Dear Democrats: When You Lose, Don't Lose the Lesson

[TexasTowelie]

By Carol Morgan

Every single political analyst, strategist and partisan think tank is still digging around for the definitive answer to Democrats’ recent fall from grace.

There’s probably not a single answer to the beat down we suffered, but I’ll point out one reason that’s had me steaming for the last two weeks: Democrats pretending to be Conservatives as an election strategy.

Even though I abhor Mitch McConnell’s practices, I felt nauseous when I saw Allison Grimes’ shooting a gun in her political ad on YouTube. Apparently, a lot of other voters felt that way also.

Voters gave the green light to progressive issues like minimum wage and marriage equality, but when it came to Democratic Party fakery, it was thumbs down. I had to hold my nose part-way down the ballot.

Statewide and locally, there were too many Democratic candidates pretending to be someone they weren’t; believing they’d have a greater appeal to swing voters and moderates by sidestepping to the right. A pro-gun Democratic? Puhleeeze… Perhaps gun-tolerant, but pro-gun?

Democrats did a lot of bad acting; reminiscent of 13 year olds in the annual middle school musical, Of Thee I Sing. It was fremdscham all the way; a lack of embarrassment on their part.

To all those who vomited out those worn-out-soporific-semi-conservative talking points, disassociated yourself from Democratic Party values and went MIA at the slightest mention of PBO:

How did that work out for ya?

One of my many jobs is that of a college and career consultant to high school students and their parents. You’d be surprised at the similarities between applying to college and the art of political campaigning.

Both tend to use marketing-branding-advertising techniques to portray themselves as someone they are not. For kids, it’s to appeal to a certain college, for candidates, it’s to appeal to certain voters.

Here’s the catch in that kind of thinking: Even if you succeed in getting what you want, the facade must fall at some point. Before that time comes, you won’t sleep well at night and eventually, you won’t even recognize your own face in the mirror.

You’ve become nothing more than a cheap knock-off of a Louis Vuitton purse.

My advice to both students and candidates is to BE YOURSELF.

Do you really want to join those who twist the truth to their advantage, employing unsavory skills in the art of the deal, like a plaid-coated used car salesman? Right now, the statehouses are full of individuals who are as credible as a bi-vocational preacher-car salesman.

I can’t imagine wanting to emulate them.

When I am down and discouraged I remember this quote from Gandhi:

“When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.”

Whatever the goal, changing things requires time, patience, and persistence. It’s taken years to get to the crappy place where we are today. There’s always the tendency to give up; if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, but that’s not the way to create good policies for people.

If you’re a Democrat and you hold the philosophy, “whatever it takes to win an election”, perhaps you need to run as a Republican because that’s not a Democratic value. Or at least, it shouldn’t be.

When you lose, don’t lose the lesson, kids.

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Carol Morgan is a career/college counselor, writer, speaker, former Democratic candidate for the Texas House and the award-winning author of Of Tapestry, Time and Tears, a historical fiction about the 1947 Partition of India. Email Carol at [e-mail] , follow her on Twitter and on Facebook or visit her writer’s blog at www.carolmorgan.org

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Permission granted to post Carol's blog in its entirety.

[meow2u3]

1. The lesson for Dems can be boiled down in one sentence

Act like a Democrat or you'll lose to a Republican. Enough said.