While I'm quite pleased and relieved at the end result of this year's midterm elections, I also feel it's never too early to talk about tomorrow and how we can move forward as a party and a country. So, in light of this month's election results, here are a few suggestions I have moving forward:
1) Nothing for Granted: Like many of us did in 2016 with Hillary Clinton, we can't take any race for granted. The results all depend on one thing and one thing only and that's voter turnout. If we don't spread word, motivate and inspire, and get people to the polls, our candidates, no matter what the oddsmakers might say, aren't going to win. So whether it looks like a sure-fire victory in California or a long-shot in Alabama, we can't take anything for granted.
2) Don't Overhype: Both parties fall victim to this in most election years. There's that one candidate the staunch liberals or conservatives are extra excited about, so they can't help but hype him or her to the point where, if said candidate should happen to lose, it will likely significantly alter the media narrative, no matter how well or poorly the rest of the party did on election day. This happened with regard to Democrats Beta O'Rourke, Andrew Gillum and Stacey Abrams, who all lost on election day. Let's face it, O'Rourke was a longshot in Texas. While the Longhorn state is becoming progressively more purple, we're still not quite there yet, and while the pre-election polls showed the race was fairly tight, I don't believe I heard anyone say outright that Ted Cruz was going to lose his Senate seat to the upstart O'Rourke. The same goes for Georgia. It's viewed as one of the next traditionally red states that Democrats could potentially compete in regularly, but we've yet to reach that point. Florida is the ultimate toss-up state, for I don't seem to see any race decided by more than two percentage points. That's what it is, though - the quintessential toss-up state. Flip a coin. Look, I get it. Gillum, O'Rourke, and Abrams are all fairly young, vibrant, and charismatic, but for all the races we can overhype, we can't be overhyping races in the traditionally red states of Texas and Georgia and the coin-flip state of Florida. We just set ourselves up for disappointment and for an unrepresentative narrative of what really occurred on election night by the media. Instead of talking about picking up 39-40 seats in the House, winning control of it in the process, we're talking about three disappointments. As the saying goes, we can't put all our eggs in one basket.
3) 50 States: As we should have learned from winning a special election in Alabama, we need to actually follow through with our talk of a 50-state strategy. This goes for every election. Will it be incredibly difficult to win Congressional seats or electoral college votes in states like Kentucky, Montana, Alaska, Georgia, and Texas? Yes. But I'll tell you one thing - we'll have a far greater chance of competing in these red states if we actually pay them some attention, instead of ignoring them and saying, "Eh, we've got no chance anyway, so what's the point?" Remember when Virginia was considered a red state? Now it's considered a lean-blue state. Barack Obama won North Carolina and Indiana in 2008. Democrats have been making gains in states like Montana, Texas, Arizona, and Georgia. We limit ourselves when we spend most of our time, attention, and money on Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida. If we were to spread that time, attention, and money out a bit to red-but-potentially-competitive states, not only would we see improved voter numbers there, we'd force the GOP to spend money defending their turf, which would detract from what they could spend in the traditional battlegrounds.
4) Embrace Diversity: Native Americans, Muslims, members of the LGBT community, and a record number of women were elected this year within the Democratic Party. While that's great and all, the party needs to embrace this increasing level of diversity like their constituents have. I've got nothing against Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, or Joe Biden, but these are the same old (white) faces that have been attached to the Democratic Party for decades. It's high time we put forth some new names and faces with which to associate the party. When the candidates at the Republican primary debates appear more diverse than those in the Democratic primary debates, we have a problem, for that's anything but representative of the two parties, and it gives casual news-goers a distorted reality of the matter.
5) Expand Base: I think it's great that the Democratic Party spends so much time reaching out to women, minorities, college students, and the LGBT community, but young people are typically not at all reliable to show up at the polls. This has often been the case with minorities in midterm elections as well. No, we shouldn't stop reaching out to these demographics, but who says we can't attempt to expand our base? I've been saying this for a long time, but what about older voters? Not only are they the most reliable voting bloc in the country, but on paper, while they consistently vote Republican, they should lean Democrat. Which party consistently tries to protect programs like Social Security and Medicare? The Democratic Party. Which party seems to always talk about potentially cutting funds to said programs? The Republican Party. Which party is more open to medical marijuana and other advances in medicine? The Democratic Party. Which party is more tentative on such measures? The Republican Party. The Democratic Party consistently wants to protect and/or implement programs which aid our elders, while the Republican Party wants to do the polar opposite. While we may think this should be common sense or basic knowledge, for many it's not, and the only way we'll be able to get our message across and reach older voters is by speaking to them about such policies. We should never take our base of voters for granted, but we should always be open to attracting new voters.
