Personal charisma is great, recognizing that nobody watches TV anymore so stop spending all your money there is great, understanding how to leverage social media is great.
Recruit the charismatic people, do all those things.
However.
My main criticism of the (D)'s over the last, say, 40 years is that they've neglected the areas that aren't what they see as their places of strength. Rural areas, much of the south, much of the mountain west, to some degree the industrial midwest.
When I say that, people often reply "how can you say that, their policies are much better for those folks". And in general I think that's true. But I'm not talking about *policy*. I'm talking about physical presence and local identity.
There are 50 states, 435 Congressional districts, and something north of 3,000 counties or county equivalents in the US. I don't know how many cities and towns, but a lot of those, too.
There should be a (D) candidate for every public office, in every one of those political units, in every cycle. There is not. My scientific wild-ass guess is that they're lucky if they field candidates in half of them.
There should be some kind of (D) field office in each of those political units, and the DNC and similar (D)-aligned organizations should be supporting all of them with money and people. They should *not* be telling them how to run their local organization, because the people who live in an area almost certainly know the area better than anybody in the DNC. But they should be supported with money, assistance in recruiting local candidates and volunteers, and with boots on the ground (as they say) during election cycles.
Way back when, Howard Dean developed a 50 state strategy to basically do the above. It worked well. Obama continued it at least for his first run, but since then it's kind of been abandoned.
There *is* interest in all of those places. Bernie Sanders and AOC have been holding town halls in very red places and thousands of people show up. So at least a basic level of interest is there.
My sense, or belief, is that the (D)'s as an institution have focused on the stuff they sort of know how to do - basically the easy stuff. Solicit big money from rich people in large cities, focus-group their messages to try to polish them up into something that will resonate with "regular people", lean heavily on the most reliable demographics that they are (more or less) sure to win.
It's a very top-down, center-of-power-centric approach.
They need to stop spending billions of dollars on consultants and start spending billions of dollars to establish and support *local (D) organizations* in every freaking political unit in the country. And let those organizations take the lead in identifying and understanding the issues that are significant to the people *in those places* and in explaining to those people how they benifit more from (D) policies than from (R) ones. Which, in general, they do. And also let those local folks take the lead in understanding how (D) policies do NOT benefit folks there, so they can evolve policy to address those needs.
Folks in all the places I'm talking about don't really care all that much what Chuck Schumer says. They might not even care all that much what Trump says other than to find it somewhere between annoying and entertaining.
But they will have a much harder time tuning out what their neighbor says.
The 50 state strategy, but really make it a 50 state, 435 district, 3,000 plus county, every town and city strategy. Support (D) candidates for mayor, town clerk, school board, county sheriff, tax assessor, dog catcher. State senate and house.
And, of course, federal House and Senate. But work from the bottom up.
Do that for 3 or 4 or 5 election cycles. They'll lose a lot, and spend a lot of money on doing so. And they'll win some. And over time, they'll win more.
Patience, persistence, and quit relying on the easy wins.
Personal charisma is great, recognizing that nobody watches TV anymore so stop spending all your money there is great, understanding how to leverage social media is great.
Recruit the charismatic people, do all those things.
However.
My main criticism of the (D)'s over the last, say, 40 years is that they've neglected the areas that aren't what they see as their places of strength. Rural areas, much of the south, much of the mountain west, to some degree the industrial midwest.
When I say that, people often reply "how can you say that, their policies are much better for those folks". And in general I think that's true. But I'm not talking about *policy*. I'm talking about physical presence and local identity.
There are 50 states, 435 Congressional districts, and something north of 3,000 counties or county equivalents in the US. I don't know how many cities and towns, but a lot of those, too.
There should be a (D) candidate for every public office, in every one of those political units, in every cycle. There is not. My scientific wild-ass guess is that they're lucky if they field candidates in half of them.
There should be some kind of (D) field office in each of those political units, and the DNC and similar (D)-aligned organizations should be supporting all of them with money and people. They should *not* be telling them how to run their local organization, because the people who live in an area almost certainly know the area better than anybody in the DNC. But they should be supported with money, assistance in recruiting local candidates and volunteers, and with boots on the ground (as they say) during election cycles.
Way back when, Howard Dean developed a 50 state strategy to basically do the above. It worked well. Obama continued it at least for his first run, but since then it's kind of been abandoned.
There *is* interest in all of those places. Bernie Sanders and AOC have been holding town halls in very red places and thousands of people show up. So at least a basic level of interest is there.
My sense, or belief, is that the (D)'s as an institution have focused on the stuff they sort of know how to do - basically the easy stuff. Solicit big money from rich people in large cities, focus-group their messages to try to polish them up into something that will resonate with "regular people", lean heavily on the most reliable demographics that they are (more or less) sure to win.
It's a very top-down, center-of-power-centric approach.
They need to stop spending billions of dollars on consultants and start spending billions of dollars to establish and support *local (D) organizations* in every freaking political unit in the country. And let those organizations take the lead in identifying and understanding the issues that are significant to the people *in those places* and in explaining to those people how they benifit more from (D) policies than from (R) ones. Which, in general, they do. And also let those local folks take the lead in understanding how (D) policies do NOT benefit folks there, so they can evolve policy to address those needs.
Folks in all the places I'm talking about don't really care all that much what Chuck Schumer says. They might not even care all that much what Trump says other than to find it somewhere between annoying and entertaining.
But they will have a much harder time tuning out what their neighbor says.
The 50 state strategy, but really make it a 50 state, 435 district, 3,000 plus county, every town and city strategy. Support (D) candidates for mayor, town clerk, school board, county sheriff, tax assessor, dog catcher. State senate and house.
And, of course, federal House and Senate. But work from the bottom up.
Do that for 3 or 4 or 5 election cycles. They'll lose a lot, and spend a lot of money on doing so. And they'll win some. And over time, they'll win more.
Patience, persistence, and quit relying on the easy wins.