It seems increasingly apparent to me that one of the Democratic Party's biggest enemies is not necessarily the Republican Party, but, rather, dangerous assumptions by Democrats themselves.
There are several of these assumptions that have, increasingly, been bothering me over the past few years. It started way back in 2008 when, fresh on the heels of a Democratic wave election year, some progressives, including a fair number of people on this site, started prematurely declaring the Democratic Party as the "permanent majority party."
It rubbed me the wrong way that, after one election, people could be so quick to start declaring the war over based on one successful electoral battle. But the lack of critical thinking, logic and reason that such assumptions entailed bothered me even more.
Since then, there have been several other extremely dangerous assumptions that many progressives, including many people here, seem to have bought into, without much critical thought whatsoever.
Among the most recent assumptions are those being made by progressives about Democratic prospects in 2016. A subset of my concern has to do with how certain districts are now assumed to be "Democratic" or "Democratic leaning" based not on long-term historical trends and considerations on the ground, but rather based on nothing more than a few selectively chosen statistics from a couple of recent presidential elections. Projecting trends and future elections based on such statistics as that seems like a formula for potential future political disaster.
Take the U.S. House of Representatives district known as NY-21, as well as my own home district of NY-24, for instance.
When Democratic Rep. Bill Owens announced his retirement from the NY-21 seat during the 2014 election cycle, a lot of pundits, including many here, automatically assumed this to be a “lean blue” seat. My initial reaction then and throughout the campaign was that that assessment seemed way off the mark and that, at best, it should be considered a “lean red” district with Owens' retirement.
The reason: while President Obama did reasonably well in the district and while Democrats seem to have done better there in recent years, the fact remains that NY-21 is still a historically Republican area, with the overwhelming majority of office holders below the Congressional level being Republican and very little evidence that that would change any time soon. Not to mention that this Congressional seat had been Republican since the days of the Civil War and the fact that Democrat Owens was somewhat of an “accidental” Congressman to begin with, having won the seat twice because of a split opposition, with a separate Republican and conservative party nominee in the general election (the Conservative Party has long been a separate party in New York, usually cross-endorsing most Republicans, but sometimes fielding its own candidates as it did twice against Owens). In fact, the one and only time that Bill Owens did win the seat in a one-on-one race against just one major Republican/conservative opponent, he still just barely won by just a few percentage points. There was never any evidence that traditional voting patterns in this district had changed as dramatically as many people had thought and/or hoped. It never was a "lean Democratic" district, in my opinion. In November, the Republican candidate won by a landslide.
Similarly, my home district of NY-24, though not quite as overwhelmingly Republican as nearby NY-21 has been over the years, is still more Republican-leaning than Democratic, in terms of local political offices.
The only relatively safe political office for Democrats in NY-24 is in the City of Syracuse, where Democrats hold all major city offices (although, even with an overwhelming Democratic enrollment edge, the Democratic mayor (Stephanie Miner) was reelected with just 54 percent against weak opponents). All countywide offices throughout the district are held by Republicans, including Onondaga County, which is the largest, population wise and which is the most competitive of the counties for Democrats and where Democrats have finally in recent years overtaken Republicans with a small enrollment edge.
However, that slight enrollment edge has not yet proven to be a major boost for Democrats, who have not elected anyone to Onondaga County wide office in many, many years. The other counties in the district (Cayuga, Wayne & Oswego) are overwhelmingly Republican in terms of registration. So...when pundits declared this a "lean Democratic district" just because of a couple of presidential elections and the fact that a Democrat had been elected to Congress (though not reelected) in recent years, they overlooked the reality on the ground. The reality is that, despite some selectively chosen voting statistics in recent years, NY-24 remains a Republican leaning district, where Republicans hold every county-wide office and all but one area state senate seat. In fact, Democrats often don't even field candidates against Republicans and Democrats are often not even competitive outside of the city of Syracuse. This, coupled with the fact that the only Democrat to win the Congressional seat in recent years (Dan Maffei), won only during presidential election years and was never reelected (he won in 2008, lost in 2010, won in 2012 and lost in 2014).
Once again, the reality on the ground as far as whether NY-24 is a “blue leaning” district and whether Democrats have a chance of reclaiming it in 2016, does not factor in anything other than selectively chosen statistics from a few recent elections. In fact, if Mayor Stephanie Miner (who, once again, only won reelection in the heavily Democratic city with just 54 percent of the vote against extraordinarily weak opponents), decides not to run for the Congressional seat in 2016, Republican John Katko, who won the seat in a surprise upset...by a landslide margin (nearly 20 percentage points against the incumbent Democrat Maffei) in 2014, could well find himself with no Democratic opponent of any significance. The Democrats have a very weak bench here and Katko is virtually guaranteed of landslide victories in the three outlying Republican counties (Cayuga, Wayne & Oswego) and will almost certainly be highly competitive in the most populous county of Onondaga against any Democrat. My assessment of this race going into 2016 is that it is “lean Republican” (and "leans" that way only by virtue of the fact that Katko has not yet been sworn into office let alone proven himself and has no record yet to defend). Katko has positioned himself as a moderate Republican throughout the campaign and during the transition (which, ideologically speaking, is just about pitch perfect for a Republican in this kind of swing district in the Northeast).
