If you're not Goliath, fine.
by Tom Sullivan
On Meet the Press Sunday morning, Howard Dean told Chuck Todd what we've all been screaming at Democratic candidates: Stand for something.
You've got to do the 50-state strategy again. The president has been brilliant in the 50-state strategy, but not so, the DNC hasn't been able to pull that back together again for a variety of reasons, not all having to do with the DNC. The biggest problem, Jim Clyburn was the most right person in that lead-up.
It was message. Sure, it was an off year, and we can make all these excuses. But the fact is, we have never been able to, and even through the days of the 50-state strategy and, you know, taking over the House, the Senate, and the president in four years, when I was running the DNC, I could never get the Washington Democrats to stay on message. The Republican message was, "We're not Obama." No substance whatsoever. "We're not Obama." What was the Democrats' message? "Oh, well, we're really not either." You cannot win if you are afraid...
Where the hell is the Democratic party? You've got to stand for something if you want to win.
Todd asked Dean if the party is too focused on women when it's losing white men. Support among white men has declined from 44% in 2006 to 33% now. Dean replied:
One of the reasons has to do that we're not on the lunch bucket issues. When we stick to lunch-bucket issues, and opportunity, as you showed the president's clip, we do fine. You know, white men have been tough for us since the Southern strategy and Richard Nixon ... If we lose by 4%, that's terrific for us. But the erosion among white men has mostly to do with the fact that the economy has not gotten better. These folks have been feeling under big-time stress. And we have got to have a message that has to do with basic economics. It helps us all across the board, but particularly with white men.
It's a thing, too, that Democratic candidates clean up in the cities and lose big in the counties. A big part of that is cultural. But as Dean says, it is also lack of message discipline (or any message at all). Instead of sticking to lunch bucket issues, liberals often speak wonk to people who don't speak wonk.
It always struck me as odd how, when we lefties plan a trip to exotic locations abroad, we buy guide books, bone up on the culture, learn to speak a little of the language, get some appreciation for local customs, etc. We just won't do the same when visiting country cousins out in the red counties. And then we wonder why those people won't vote with us.
Some on the left would just as soon not bother with them. Yet Dean thought a bi-coastal strategy that forfeited the rural, heartland states to the GOP was foolish, so he hired organizers and sent them out where Democrats feared to tread. (A friend of mine was the first one he hired.) Democrats suddenly began winning out there. It's time to do that again, but not just in the "flyover states." We lose big outside the cities, even in many blue states.
But you've got to stand for something. The right spent decades, day after day, month after month, year after year — virtually unanswered — using talk radio to teach rural voters to think like conservatives. But if we expect people to start voting like progressives — here's a crazy idea — it might help if they thought like progressives. Rural Votes has got the idea. They run progressive messaging in small markets where radio ad rates are cheap, and targeted GOTV radio spots (like this one) at election time. In 2008 and 2012, my own group ran a couple thousand "values" spots (like this one) on small AM stations in medium-sized markets. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
It may seem a small a thing compared to the right's Mighty Wurlitzer, but if you're not Goliath, fine. Be David.