An Introduction

Down vain lights, shine you no more!

No nights are dark enough for those

That in despair their lost fortunes deplore.

Light doth but shame disclose.

What Is?

Welcome to Blue The Nation. I don't know if anybody's reading this, nor do I know if anybody ever will. I'm mostly doing this as an exercise for my own brain. Although I've worked in politics for awhile now, I'm not dedicated to the field. I'm an op and I'll always be an op. So I'm never going to have a chance to work on a large scale for the Democratic Party. That does not, however, mean that I can't be an armchair quarterback with grandiose ideas for how I'd run this ship if I were the captain. Hence, therefore, forthwith, posthaste, Blue The Nation, my collection of ideas for how the Democrats could hold the Presidency, a supermajority in the Senate, a strong majority in the House, and a commanding majority of state legislative chambers and governorships, by the close of the 2013-15 election cycle.

I believe that this is possible. It is, at this juncture, probably unlikely. But as they say in professional sports, “That's why they play the games.” Since 2007, only two of Major League Baseball's World Championships have gone to a team that could truly have been called the best in baseball that year. The 2007 Red Sox tied with the Cleveland Indians for the best regular season record, while the 2009 Yankees were indisputably the best in the game. Those two teams won the World Series. In 2008, 2010, 2011, and 2012, however, the team with the best record in baseball did not win the World Series. In fact, in those years, they didn't even make it to the World Series. That's why they play the games. And that's why they hold elections.

You guys. This is ridiculous. TURN THIS BLUE. (It's a map of House districts, by the way.)

Why Is?

So, okay, sure, it's possible, but why is it important? Why do this? What purpose does this serve? Well, beyond just creating a dumping ground for all the shit bouncing around my brain about the various levels of American politics, I'd like to imagine that this place could serve, if anyone cared to read it, as a way of letting anybody and everybody on the left know how they can help.

I remember being so frustrated, in 2010, when the Democrats lost control of the state legislatures—and, therefore, the every-ten-years redistricting process. It was the redistricting that cost us a realistic shot at taking the House of Representatives in 2012 (although most analyses I've seen indicate that even under pre-2010 maps, we still would have fallen five to ten seats short.)

In both 2010 and 2012, I wished there had been something I could have done when the Republicans stormed the nation. Some way I could have helped in all those states in which we lost critical ground. And, of course, there was a way. But I didn't know about it, nor could I have, with the information available at the time. There was nowhere I could go to get a detailed, in-depth rundown of which candidates, in which states, needed my help, and why they needed it, and what their success or failure meant to the progressive agenda.

There was no reliable clearinghouse. I mean, I wasn't going to just trust the Democratic Party. I like you guys, and I've even worked for you, but you're a political party. You're always going to say you have a shot, even in races where you don't. So here it is. Between now and 2015, the left will have a chance to paint this nation blue. It's not a great chance, but you gotta aim high.

So I don't care whether you're a Blue Dog Democrat or a dyed-in-the-wool socialist. I don't care if you pine for the days of the Democratic Leadership Council or you pine for the days of George McGovern. We don't have to get along. To borrow the words of the great Will Rogers, we don't belong to any organized political party. We're Democrats. We don't have to agree on what a Democrat should be, or what Democrats should do, so long as we understand that wherever we fall on the spectrum, if we're to the left of the center, the Democrats are our best and only hope for achieving our goals.

We can argue about the details of policymaking later. For now, get your ass on board this train. You can get on board with your time: take vacation days, take sick days, take weekend days, and go work for these candidates, whichever ones are in your home state or even neighboring states. Take some leave from work if you can and are able to. You don't have to volunteer, by the way. There are paid campaign jobs out there. And you can get on board with your social network: tell all your friends about these candidates. If you live in Nebraska and you've got friends in New Jersey, tell them about Jeff Van Drew and Vin Gopal. Tell them to get involved.

