It’s the Policies, Stupid

Daniel Henninger underscores Harold Meyerson’s points and I think there’s a kernel of truth in what he has to say:

The Democrats who were caught standing on the beach last week when the GOP’s 40-foot wave washed over them are now explaining why it wasn’t their fault.

No. 1: It’s not us; it’s what’s his name, the unpopular president. (And that awful Valerie Jarrett. )

No. 2: It was a midterm election with a bad map; we’ll be back in 2016. Hillary to the rescue.

Official Obama Explanation : My ideas and policies are fine; I just have a messaging problem.

USS Democrat Captain Nancy Pelosi : “There was an ebbing, an ebb tide, for us.”

Let me be helpful and suggest three changes the Democrats should make.

First, don’t preach economic populism and practice elitism. People eventually figure out that what you’re actually doing largely helps the highest income earners. You can fool all of the people some of the time, etc.

Second, stop riding business down. Most people work for businesses and businesses do, in fact, create jobs. Give businesses incentives to invest here and create jobs here. Don’t think that by helping five megacorporations you have helped American Business. American Business is the computer programmmer working in her living room and the guy who clears your pipes when they’re backed up, not just GE and GM. GE and GM have had a net loss of jobs in the U. S. over the last 30 years. They’re not going to be tomorrow’s job producers.

Third, stop pouring most money from most government programs into the least productive sectors of the economy especially when those relatively unproductive sectors include some of the highest paid workers in the country. When a proven way for reaching the top 1% of income earners is to get into a field that depends on government subsidies, we have a serious problem.

19 comments… add one
  • PD Shaw Link

    The Democrats need an economic message that is inclusive of fly-over country, where things like coal, oil and manufacturing are important parts of the economy. It cannot be an answer to the 2014 mid-terms that it was only a matter of time before Louisiana and West Virginia were lost. Nor is the 2016 map a mirror image of 2014. In 2014, there were Blue seats in strong Red states. In 2016, there are Red seats in Purple states, plus Illinois.

  • PD Shaw Link

    Hold the phone, Reid is going to allow Landrieu’s vote on Keystone to go forward now. Too late save burnt toast, but at least Reid cannot be blamed for her loss now. Good play, sir. I tip my hat to your cunning genius.

  • When a proven way for reaching the top 1% of income earners is to get into a field that depends on government subsidies, we have a serious problem.

    “What you mean ‘we’, paleface?” – asked all the wealthy people dependent on the government…..

  • Guarneri Link

    But Dave (and I’m serious here) that will leave them with nothing to run on.

    Can you imagine a stump speech that goes something like this:

    For 50 years we have had activist government. We are going to take a rest for four years. We will tend to international affairs as necessary, but be absolutely minimalist domestically.

    We have regulated everything in sight. No new regs for 4 years.

    The tax code is ginormous. It needs fixing. However, we are not going to change a damned thing for 4 years and see how things adapt.

    The nations finances are a mess. Given that we have adopted a posture that only growth will generate increased tax revenues, we will force ourselves to limit expenditures to the current deficit.

    There will be no new legislation with respect to religion, drugs, marriage qualifications, immigration, voting rules….

    I can hear the howls. But we have problems….PROBLEMS !! But is consolidating our situation for 8% of the time really so horrible, especially given our track record of action? But it would put so many out of business, so I’ll awake from my dream now. Prof Gruber just illustrates how duplicitous government is, but he does make a point – we will buy into the free candy argument over and over. It’s in our nature.

    So carry on with politics as usual, you [insert * ] no goods, but vote for me and I’ll fix things for ye.

    * racist, greedy, homophobic, polluting, godless, heartless……

  • steve Link

    Drew- Let’s start by getting out of the way of the finance sector. That worked really well before.

    PD- We have record (recent) levels of oil and gas production. What would you like changed that would make that better?

    “Third, stop pouring most money from most government programs into the least productive sectors of the economy”

    As has been said before, the US govt is basically an insurance company with an army. Our big expenditures are Defense, Social Security Medicare and Medicaid. Or, to make it easier, it is defense and old people (about 1/3 of Medicaid goes to the elderly). Are you suggesting that the Democrats should adopt policies to reduce spending in areas which the GOP’s core constituency (look at the last election) hold near and dear? Remember those “Keep your government hands off my Medicare signs”? Heaven knows i have said over and over that cutting Medicare spending, cutting health spending, is our most important long term budget issue, but I don’t see either party taking it on alone.

