Running the last campaign

by | Nov 3, 2021 | Editor's Blog | 17 comments

PoliticsNC has offered several takes on the elections last night. Below is mine. 

Last night confirmed my belief that Democrats are really bad at politics. Not only did they lose the governor’s race in Virginia, they are barely hanging onto the governor’s race in New Jersey. They ran under the weight of a monstrosity called “the reconciliation bill.” The McAuliffe campaign tried to turn a yuppie hedge funder who looked and sounded like he came straight from the suburbs into Donald Trump. Nobody knows what Democrats stand for and they don’t believe all Republicans are Trump. 

In Virginia, two things stand out. Democrats are continuing to lose rural areas by even greater numbers and the GOP can still win in the suburbs. The white working class so many Democrats want to stop talking about are still one of the largest blocks of voters and the party is losing them by increasingly larger margins. The suburban voters bought into a message of change, not the racial division that social media warriors want us to believe. 

This morning, I watched some of Youngkin’s ads. They aren’t primarily about Critical Race Theory or any racial divide. They are about standing up to the establishment. One reminded me of Reagan’s Morning in America ad, talking about a new day for Virginia. Another could have been a Joe Biden ad, with Youngkin talking about persevering after his father lost his job. They are about hope and change. 

Sure, Youngkin used Critical Race Theory and the masks-in-schools debate to drive up the base, but he made inroads into suburban voters with a message that was more hopeful and talked about raising teacher pay. One ad had a woman who says she voted for Hillary and Biden, but didn’t trust McAuliffe to deliver on education. Another blasted McAuliffe for his gaffe saying parents shouldn’t be telling what schools what to teach, pitting parents against government bureaucrats. Democrats losing on education is devastating, especially in state races. 

To be fair, the political environment is terrible for Democrats but that’s partly their own making, too. Their agenda in Congress is too ambitious for their narrow majorities. What if Democrats had passed a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a more modest social spending bill while making Republicans vote against popular measures like reducing prescription drug prices and paid family leave? And how have Democrats let the attack on the Capitol take such a back seat in their messaging? The issue is about law and order and accountability, not just Trump’s culpability. 

At the end of the day, Democrats need to learn how to talk to voters about the things that matter to them most. Youngkin’s message was about providing better jobs, better schools, and a new start after the pandemic. McAuliffe’s message was that Youngkin is another Donald Trump and he’s not. While voters don’t like Donald Trump, they also don’t want to hear about him. They solved that problem last year. McAuliffe relitigated the last campaign, while Youngkin is trying to move past the last five years.  

17 Comments

  1. JWN

    Thomas-

    Agree with the spirit of Democrats “do not know how to talk to voters”, disagree with your analysis of why they get shellacked. I’ll speak just to Virginia, as did you.

    McCauliffe is as centrist /neolib / Clintonian as you can get. And he had no message other than “Youngkin is Trump”- which he is not. He’s a terrible candidate- uninspiring. I’m not surprised in the least he lost.
    Since 1977 the Virginia governor’s office has always flipped when the presidency does with one exception— Terry McAuliffe in 2013 against Ken Cuccinelli (who favored sodomy laws, expelling undocumented immigrants from universities, repealing birthright citizenship, etc.). No big surprise.
    The race card works- esp. in the South, and especially in the current dystopian socio-political climate. As you know the GOP weaponized race in VA using proxies of CRT and BLM. It worked.
    Voters did NOT reject the reconciliation bill was you suggest- because voters don’t know what the hell the Infrastructure Bill and the Reconciliation Bill (Build Back Better) are. They have no clue. What they know- and what drove their rejection of Democrats- was that Democrats control the White House and the Congress and are not getting stuff done. They’re right. It’s not about the inside baseball of passing in tandem or decoupling the bills- it’s the lack of results. Blame the Democratic leadership: Biden, Pelosi, Schumer for not herding their cats as effectively as does McCarthy and McConnell.
    President Biden has the aspirations of FDR and LBJ, but lacks the popular support of FDR and the iron-fisted resolve of LBJ.

    The best thing Democrats can do is pass BOTH the damned bills that are centerpieces of the Biden agenda. It’s not the progressive wing of the Party that is slowing progress- it’s the moderates like Manchinema and Josh Gottheimer who are gumming up the process. Joe Manchin- he’s a fool. If I were him, West Virginia would be on the cusp of becoming the Qatar of the lower forty-eight. But Manchin is spending all the leverage on behalf of his wealthy, conservative, bipartisan donors. What a waste for his constituents in the 2nd poorest state in the nation.

  2. cocodog

    There is a rumor afoot that Democrats will finally get a vote on Biden’s inter structure bills tomorrow (Friday). Assuming the two Democrats by label only are persons of their word, there is a better then average chance they can pull it off. If Democrats can show some progress toward improving matters, things will start to pick up. Voters like success, they view it as an indication of competency. Especially, if their taxes don’t go up!

    The Virginia governor’s race sort of fell into a period of our history defined by Trump and his marry little band of grafters and flakes bumbled handling of the COVID crisis and Biden’s inability to bring a couple of Democratic senators back into the game. While all this was occurring, Republicans took the opportunity to weaponize the CRT and weave it into an old but highly successful political strategy cooked up by Lee Atwater.

    The CRT was conceived by a group of legal scholars to address racism by education. It never suggested or mandated creating a special class of folks and treating them different in terms of benefits then others in the same class. Moreover, there is no evidence that occurred.

