to.
wow this was a long post
