Campaign 101
by Tom Sullivan
Over the weekend, Sen. Bernie Sanders' supporters gathered in Chicago for a "People's Summit." The New York Times, sniffing at a growing rift, so-called, between factions within the Democratic Party, went looking for some political disaster porn:
The growing tension between the party’s ascendant militant wing and Democrats in conservative-leaning terrain, where the party must compete to win power in Congress, was on vivid, split-screen display over the weekend: in Chicago, where Senator Bernie Sanders led a revival-style meeting of his progressive devotees, and in Atlanta, where Democrats are spending colossal sums of money in hopes of seizing a traditionally Republican congressional district.Four thousand or so activists showed up fired-up in Chicago, so as these stories go it's bad news for the Democrats.
The Democratic Party cannot continue to be a party of the East Coast and the West Coast. It must be a party of all 50 states. The working people of Mississippi and Wyoming, of South Carolina and Oklahoma, of Texas and Kansas, of Nebraska and Utah, and many other states will support a progressive agenda – if we bring that agenda to them.But who is going to deliver it?
The plan that Clinton began to execute this week is a 20-year strategy to create a new vision for America. To fulfill it, she is dispatching staff to all 50 states and is working to identify and organize supporters in each one.Sanders concurs. "The current model and the current strategy of the Democratic Party is an absolute failure," Sanders boomed to applause Saturday night. He reminded the crowd that there is more at stake nationwide than the presidential election. Yet even people who should know better don't. A friend observed that at a 2012 election night watch party, when it was announced that Barack Obama was reelected, people went crazy clinking glasses and making toasts. Meanwhile state Democrats got clobbered in legislative races. Who noticed?
There are a lot of reasons why adopting a 50-state strategy is both the right thing and the smart thing for Clinton to do. For one, voters deserve it. When candidates write off entire states or regions for being too blue or too red, they also write off the people who call those places home.
That’s always been the challenge with implementing a 50-state strategy: a candidate, eager to succeed, wants to invest limited resources where they’ll produce the largest short-term gains. If you’re a Democratic presidential nominee, and your focus is on winning, do you divert money from Ohio in order to help build the party in Oklahoma? Isn’t it more important to win the race you’re in and work on future cycles in the future?Neither happened. A year later, Bernie Sanders is telling enthusiastic supporters the same thing. Democrats need a 50-state plan. It sounds great in the abstract. But who is going to deliver it?
The problem with that line of thinking, of course, is that there will never be an ideal time to do the hard work in states that aren’t currently competitive. In 2016, Clinton and her team believe they can do both: win the election with staff in literally every state, while laying a stronger foundation for future cycles.