1) Nothing for Granted: Like many of us did in 2016 with Hillary Clinton, we can't take any race for granted. The results all depend on one thing and one thing only and that's voter turnout. If we don't spread word, motivate and inspire, and get people to the polls, our candidates, no matter what the oddsmakers might say, aren't going to win. So whether it looks like a sure-fire victory in California or a long-shot in Alabama, we can't take anything for granted.
2) Don't Overhype: Both parties fall victim to this in most election years. There's that one candidate the staunch liberals or conservatives are extra excited about, so they can't help but hype him or her to the point where, if said candidate should happen to lose, it will likely significantly alter the media narrative, no matter how well or poorly the rest of the party did on election day. This happened with regard to Democrats Beta O'Rourke, Andrew Gillum and Stacey Abrams, who all lost on election day. Let's face it, O'Rourke was a longshot in Texas. While the Longhorn state is becoming progressively more purple, we're still not quite there yet, and while the pre-election polls showed the race was fairly tight, I don't believe I heard anyone say outright that Ted Cruz was going to lose his Senate seat to the upstart O'Rourke. The same goes for Georgia. It's viewed as one of the next traditionally red states that Democrats could potentially compete in regularly, but we've yet to reach that point. Florida is the ultimate toss-up state, for I don't seem to see any race decided by more than two percentage points. That's what it is, though - the quintessential toss-up state. Flip a coin. Look, I get it. Gillum, O'Rourke, and Abrams are all fairly young, vibrant, and charismatic, but for all the races we can overhype, we can't be overhyping races in the traditionally red states of Texas and Georgia and the coin-flip state of Florida. We just set ourselves up for disappointment and for an unrepresentative narrative of what really occurred on election night by the media. Instead of talking about picking up 39-40 seats in the House, winning control of it in the process, we're talking about three disappointments. As the saying goes, we can't put all our eggs in one basket.
3) 50 States: As we should have learned from winning a special election in Alabama, we need to actually follow through with our talk of a 50-state strategy. This goes for every election. Will it be incredibly difficult to win Congressional seats or electoral college votes in states like Kentucky, Montana, Alaska, Georgia, and Texas? Yes. But I'll tell you one thing - we'll have a far greater chance of competing in these red states if we actually pay them some attention, instead of ignoring them and saying, "Eh, we've got no chance anyway, so what's the point?" Remember when Virginia was considered a red state? Now it's considered a lean-blue state. Barack Obama won North Carolina and Indiana in 2008. Democrats have been making gains in states like Montana, Texas, Arizona, and Georgia. We limit ourselves when we spend most of our time, attention, and money on Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida. If we were to spread that time, attention, and money out a bit to red-but-potentially-competitive states, not only would we see improved voter numbers there, we'd force the GOP to spend money defending their turf, which would detract from what they could spend in the traditional battlegrounds.
4) Embrace Diversity: Native Americans, Muslims, members of the LGBT community, and a record number of women were elected this year within the Democratic Party. While that's great and all, the party needs to embrace this increasing level of diversity like their constituents have. I've got nothing against Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, or Joe Biden, but these are the same old (white) faces that have been attached to the Democratic Party for decades. It's high time we put forth some new names and faces with which to associate the party. When the candidates at the Republican primary debates appear more diverse than those in the Democratic primary debates, we have a problem, for that's anything but representative of the two parties, and it gives casual news-goers a distorted reality of the matter.
5) Expand Base: I think it's great that the Democratic Party spends so much time reaching out to women, minorities, college students, and the LGBT community, but young people are typically not at all reliable to show up at the polls. This has often been the case with minorities in midterm elections as well. No, we shouldn't stop reaching out to these demographics, but who says we can't attempt to expand our base? I've been saying this for a long time, but what about older voters? Not only are they the most reliable voting bloc in the country, but on paper, while they consistently vote Republican, they should lean Democrat. Which party consistently tries to protect programs like Social Security and Medicare? The Democratic Party. Which party seems to always talk about potentially cutting funds to said programs? The Republican Party. Which party is more open to medical marijuana and other advances in medicine? The Democratic Party. Which party is more tentative on such measures? The Republican Party. The Democratic Party consistently wants to protect and/or implement programs which aid our elders, while the Republican Party wants to do the polar opposite. While we may think this should be common sense or basic knowledge, for many it's not, and the only way we'll be able to get our message across and reach older voters is by speaking to them about such policies. We should never take our base of voters for granted, but we should always be open to attracting new voters.
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