    I have to agree with number one. While the GOP may be owned by the finance sector, the Dems are being leased. Since unions are almost non-existent now, they have sold out to industry interests nearly as much as the GOP, just different (sometimes) industries.

    Steve

  • Guarneri Link

    “Drew- Let’s start by getting out of the way of the finance sector. That worked really well before.”

    You must mean Fannie and Freddie. There, fixed it for you.

  • PD Shaw Link

    @steve, the oil industry is very important to Louisiana. For one thing, Obama shouldn’t have issued the moratorium on oil/gas exploration. There was no science behind this decision, it was public relations, politics and pure precautionary principle.

    Second, Reid should not have stifled Landrieu on oil and gas issues. The Presidential map for Democrats really only requires 23 states. That’s not enough to maintain control of the Senate.

  • jan Link

    Henninger attributed much of the Democratic losses to continuing the “standard political model,” said to have started under FDR, of “tax, spend, and elect.” Ah, so true… So, even though the economy has remained the #1 issue among the people during this 6 year democratic reign, social progressive rhetoric and policies pushed by them were firmly set on bleating about people paying their “fair” share of taxes — IOW, give up the money, people, so we can spend it on what we want to spend it on!

    This greed for poaching more tax money from the people hardly effected the very rich. Instead, it impacted the middle class/blue collar worker the most — the very ones that this administration said they were advocating for and had their back! It was sheer hypocrisy, just like the Gruber videos insinuated in how the PPACA wool was pulled over a disrespected public’s head.

    Traditional Democratic liberals understood that the private sector at least needed room to breathe. The party’s left, having self-deported from the private sector, does not. Thus at the same time their governors were bleeding the base, congressional Democrats voted through ObamaCare with its “Cadillac tax,” device tax, Transitional Reinsurance Fee and noncompliance penalties……

    It was good being the party of Robin Hood. Until they morphed into the Sheriff of Nottingham. In November 2014, the forest people in at least four states figured out who has been picking their pockets. What the Democratic Party’s answer will be in 2016 to this public rebellion is so far nonexistent.

  • steve Link

    PD- After the explosion of the rig it seemed pretty prudent to shut things down for a while. No science? It took a while to figure out what happened and to clean it up. It didn’t really affect their industry that much anyway as Petrobras was willing to pay much more for rigs than gulf companies. Of course with the big drop in oil and gas prices, that has not worked so well for them. I am not really sure what was stifled other than Keystone since I don’t follow LA politics, but that is mostly a jobs program for Canada.

    Steve

  • PD Shaw Link

    It’s pretty prudent to take extra precautions about Ebola too, right? At least until we can be sure. Precautionary principle, you know.

  • steve Link

    Extra precautions? What was extra about it? Time was needed to figure out what happened, then make sure something similar would not happen again. We already had experience with Ebola.

    Steve

  • steve Link

    OT- Is the governor-elect of Illinois going to jail before taking office? Don’t they usually wait at least until they have been in office for a while?

    Steve

  • Andy Link

    I agree with this post. I think the rise of self-identified “independents” show that the two parties are behind the curve when it comes to relevance for most people. It doesn’t help that their platforms lack any coherence.

  • CStanley Link

    What is interesting about Andy’s observation though is that disaffection with both parties could potentially be the rock bottom point of our politics. Third parties have failed because they are spoilers, but now that larger numbers of voters feel unaffiliated maybe it can lead to something new emerging.

  • Ben Wolf Link

    Don’t put any faith in a third party: it will be just as subject to the iron rule of institutions as our current two.

  • Andy Link

    As one who voted for Ross Perot and longed for a third option since I began voting in the mid-80’s, I’m not very hopeful. The two parties are slow as dinosaurs, but they own the system.

  • CStanley Link

    Fair enough, Ben and Andy. I suppose I think the conditions we’re currently seeing are necessary but probably not sufficient, for a genuine shake up.

  • CStanley, a third party isn’t going to get anywhere without some sort of belief system behind it, preferably one that can be given in brief as well as in detail. Want a third party and you’ve got to come up with a system.

  • Andy Link

    Personally I think it will take severe depredation and mobs in the streets to dig out the two entrenched parties – not that I’m hoping for that (far from it).

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