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OpEdNews Op Eds    H1'ed 11/10/09

Eight Reasons the Democrats lost Virginia & New Jersey--and How to Recover

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Losing the Virginia and New Jersey governorships hurt. Local factors played a part, but these are major states. So it matters why the Democrats lost them. Here are eight reasons, with lessons on how to reclaim the momentum of just a year ago:

Bad candidates.

The consensus choice, but worth stating before moving on to reasons less obvious. Creigh Deeds ran an awful campaign, even saying he'd reject a healthcare public option. As a follow-up poll confirmed, he lost major support as a result. Jon Corzine's ratings were disastrous from the beginning and his Wall Street background combined with the massive indictments of so many New Jersey Democrats to offer the worst possible symbolism. You have to give people something to fight for, and if our candidates are this unpopular, we'd better get better ones.

Blue Dogs.

The Blue Dogs watered down the stimulus package so much that it couldn't stem the continuing loss of jobs. It also included far too little aid to beleaguered state and city governors. So unemployment has continued to climb, creating an understandably disgruntled electorate. No one likes a governor or mayor whose main job is to cut needed services and throw more people out of work, so this puts Democratic incumbents in a terrible bind. If Democrats want to protect their incumbents in 2010, they need to tackle continued job losses and the continued bleeding of local budgets.

Baucus, Nelson, and their cohorts. (More Blue Dogs)

Imagine if Democrats had united to pass a health care bill like the original House version, including popular elements like a strong public option and being funded through taxes on the wealthy. Imagine if they'd done it promptly after some reasonable discussion, instead of dragging it out for months and second-guessing every step. Obama and the Democrats would have something to show voters by now, a record as a party that can get things done even on critical and difficult issues. Instead, after watching endless internal bickering, the public fears the Democrats really will never get their act together, and that what they do pass will be so beholden to wealthy corporate interests that it won't address our real problems. The sooner the Senate and House pass a reasonably progressive healthcare bill, especially one that starts benefiting people immediately, the more the Democrats can reclaim their reputation.

Obama.

Obama hardly has sole responsibility for the defeats, especially since most voters in New Jersey, and even Virginia still approve of his presidency. And he's done some important things, like beginning to repair our relationship to the rest of the world, supporting alternative energy and respecting scientists' warnings on climate change, and signing strongly progressive student financial aid legislation. But maybe if he'd talked more honestly about the level of disaster we've inherited, and what it will really take to address it, Americans wouldn't be backlashing so severely on the economy. Maybe if he had put people other than like Geithner and Summers in charge, voters wouldn't feel that if you're a banker or speculator who helped crash the global economy, you and your institution get a bailout or golden parachute, but if you've been thrown out of work or your small business fails, you're on your own. Maybe if he'd leaned on the Blue Dogs more (channeling his inner Lyndon Johnson), they'd have come around by now. Obama needs to start governing more as he campaigned--by consciously building a movement and creating momentum to carry candidates and legislation he supports over the top. And he needs to take stronger moral leadership on the key issues we face.

The plummeting youth vote, and demobilization in general.

In exit polls, Virginia voters under 30 dropped from 21% of the 2008 electorate to 10% this year, and from 17% to 9% in New Jersey. Minority voting saw a similar decline. In both states, over half the Obama voters of a year ago simply stayed home, more than a million people in both Virginia and New Jersey. With this collapse of the Democratic base, even relatively modest Republican turnout could carry the day.

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Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of Soul of a Citizen: Living with Conviction in a Cynical Time, and The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear,winner of the 2005 Nautilus Award for the best book on social change. See (more...)
 
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