My guess is that, unless Katko somehow screws up and/or Republicans make a complete disaster of their next two years as the majority, this seat is likely to end up being a safe Republican seat by the time 2016 comes around. Meanwhile, pundits on this site are listing it as one of the most vulnerable Republican seats in the country, once again because of some very artful cherry-picking of recent presidential election results and highly selective Congressional election statistics which do not reflect the true nature of this lean-Republican district. (Many insist on continuing to label it “lean Democrat,” which is not an accurate representation of where the district currently stands, in my opinion)
Which leads me to wonder, if there are two seats in my area alone that seem so inaccurately categorized by pundits, based purely on selectively chosen statistics in a few recent elections, how many other seats throughout the country also have extenuating circumstances that make those statistics highly suspicious as a source for labeling them “lean blue” districts?
It seems to me that we need some additional way to give some nuance to at least some districts like these, where the numbers may not necessarily tell the full story.
And there are some other "dangerous assumptions," being made by many people that have been eating at me, as well. Such as:
-That the Democrats are destined to win in 2016. Both before and after the disastrous 2014 election cycle, many Democrats have been saying that we just need to wait until 2016 when Democrats will allegedly cream Republicans. Some irrational and illogical progressives were even claiming that it would be a “good thing” for Republicans to win in 2014 because they would be guaranteed to mess up. These all are very soothing thoughts for Democrats, who not only performed as badly as expected in 2014 but who, in fact, performed worse than most pundits “worst case” scenarios. However soothing they may be, however, that doesn't necessarily make these assumptions accurate.
Any Democrat who thinks that it will be a cakewalk for us to win the presidency and flip four or five Senate seats in 2016 is simply not looking at things from a realistic perspective, in my opinion.
Granted, Democrats do have an advantage in terms of demographics and recent presidential election turnout among core constituencies. However, Republicans have far more advantages going into 2016 than Democrats did in 2010 or even 2014, for that matter. For instance, many on our side of the spectrum seem to forget that it is rare when one party retains the White House for three consecutive elections. It's not unheard of, but it is rare nonetheless. The fact is that the public tends to get tired of one party being in the White House for too long and almost always responds favorably to the party touting “change.” Republicans have the advantage of being the party who can claim to be the party of "change" in 2016. That is not an insignificant political message. Not only that, but Republicans will probably ruthlessly exploit that advantage, not only proclaiming themselves as the "party of change" but positioning the Democrats as being the stale, old status quo, as far as the White House is concerned. It seems highly likely to me that they will be bending over backwards pushing that narrative.
Republicans will have other advantages, too, not the least of which will be the fact that they will still have the Citizens United ruling allowing corporations to donate unlimited amounts of money for political purposes. Republicans have shown an increasing ability to turn that into a greater and greater advantage as time goes on.
Republicans will also have large majorities in both the House and Senate for Democrats to overcome, so much so in the House, that it will be very difficult for Democrats to win control there due gerrymandering alone. As far as the Senate, there are not likely to be all that many competitive Senate races to ensure a Democratic victory in 2016. Democrats will need to pick up at least four Senate seats (assuming they retain the White House and the vice presidency, which is not guaranteed). As of right now there are only about five total Republican seats that might be competitive, meaning Democrats would have to win them all. Plus, Democrat Harry Reid's seat might also be in play. Anyone who is under the assumption that 2016 is going to be a cakewalk for Democrats is simply not thinking things through.
-A Permanent Democratic Majority. Remember after the 2008 elections how some folks, including many on this site, were declaring that Democrats would be the permanent majority party and Republicans the permanent minority party in the U.S.? Since then, Republicans have won two elections, first taking control of the House and then the Senate, not to mention a large majority of governor's offices and state legislatures. Democrats, who had a filibuster-proof majority with 60 seats after the 2008 elections (although it took until the following June to get there due to the foot-dragging on election recounts by Republicans in Minnesota), will have only 46 in January, to go along with a large Republican majority in the House. That does not sound like a "permanent majority" to me.
-The “inevitability” of favorable demographic trends carrying Democrats to victory. It's been said by many people for many years that Republicans are in trouble and Democratic prospects are good, long-term at least, according to demographic trends. Meanwhile, as people have been saying that, Republicans have taken over control of the House of Representatives and then the Senate.
Demographic trends are important and are, in fact, good for long-term Democratic prospects, at least as of now. However, let me share with you my personal experience with a similarly “inevitable” demographic trend that hasn't exactly panned out as many had hoped. It has to do with Texas.
This particular kossack happened to have lived in Texas during the early 1980's. At that time, Democrats were very competitive and controlled most of the Congressional delegation as well as the state legislature. As far back as the early 1980's, many people were saying similar things as people are saying nationally about Democrats, that prospects for Democrats in Texas would only get better due to the percentage of population increase among minorities, especially Hispanic-Americans. It was “inevitable” that Democrats would once again establish itself as the majority party in Texas.
Since the early 1980's, despite that demographic advantage, however, the Democratic Party has become anything but preeminent in Texas. It went from a highly competitive majority party to not only the minority party, but devolved to the point where they rarely have competitive candidates for statewide office
My point is not to be a Democratic Party “troll,” but, rather, to be a Democratic Party realist. The fact is that the Democratic Party is now on the ropes after two consecutive mid-term elections that have gone from awful to disastrous. We will not be able to grow this party unless we first acknowledge that reality. And the winning formula is not to sit around and wait while the alleged “inevitable” demographic trends and other dangerous assumptions distract us from taking the necessary steps to win again.
The most dangerous thing of all for any political party is to base its future on highly flawed assumptions. And too many Democrats seem to me to be doing exactly that.