There seems to be a general feeling about this administration – and a lot of the current Democratic Party in general - that worries me. I’m not one of those types that intend to nitpick everything that President Obama and company does. I knew going in (as should most of us) that I was never going to get everything that I wanted. It is always tempting to believe that any politician will be 100% with you – tempting, but ultimately foolish. One way or another, I’ve come to accept that there are some things that I want to have happen, that simply aren’t going to for a while.
This isn’t about that.
What concerns me is that above all else, this administration and this party seems intent on playing it safe, politically. I get that President Obama is a deliberative, technocratic kind of guy. He wants to move slowly, both on making decisions and implementing policies. And both the President and Congress have elections to win. I get that too. It’s easy, frighteningly easy, to get trapped in that mindset where anything too radical, too forceful, too confrontational is a bad thing. Especially when the media constantly tells us that certain things are out of the mainstream, it becomes almost inevitable that some officeholders will internalize that idea.
Except...there’s a problem here. That problem is that playing it safe isn’t necessarily better at all, and it leads to losing races we should win, and settling for less than we should get on a lot of issues. We’ve seen in the last several years how Democratic candidates can get elected by rejecting this play-it-safe style, whether it comes in the form of forcefully defending liberalism and liberal policies (as Obama did during the campaign, or as Franken did), or being confrontational and pouncing on an opponent’s mistakes at every opportunity (as Jim Webb did, or as Harry Mitchell did a few years ago in my own district). So when I see a sea of Republican talking points stand unchallenged, or see us settle for less when we could fight and get more (as we’ve done on a number of policy initiatives, although getting something is still better than none at all), it’s frustrating. There’s this sense of fear, that doing the right thing will backfire even if it works, that is both baffling and maddening. And it feels in some ways like history is repeating itself, on that front, with the Gulf Coast crisis – although I’m holding out some hope that I’ll be proven wrong in the end on that.
The fact of the matter is that politics is a game. To be sure, it is a dangerous game, one with real consequences, but it is a game. You play to win – if you don’t intend to play hard, then go home. It’s about making your opponent make mistakes and then capitalizing on them. It’s about pressure. It’s about playing hard, but also fair – but playing fair doesn’t mean giving people a free pass on some issues. As long as you’re willing to fight, as long as you’re willing to stand up and counter what your detractors say, you can have almost anything you want. We have some candidates – Jack Conway seems to be one – who get it, this year. Every race is winnable, and almost anything that you want to have happen politically can – as long as you play things correctly, and never waste a good opportunity, and never back down if you can have anything to say about it. But there are a lot of people in the party – office-holders, strategists, and sometime the rank-and-file – who don’t seem to get it, and we need to turn them around and get them pointed in the right direction.
The thing about politics being a game, is that everyone has the same endpoint; the same ultimate goal (winning elections, by having a suitable number of votes). The board (the district's demographics, core issues, current economic, social, political climate; the available tools) are open and accessible, not some sort of esoteric secret. Everyone knows the rules and who the players are. And as it happens, the game is set up to be winnable. In any town, county, district, or state, there are circumstances that lead to one side winning over another. Sometimes it has to do with turnout; sometimes it has to do with mistakes made by one candidate or another; sometimes it has to do with hitting the right notes on the right issues; and sometimes it's just about taking advantage of anything the news gives you. But if you don't play - if you don't make the most of what you've got, and you don't try to look at the situation and see what gets you to that magical 50%+1 - you can't win. And if you're going to play it safe, play conservatively, and avoid being embarrassed, you might as well just not play at all.
The NHL’s John Tortorella, when coaching Tampa during their championship run, repeatedly impressed upon his players that "safe is death." Safe doesn’t win you anything. Anything that’s worth winning requires work, and risk. When it comes to campaigning, "safe is death" ought to be the Democratic Party’s motto. We need to get rid of the attitude that safe is everything, and replace it with "safe is death". If we can do that, then everything we want out of our party might actually, finally come to fruition.