Whatâs
Wrong Today:
Democrats are still taking 2012 Presidential election victory laps,
wasting their breath talking about how the Republicans
need to retool their party if they are to be relevant in 2014 or in
2016. This is wishful thinking.
Right-aligned politicians are not going to shift towards moderate viewpoints
and make legislating in the center-left a breeze for Mr. Obama.
Democrats need to get back to focusing
on how they will deliver more jobs to
the American people, before Mr. Obama is declared the Democratâs Hoover.
They need to find a candidate on their
shallow bench of less than 60-year-old
politicians who can appeal to the increasingly younger electorate. They
should figure out how they will sell a winning middle class message, particularly
if Mr. Obamaâs Grand Bargain, which today
looks to be anti-middle class, becomes another Democratic legacy.
If they fail to work conclusively on
these issues, they will be vulnerable to a successful attack from the Republican
party, possibly to an attack by a populist from the far right, even from a
third party right wing candidate.
It isnât that farfetched.
Look at these voter demographics from November 6th:
1. According
to the Census Bureau, 63.4% of the US
population consists of non-Hispanic
whites
2. The portion of non-Hispanic
white voters was 70% because minorities are younger and some are not
citizens
3. Obama
won the Presidential race in states that, on the whole, are âwhiterâ than
average:
- The states he won where the portion of non-Hispanic whites exceeded the average are: NH (92.2%), IA
(86.4%), WI (83.1%), MN (82.8%), OH (81.0%), PA (79.2%), OR (78.1%), MI (76.4%),
CO (69.7%) and VA (64.5%). These represent 113 electoral votes.
- He
won in only 3 states with a higher % of minorities than the national average: Florida,
Nevada, and New Mexico, representing 40 electoral votes.
In many
of these states, running a blue collar white guy instead of a corporate raider
white guy probably would have helped the Republicans, who
won states with higher minority
populations where voting was divided more clearly by evangelical and/or
ethnic lines, including: Texas, Arizona, Georgia, South Carolina, Mississippi,
Alabama and Louisiana (97 electoral votes).
Looking
at this, there is room for a populist Tea-Party
type to succeed in winning the Presidency. And if the Republican nominee
is a centrist, a third party could emerge
to the right of the Republican party.
And
the work of mobilizing a populist candidate to challenge Democrats has already started. Letâs look at two of their ideas that
have gained traction:
1. State Secession is being used as a tool
to keep the true believers on the extreme right engaged:
Petitions signed by hundreds of thousands of Americans
seeking permission for their states to peacefully secede from the union have
now been filed for all 50 states on the White House website.
There is no proof that the petitioners
actually are residents of the state where they have signed petitions. These
are Internet petitions, after all.
The petitions are symbolic
and nothing new.
Similar petitions were filed after the 2004 and 2008 elections. Secession,
though, is not the only thing people are petitioning for: There are 140
petitions currently displayed on the site: two seeking federal legalization of
marijuana, one asking for the halt of U.S. drone strikes and one demanding a recount of the election.
2. An
impeach
Obama movement by the far right is also
underway. The Conservative Majority Fund, a conservative group known
primarily for spreading the birther conspiracy, has launched a robocall campaign
to gin up support for the President’s impeachment. Open
Secrets.org shows that the Conservative Majority fund spent $4.25 million
against Mr. Obama in the 2012 election cycle.
The HuffPo detailed
an email sent by the Fund:
âOur only recourse now is to move
forward with the full impeachment of President Obama. We suspect that Obama is
guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors and that there may be grounds for
impeachment as is laid out in the constitution. Further, he may not even be a
U.S. citizenâŚImpeachment is our only option.â
People
in Washington, Colorado, New Jersey and Virginia have reported receiving the
call.
Rather than make
fun of these two points on a curve, consider for a moment that they actually point towards something:
These continuing efforts to undermine the legitimacy of the Federal Government
and the Democrats could open the door
to a Republican or Tea Party populist presidential
candidate who runs on jobs, jobs,
jobs while directly soliciting the working class.
By then, the working
class may well be desperate for a good economy and they could give the Tea
Party an audience. The candidate wouldnât need special skills or
qualifications, just an especially
well-crafted faux-sincere demagogic appeal.
Democrats should expect to see assaults on labor unions,
environmental and financial regulation; the Tea Partyâs favorite job-killing
bogey men. The Right knows the
value of picking their villains early in the play.
If we are still experiencing a stagnant economy, in which real wage
growth is flat and unemployment remains high, the Republicans or a third party to their
right may not find winning in 2016 such heavy lifting.
The angry, white guy could easily
make a comeback, when it is the morning after in America.
So, go
ahead, order your Biden or Hillary 2016 buttons.
Let
the positioning begin!