And, of course, you can get on board with your money: donate to these candidates. I'm just going to say it. Stop donating to charity. Those guys can survive for the next few years, but this country, as we know it, might not. There's a lot of ways to donate politically. You can donate to candidates. You can donate to partisan Super PACs. You can donate to groups like the ACLU. You can even donate to some of your favorite charities' political arms; if you were going to donate to Planned Parenthood, donate to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund instead.

(Oh, and by the way, please stop and talk to those canvassers you see standing around on the streets. They have information that you should hear, and they're a great way to contribute to a political cause while also supporting effective ground-level campaign machinery. I know you think you're better than canvassers, but shut up and talk to them. They deserve it and you deserve to hear what they have to say.)

How Is?

For the Democrats to win big in 2014 (and also in the handful of elections in 2013 and 2015), they have to focus on several strategies. Some of these strategies are already part of the successful Democratic playbook of 2012. Some of these strategies have been employed in the past by the Democrats, but are not currently seeing much use. Some of them might be new ideas (or maybe just bad ones; I'm not an expert.)

1. An Expanded Version of the 50-State Strategy

During his tenure as the head of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean won widespread acclaim for his “50-State Strategy,” which placed an unprecedented level of focus on expanding the electoral map for the Democrats. 2006 and 2008, consequently, became successive wave elections in favor of the Democrats, handing them unprecedented levels of control in the Senate, House, and White House. Sure, they abjectly failed to do anything with that control, but that's a different conversation.

Today, we don't see that strategy being employed as strongly. Democrats largely played defense in 2010, and the result was disastrous. They played defense again in 2012, and the only reason they were successful is that the Republican Party kept punching itself in the mouth, over and over again, with resolve and vigor.

The Republicans currently hold a 30-20 advantage in governors' seats, a 30-20 advantage in state Senates, and a 28-21 advantage in state Houses. The last time the Democrats made a pickup in the battle for governorships was 2008. The last time they made a pickup in state Senates was the same year. This year they did make a substantial pickup in state Houses, but it's clear that Democrats are not thinking about elections as something to be focused on from top to bottom.

Not only do these state legislative and state executive positions often produce the next crop of up-and-coming party stars, they also have real implications for the political process of the nation. How many articles are we already seeing about GOP governors pledging not to implement key elements of the Obama agenda, such as the health care exchanges? And would we be hearing about such potential 2016 Presidential contenders as Chris Christie and Bobby Jindal if the Democrats would have fielded stronger gubernatorial candidates in New Jersey and Louisiana? And how about all the voter suppression that Republican Secretaries of State are engaging in?

And of course let's not forget the impact of redistricting. Because the Democrats got so trampled in the 2010 midterms, states like Pennsylvania got gerrymandered to death. The survival of the Republican majority in the House of Representatives is a direct and obvious result of that reality. Quick, go look up how many people voted Democrat in Pennsylvania in 2012. And then look up what the proportion of Democratic to Republican winners in the House races was. Spoiler alert: it'll make you mad.

Democrats need to not only re-implement the 50-State Strategy, but expand it into a Top-To-Bottom 50-State-Strategy. Democrats need to look at every statewide executive office, every single state legislative seat, in terms of whether it can be winnable, how much it will take to win it, and whether the cost is worth the potential reward. Sure, the Wyoming State Senate is Republican-controlled by a margin of 26-4, but maybe there just happen to be 12 seats that can be picked off with the right combination of strong candidates and surprise spending. And just as sure, the Virginia State Senate is tied 20-20, but are there really enough blue-able seats that the Dems have a shot at taking the advantage in 2015?

Remember that map of House districts? This is what it looked like after the 2008 election. This, guys. Remember this?

2. CASH. MONEY. HO'S. Actually just cash money.

Cash rules everything around me. C.R.E.A.M. get the money, dolla dolla bill y'all. Citizens United is not going to be overturned by this Supreme Court. And it can't be overruled by the legislative or executive branches. Disclosure laws might be passed, but I don't think that's going to stop anybody from donating. What, the Koch Brothers are going to stop being evil because now everybody's going to know how many dollars' worth of evil they are? I doubt it. Money is here to stay for at least 10 years or so in our elections. Democrats have to get extremely aggressive in fundraising and campaign spending.