    But following the Atwater rules, if you use enough trigger words, repeated enough, folks will get it. St. Ronnie’s campaign for president is a classic example. He employed Atwater’s strategy when he talked about the infamous two shopping basket welfare queen. This character never existed. But her image was highly successful in influencing a lot of voters. Some folks still believe she existed and exists today.
    I do not believe Democrats are bad at campaigning but unwilling to stoop to Atwater’s strategies

  3. Bill Forbes

    What the democrats at all levels of government need to do is pass some common sense legislation that helps ordinary people and quit catering to all these single issue groups that don’t want to do anything but raise money. Then when the campaign begins, they waste all that money on direct mail, newspaper ads and other things that are archaic and don’t work any more. But until the congress passes some legislation that benefits people, they’ll still be in this rut of trying to raise money and campaign 24/7 instead of accomplishing something.

  4. Paul Lawler

    In addition to the issue items you mentioned is the huge vote deficit Democrats ‘enjoy’ in rural areas. That has to be addressed. I’m intrigued by Jeff Jackson’s old school approach of going to all 100 counties. That used to be fairly common among candidates. The strategy says he wants everyone’s vote and he’s willing to stand up for his views in all parts of the state. Seems like the best approach to overcoming Democrats huge deficits in outlying areas. Perhaps if McAuliffe had reached out more he would have done better.

  5. Rick Gunter

    Thomas, you may be spot on about Glenn Youngkin. I am still too angry to be dispassionate in my analysis. But this much I know. This guy early ran at least one ad during the party primary linking himself to Trump. Once he got the nomination, he spent the rest of the campaign trying to campaign like a Mitt Romney Republican. He wanted the Trump base in the primary and then had to pivot in the general election campaign to appear softer. Too many of my fellow Virginians failed to see through this guy and his party.

    Look, Trump and Trumpism are the two main issues in every election. Laugh at me all you want. But until their presence is diminished this country is a goner. Americans still don’t understand that he and what he represents are existential threats to our country.

    Again, if my Democrats misjudged how to campaign against Youngkin, it also must be acknowledged that too many Virginians voting for him believe everything is back to normal and they will make Democrats pay for a lot of the sins left behind by Donald Trump and a party that is against democracy, attempts to rewrite history on the insurrection, and holds no one except Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger accountable for anything.

    I am disgusted with my fellow Virginians.

    • phoenix

      Good article.

      Doubtful that Democrats are capable of that level introspection, at least not yet. Maybe after the mid terms when its all gone.

      In order to improve you have to admit you were wrong, and that its your fault.

      Democrats have the attitude of

      “Oh those simple country folk are too stupid to understand, and they are all a bunch of redneck MAGA trumpist racists anyway…. So stupid I mean they don’t even have a college degree! I don’t know why we even let them vote. They simply an embarrassment!

      This attitude need to get dumped, and that is Not likely from what I have observed of late.

      Hope springs eternal though.

      • cocodog

        Hey “bird that emerged from the ashes”, introspection requires insight. So far all we read from you is Trump dogma salted with Trucker snark. But that may be asking too much of a bargain basement internet bot.

  6. Mike Leonard

    Sadly, millions of people in this country will only vote in presidential elections. This applies especially to voters under age 40. Turnout yesterday was dismal.

  7. Richard Bilsborrow

    excellent comments, Thomas. sadly, the party or Biden needs to publicly disassociate itself also as a party from CRT, to keep the Republicans from playing it up and whipping up racism in the country and its base. and why not develop a speech/public persona that not only every time point out the vast, horribly and growing inequalities in the country due to Rep tax cuts for the rich and lack of govt funds for basic infrastructure over recent decades, but also shoot down Rep BS about being more for defense and the military, as they have been the ones emasculating veteran’s hospitals and post-military service physical and mental health care which the dems have consistently supported.

  8. Joe

    A few points: 1) Sadly, McAuliffe was a bad candidate. Who really wants to vote for someone who supported the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. 2) McAuliffe is also a Corporate Dem that is more worried about cash-flow than votes. Again, who wants to vote for that type of candidate. 3). If the full $6T package had passed in Congress and the Dems had the backbone to get rid of the filibuster, last night would not have happen. The congressional package must support voters, not Corporate hand-outs. Progressives seem to understand this.

  9. Andrew Dedmon

    It is time for Democrats to go back to our roots with the working folks. Our party has been taken over by the far left who have run off most of folks like myself. We have always been a center right state and except for pockets around the large cities. This is not a winning plan in any way.

    • Hew Fulton

      Amen

    • phoenix

      This is the way.

  10. Dallas Herring Woodhouse

    This is a great take, Thomas. I often say one of the biggest mistakes in politics is fighting the last war. It is a little bit of a mystery to me how little Terry McAuliffe talked about his own accomplishmnets as Governor and what he wanted to do in his second time around

  11. Bill Lenz

    Thank you for articulating literally all my political thoughts over the past twenty-four hours. A simplistic observation, perhaps–but as an increasingly jaded octogenerian, I feel that Republicans can’t govern and Democrats can’t win. Frankly, it’s probably a blessing that I won’t live to see the outcome.

    • phoenix

      How about don’t GOVERN at all. The people will tell you what they want. do that.

      Service is what its about.

      • cocodog

        Phoenix, do you have a reading problem? The commentator said, ” Republicans can’t govern”, your added comment ” don’t GOVERN at al “! Did it dawn on you this statement repeats the point made?

        I am going to agree with you add that Republicans have no interest in doing what is called for by the constitution for an elected official. They are far too busy lining their pockets with taxpayer funds and protecting the wealthy from the obligation to pay their fair share. # Internet troll!

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