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Democratic Message: We May Be Incompetent, But They're
Crazy<http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/07/democratic-message-we-may-be-incompetent-but-theyre-crazy/60575/>
POLITICS <http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/> JUL 28 2010, 4:16 PM
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(19)<http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/07/democratic-message-we-may-be-incompetent-but-theyre-crazy/60575/#disqus_thread>
Only in meta-ville do you hold a press conference to announce a campaign
message for the fall. Today, the Democratic Party asked reporters to come
over to their Ivy Lane headquarters to listen to the party chairman describe
how the central collective plans to "define" Republicans heading into the
midterm elections. "Define" is one of those meta-ville words, too, like
"paint." When I hear strategists use these terms, I often picture a Democrat
and a Republican locked in a room, pointing at each other and shouting:
"You're an idiot." "No, you are!" Or, alternatively, they're spray-painting
slogans on each other.

Good party messages are organic, and they are not announced. Fortunately for
Democrats, theirs just sort of came along, thanks to the Tea Party movement,
which has invited into politics hecklers and cranks and fairly fringe
candidates who are currently hurting the Republican Party in several key
states. Oh, but the Tea Party is an organic movement of conservative men and
women who will feel insulted if the Democrats cast them as crazy and lumps
them together with Republicans, right? Nah. These people are perpetually
offended by the Democratic Party.

The Democratic strategy in a nutshell is small enough to fit in one but has
the protein of a good, tasty nut. The Republicans want to be mayors of
crazy-town. They've embraced a fringe and proto-racist isolationist and
ignorant conservative populism that has no solutions for fixing anything and
the collective intelligence of a wine flask. This IS offensive and over the
top, and the more Democrats repeat it, and the more dumb things some
Republican candidates do, the more generally conservative voters who might
be thinking of sending a message to Democrats by voting for a Republican
will be reminded that the replacement party is even more loony than the
party that can't tie its shoes. This is a strategy of delegitimization, not
affirmation. It is how you reduce independent turnout. It's how you
fundraise for your own party.

A corollary: the House is not going to save itself for Democrats. Let's
stipulate that House Democrats have passed a lot of legislation. It's too
late to convince voters that all of it was good. So selling is not going to
work. If you've already decided not to buy an Acura, you're not going to be
convinced just because James Spader's melifluous voice tells you that it's
the right thing to do. Decision science suggests that the only avenue
available to Democrats is to prevent people from making the OTHER choice,
too.

It's not pretty, but it might work.

BTW: If President Obama is able to increase his approval rating by five or
six points nationally, he can probably save the House for Democrats.
--
Eric D. Schwerin
Rosemont Seneca Partners
(202) 333-1880
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.co