National and statewide committees need to be doubling their fundraising efforts, but they also need to refocus how they spend. I personally do not think that the DNC should ever spend another dime on a Presidential campaign. At this point, we know how to run Presidential campaigns. Let the candidate do his thing. And that goes for every single “safe” race. Dianne Feinstein doesn't need anybody's help. But the Heidi Heitkamps of the Democratic party absolutely do.

Refocus the spending on all those smaller races that the Republicans don't think will be important until 2020, the state legislatures and the statewide executives, and on the vulnerable seats we're defending, and on the seats we're trying to pick up. Don't waste money on races that don't need your money.

I'm going to say that a combination of good candidates, an effective ground game, a strong marketing program, and $9 billion between today and the end of the 2013-2015 election cycle can successfully Blue The Nation. Key word there is $9 billion. And that's just on the actual campaigning, not even taking into account pre-campaign groundwork and infrastructure. So let's call it an even $10B. Think we can handle that? I hope so. To put that in perspective, the total spent on all of the 2012 elections, from dogcatcher to President, from all the parties, didn't even crack $5B.

You need to diversify your bonds. And raise more campaign money.

3. Fuck with the other guys' primaries.

The popular narrative about the Republican losses in the Senate, and to a lesser degree their losses in the House, runs that because the NRSC and NRCC were so hands-off in the primary season this time around, unelectable extremists like Richard Mourdock were able to reach the general elections representing the GOP. The party establishment, still stinging from having cost itself control of the Senate in 2010 due to its heavy-handed primary approach, didn't get involved in places like Indiana or Missouri, and as a result, creepy gray-faced white men got the Republican nominations for those Senate seats.

There's some truth to this, but something else was also going on in those primaries. Democratic interest groups and candidates shrewdly spotted an opening in the Republican approach to the primaries. In Missouri, Claire McCaskill and her allies ran ads during Republican primary season attacking Todd Akin for being “too conservative.” It was a deliberate move to make Akin appealing to just the sort of rabid, foamy-mouthed raisin-cakes that have come to dominate most Republican primaries. And it worked. Akin got the nomination. The Akin Gambit, of course, is both high-risk and high-reward. Akin probably still ends up winning McCaskill's Senate seat if women's health care doesn't become such a central issue of this election cycle.

Early on, pro-lifers forced the abortion issue into the spotlight. This basically began when the Komen Foundation pulled a relatively small amount of funding from Planned Parenthood. The pro-choice lobby, which is one of the smartest and most effective political coalitions in the world right now, used the incident to slam Komen's public image. Donations to Planned Parenthood skyrocketed. Donations to Komen plummeted. Komen reinstated the funding (although they will likely pull it again in 2013.) And the pro-life lobby, one of the dumbest, least effective, and most predictable political coalitions in the world right now, declared open war.

Abortion became one of the central issues of many campaigns, from state legislatures to the Presidential race. And in that context, it was inevitable that Akin would have an opportunity to shoot himself in the foot. As it turned out, he only made one mistake, but it was so big that not only did it torpedo his candidacy, it probably also delivered killing blows to a couple of other close-running Republican Senate candidates by association. Rick Berg, who narrowly lost in North Dakota, leaps to mind.

Had Akin not made that one mistake, he would have cruised to victory. Of course, from McCaskill's standpoint, she personally had nothing to lose. Back in January 2012, she was headed for a loss no matter who the nominee was. Might as well try to influence the primary to make him as extreme as possible, and hope he plays himself out of the race. But from the national progressive movement's standpoint, this was a dangerous ploy. If Akin wins the nomination and somehow avoids gaffe-ing himself into oblivion, that's one more lunatic-fringe Republican Senator in Washington, instead of someone more moderate. High risk, high reward. This time the strategy paid off, and it can pay off in the future, but it has to be employed carefully.

