Democrats could dispense with their “strategists” and pollsters, whose chief achievement has been to lose power in the face of continued Republican outrages, and run a different type of campaign to take the House and perhaps flip a few seats in the Senate.
Republicans caused the most disastrous economic and financial collapse since the Great Depression, voted against every single attempt to revive the economy, took us to the brink of default… and yet, Democrats kept losing more seats in the House, in the state legislatures, and governors, culminating in the election of a sociopath ignoramus as president.
Here’s how Dems could win. Forget about public opinion polls about what issues are important. They are useless. People vote their emotions, not solutions. Pick a salient issue, health care, and drive it into people’s consciousnesses and to victory.
Keep it simple. Keep it about health care. Keep talking about all the different ways Republicans attack their health care security.
Make the election explicitly about sending this message: “Don’t you ever DARE threaten my healthcare security again.”
And, especially in red districts, tell people to forget about Obama, he is gone, but rather to think about their health care. It’s not about Obama, it is about their own health and peace of mind.
Go to nursing homes to highlight that 40-60 percent of the patients are taken care of by Medicaid—Republicans tried to slash. Go to a playground to highlight that 25 percent of the children in the country are covered by Medicaid—that Republicans tried to slash. Go to a rural hospital to highlight its dependency on federal dollars, and that when a hospital dies, the communities it serves dies too―and Republicans tried to slash. Go to a home for the elderly to highlight the shrinking doughnut hole that Obamacare provided as well as the solvency of the entire system—and Republicans tried to slash.
In red districts, for the House, remind them it is only a two-year term. It may be hard for Republicans to vote for a Democrat… but, they can, if the candidate is not to their liking in two years, switch back. For now, the message, do not ever dare to take away my health security is of overriding importance. Send a Democrat for a two-year term to send that message.
In Senate races, remind people that only one vote saved their health care.
And, if you are angry with Washington, D.C., the way to express it is to send this message.
People will be complaining of higher premiums as the Republicans have gutted provisions designed to protect against it. The answer: “Everyone should have the FREEDOM to buy into Medicare.” Period. That is not the same as “Medicare for all,” but it is a safety valve and a means to set the standard for private plans to compete against. (Republicans have shown how they can gin up red districts by using the word “freedom.”)
Of course, the Democrats will do no such thing. They will pay “strategists” and “pollsters” to find out what people say is on their minds, develop five-point and eight-point plans to address it… and get clobbered. The post-mortem will say, as it always does, “We did not get our message out.”
And it will be the American people who will suffer Democrats’ incompetence as, post the ’18 midterms, health care will be stripped from millions of people, even more radically than now, because they will have all the votes they need to pass it in the Senate.
Instead of not daring to rob me of my health care security ever again, the message will be that Republicans can do anything they please, even when large majorities oppose it, and suffer no consequences. Hence, they will continue to make the country over in the Koch brothers’ image.
Just as they did in Kansas.