Why we lose mid-elections? No, it's not Sanders fault. It's because candidates run away from Obama

[davidpdx]

I recently posted a reply to Willy on his thread about this:

That the Clinton supporters try to blame the losses solely on gerrymandering. It's really like being stuck on stupid. The gerrymandering only affected HOUSE SEATS. Then why THE FUCK IN GOD'S GREEN EARTH DID WE LOSE ALL THE SENATE and GOVERNORSHIPS?

First, it's because those Democrats ran away from the ACA and Obama. (if you didn't get that, stop and read it again)

Second, those who lost tried to act like quasi-Republicans (hello Mary Landrieu? Anyone remember what she pushed for?)

When Democrats enact or try to enact REPUBLICAN POLICIES we will lose.

We have gotten hosed into mid-term elections. The only thing...only thing that saved us in 2012 was that Obama was at the top of the ticket. He still inspired enthusiasm and great turn out and helped in the down ticket races.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=555660

Some of the candidates (not all) decided that they were going to distance themselves from Obama and in some cases support Republican causes. I gave one example above. Blame those candidates that ran shitty campaigns and made bad decisions. For God's sakes "traitor" Tom Cotton and pig castrator Joni Ernst won senate seats.

None of these had anything to do with Bernie Sanders or gerrymandering. Period.

[WillyT]

1. HUGE K & R !!! - Thank You !!!

[tularetom]

2. Don't forget the woman who ran against McConnell and would not even say she supported Obama

IIRC, she was very strongly supported by both Clintons as well.

And she got her ass kicked pretty handily by one of the most unpopular people in the Senate.

[davidpdx]

4. Yes, very very good point

In fact I was very disappointed in the strategy she chose because I donated to her campaign. There are often not any campaigns in my state that need the donations, so I try to help candidates in other states. She was one of the three I supported. All three lost.

[AtomicKitten]

3. Alison Lundgren Grimes, a Clinton Democrat as she called herself, was coached by Bill Clinton

... to reject Obama in her campaign.

She lost the election in Kentucky, with President Obama garnering more votes than she did.

[davidpdx]

5. Yep, as noted above by Tulareton

Both of you must have had a mindmelt at the same time. lol

It is too bad she lost. She ran from Obama like a scared chicken. Probably one of the best examples from 2014 of why we got hosed.

[AtomicKitten]

9. ha! it must have been a mindmeld

I rather like Obama getting more votes than her in Kentucky.

It was a big FU to both her and Bill Clinton.

[BlueStateLib]

6. Obamas ratings sucked

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2014/president/obama_job_approval_key_states.html

[davidpdx]

7. Keep in mind those approval ratings are all voters

The key would have been to turn out our base in those states. My question is did we?

Despite his ratings, I believe those candidates would have done better getting behind President Obama than running from him like a chickenshit.

[Wilms]

8. Yep. Look at turnouts for Bernie in Red states.

How many of those people were at the polls for the mid-terms?

[GitRDun]

10. Yes, Yes, and yes again

The Democratic campaigns were absolutely devoid of any energy.

Watching them run from the ACA and other progressive opportunities was maddening.

I hope we do a better job this time...Obama will not be on the ballot.

[JDPriestly]

11. K&R. Bernie Sanders couldn't have had anything to do with the Democratic losses in 2014.

He did not run on the Democratic ticket or declare himself to be a Democrat until this campaign.

What is this about?:

[C Moon]

12. No. It's because people are gullible and believe the bull shit the 1% party feeds them.

Last edited Sun Aug 30, 2015, 01:18 PM - Edit history (1)

[Scuba]

14. K and effing R

[mylye2222]

15. Huge KnR.

As welk as now, as DWS and DNC released clearly wrong DNC résolution not backing Iran Deal. Not only it is also runing away from Obama but it will be interpretated as division and could damage Clinton campaign.

Thank you so much for your OP.

[davidpdx]

17. I saw that

It makes me wonder if Clinton supports the deal or not. I guess she might have to ask her 200 advisers, put a poll out, and then stick her finger out to see which way the wind is blowing.

[mylye2222]

18. Well now she does support it.

But I do remember that just before the deal was sealed on last July 14, she made a curious statement saying basically that, would a deal been reached or not, Iran would still be a threat. I thought it was particulary mispmaced as a crucial moment ( last round of negociations)

[think]

16. K&R

[HereSince1628]

19. I think that's overly simplified.

It pretty much doesn't consider the nature of voter turnout between types of elections.

Democratic turnout is soft in non-general elections. There are probably a handful of effectors that drive that, but the pattern is very consistent over decades of elections.

[Bluenorthwest]

20. My State does just fine in midterms actually.

So this stuff, you guys can hash out on your own while I go smoke some actual hash we legalized last November while electing Democrats.

[dsc]

21. The main reason we lose midterms is that old people vote in them

and young people don't, and we are currently not winning the votes of older people. The last midterm we did well in was 2006, which not coincidentally, was the first election after Bush tried to privatize Social Security. We won the elderly vote in that election and got the wonderful results we did.

Now as to the specifics of 2010 and 2014. The governors in 2010 went down for one big reason. The economy tanked and they were at the helms of those states when it did, and they got the blame (very unfairly). In 2014 the incumbent GOP governors got to run on Obama's recovery and were able to pull out narrow wins in most cases. In Ohio we fielded a dreadful candidate who got anailated, and in PA they ran a similarly bad candidate and he lost big.

In 2010, we did pretty well in the Senate with our incumbents. In 2014 we did horribly but we were defending some Senators from turf we had little business having seats in. The win in Alaska in 2008 was a fluke, Arkansas was trending bad for us for decades, North Carolina was lost by ISIS and ebola, South Dakota has trended away for years, Montana did the same. Now there were some races we should have one that we outright blew. Iowa and Colorado come to mind.

But again, if we can't get younger voters to decide these elections matter, or failing that, do better among older voters, midterm elections are going to continue to be barren ground for us.