4. Be aggressive. Be, be aggressive.

(Disclaimer: I'm about to kind of betray my earlier call for unity among Democrats of all stripes. I realize this. But what I'm about to say is really just an overall hope for who the Democrats draft and gravitate toward. You'll find, over the course of this blog's life, that I advocate for centrist/conservative/DLC types when I think they're appropriate.)

Aggressiveness is a strategy that we've seen the Democrats use before, particularly in 2006 and 2008, but I want them to use it differently this time. In the past, Democrats have shown a willingness to attack and go hard in races where they weren't given much of a chance to win. This strategy won them big victories in successive election cycles, but it also made them vulnerable in 2010. The reason it made them vulnerable is that they executed the strategy in a pretty dishonest way.

In 2006 and 2008, Democrats recruited so-called Blue Dog Democrats to run in more conservative districts. They calculated—correctly—that anti-incumbent fervor could work in their favor, so they sought to run “electable” candidates. Now I realize that what I'm about to say makes me seem as dumb as the teabaggers who pushed for Akin and Mourdock, but bear with me. Going with the Blue Dogs was a mistake.

The Blue Dog strategy lends itself to short-term success. Sure, they won in some of those anti-incumbent conservative districts, but they did so not by truly flipping those districts into true blue districts, but by playing to the conservative nature of the districts. That's a mistake. This time, when the Democrats find a winnable conservative district with a playable anti-incumbent sentiment, I believe they should not recruit Blue Dog candidates. They should recruit mainstream Democrats. Not the leftest of the left, but straight-up-the-middle, Pelosi/Reid-style Democrats. Because by doing this, you don't just “steal” a conservative district for two years (and then promptly lose it in the next election.) You move the conversation to the left in that district.

The power of incumbency is a hell of a thing, but it doesn't mean shit if your incumbent just looks like a watered-down version of the other guy. Let's take an imaginary Congressional District. We'll call it District Loopydoo. District Loopydoo is a right-of-center district that hasn't elected a Democrat in 20 years. The current Republican incumbent, Ricky Republican, however, is just wrapping up his first term in the seat, hasn't done much of note in these past two years, and doesn't have a particularly high profile, even in his own district. He was not particularly illustrious during his pre-Congress political career, if he even had one. With the economy still sluggish and most Americans blaming Congress—i.e., incumbents—this guy is vulnerable.

The Democrats can choose between Bobby Blue Dog or Danny Democrat. If they choose Bobby Blue Dog, yeah, they can win this time. But in two years' time, Bobby's going to be looking no better than Ricky was two years before, and Bobby's still in a district that thinks of itself as conservative. The Republicans will run out some flashy young gun, and Bobby's going to get creamed. But if the Democrats choose Danny Democrat, I think they have just as good of a shot at winning District Loopydoo as they would have with Bobby. They have a shot at winning this time because of the weakness of the incumbent. As long as they don't run Peter Progressive or Stanley Socialist (these names are fun), they can win here.

Danny needs to be charismatic, a good campaigner, this is true. And the Democrats will have to spend more money to get him elected than they would have on Bobby. But Danny's victory has a real chance at shifting the self-image of District Loopydoo. Voters in this district will believe they have been convinced to vote Democrat. When the Republicans come gunning back in two years, they'll still have a good shot at taking the seat back. But they're going to be in for a real fight, and if the Democrats hold them off, they may have actually changed the identity of this district.

This Is.

So, that's my story. That's the introductory post to Blue The Nation. Going forward, I'll begin looking at the handful of 2013 elections, state by state. The plan is to examine all of the elections between now and the end of 2015, and see how the Democrats can win them. At least for now, my plan is to start from the belief that every single one of these things is winnable, that in a perfect world, the Democrats could control all 99 state legislative chambers, both houses of Congress, and all 50 governors' seats (not to mention some of the down-ballot statewide offices.) This is obviously not going to happen. But I'm going to approach each individual entry as if it's winnable. But first: a final breakdown of the Democratic victory in 2012 and a look ahead at what's in store for 2013.