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| Wednesday, November 29, 2006 |
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Some Lessons from the 2006 National Elections
By Jan Schakowsky @ 5:24 PM |
1) “YOU CAN’T FOOL ALL OF THE PEOPLE ALL OF THE TIME”, said Abraham Lincoln, and the 2006 Congressional elections proved that. Those lines followed the rest of that famous 1865 quote, “If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time...” George W. Bush forfeited the confidence of the American people, and everyone associated with him – i.e. Republicans – paid the price. Democrats were successful in figuratively putting George Bush on every ballot in the country. This election, all politics were national.
2) REALITY EVENTUALLY TRUMPS RHETORIC. You can only spin so far and so often. The American people knew better than to believe that all was going well in Iraq. It didn’t matter who said it, or how they said it. The vast majority of Americans knew the economy wasn’t great. Their incomes hadn’t increased. They were losing their pensions and health benefits and they couldn’t afford to send their kids to college. Maybe Bush and his pals were doing great, but no one on their own block was.
3) THE IRAQ WAR REALLY WAS A VERY BAD IDEA. Time was finally up for the Bush Administration and the war. What was seen by the 60% of House Democrats who voted NO on the war (not an obviously popular vote at the time) is now seen clearly by most Americans. The Bush Administration misled us into a disastrous, unnecessary, and unwinnable war that is killing our young people and untold number of Iraqis, making us less safe at home, destabilizing the world, and robbing us of our ability to do much of anything good, at a cost of $12 million each and every hour for over 3_ years. The early and persistent anti-war movement helped organize the most massive anti-war demonstration – election day November 7, 2006.
4) REPUBLICANS DIDN’T SIMPLY LOSE THE ELECTION. DEMOCRATS WON IT. Our own Rahm Emanuel, Chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, developed a strategy for winning the House and executed it brilliantly. The first task was to shore up our potentially vulnerable “Frontline” candidates, making sure they had the money, message and organization to win re-election. It worked; Democrats did not lose a single incumbent. Nor did we lose a single open Democratic seat. Simultaneously, there was an aggressive recruitment effort to find the very best candidates for a much larger number of districts than had been contested in recent years. In the end, 50 districts were in play, a feat thought impossible at the beginning of the cycle, and so far, we picked up 29. (They are still counting in four districts and there are run-offs in two more.) The Democrats kept pace with the Republicans on fundraising. I myself gave and raised a combined total of $2.7 million for the campaigns, thanks to Sarah Gersten, my Finance Director. There was a special focus on field organizations – good old door-to-door canvassing, phone banks, Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV) which trumped the vaunted Republican last 72 hour effort. Though I am less familiar with it, Chuck Schumer ran a similarly spectacular campaign in the Senate as head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
5) PROGRESSIVES AND ECONOMIC POPULISTS DO VERY WELL. The media like to pontificate on the “Republican-like” new members that were elected to Congress. This is not true. While there may be a few truly conservative Democrats, many more are straight-out progressives and economic populists. For example, most opposed NAFTA-like trade agreements, privatization of Social Security and the domination of Big Oil. Yes, some are social conservatives, but under Speaker Pelosi, issues like restricting abortion rights will be kept off the agenda, as well they should be.
5) NOTHING IS THE MATTER WITH KANSAS. This election proved that Democrats can win anywhere. Yes, Democrats won a seat in Kansas, as well as in places like Kentucky, North Carolina, and three seats in Indiana. We re-elected our incumbents from Georgia even after mid-decade redistricting by the Georgia Republicans which was explicitly intended to wipe them out. Nick Lampson, a former member who fell victim to Tom DeLay’s Texas redistricting scheme in 2004, not only is back in the House. He won Tom Delay’s seat!
6) IT’S STILL THE ECONOMY, STUPID! (See lesson #2.)
7) KATRINA EXPOSED THE “WIZARD.” Until Hurricane Katrina, most Americans still believed George Bush was a strong leader and that his Administration was competent. Like with the Wizard of Oz, turned out it was all a sham. When push came to shove, they completely failed to deliver. They never recovered from Katrina. Nor have the people of New Orleans.
8) LUCK IS GOOD. Jack Abramoff , Tom Delay, Bob Ney, Tom Foley, Don Sherwood, Duke Cunningham, even a hypocritical TV evangelist – finally it starts to add up that maybe these folks are stinking up our country and it’s time for a change. (I probably left out several more.)
9) ELECTION PROTECTION MATTERS - BUT WE'RE NOT THERE YET . This election showed that we still haven't guaranteed that every person can vote and that every vote will be counted accurately. All parts of the country experienced problems, from voter intimidation to faulty machines to long lines that resulted in thousands of people giving up before they voted. We have two years to get it right.
10) KARL ROVE IS NOT A GENIUS! I’ve been dying to say this. Two years ago, Rove predicted that, under his guidance, there would be a “permanent Republican majority.” Well, nana nana na na!
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