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Democrats: Is there a better story other than ‘POTUS IS A BUFFOON’?

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trump cartoon

Whether you like POTUS or not the only way to change things is at the voting booth.

I’m growing tired of my progressive friends espousing what they despise about our sitting president.

Yeah, he’s a womanizer, disrespectful of people different from himself, a pathologic liar and otherwise a dastardly dotard – not to mention his staff members.

But those are given.

In which case, why rehash all that day-in and day-out?

Democrats have no identity, let alone a story boiled down to an elevator speech.

It’s like arguing that cigarettes cause cancer. We all know that. Even the tobacco companies believe it. It’s printed on every cigarette pack. I won’t even get into the “it was the Russians” or “it was the electoral college” or any of the other red-herring issues. The Trump campaign was just a little smarter, but I digress.

Why waste time, words and energy?

Every anti-POTUS comment translates into a free ads for the sitting president that energize his base even more. POTUS stands for “Making America Great Again” but his roadshow casts that in a different light. Witness his recent whistle stop in Montana.

If you’re not in favor of making America great again, what do you believe?

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As of June 2018, this map shows there are 90 competitive districts (brown). You can rest assured that the Republicans are out in force.

Here it is 2018 – the midterm election cycle – and there is no coherent message from the Democratic Party.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz is trying to reinvent herself; Elizabeth Warren is on the stump; I still get emails from Bernie. But it’s the same old anti-POTUS schtick.

If I’m wrong on this, please set me straight.

Sure there are candidates who have this figured out, like MJ Hegar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez running for congressional seats in Texas and New York City.

Based on Hegar’s video, I put down $5 and am following her congressional race. No facts and figures cluttering up the really great story.

The map on the right shows where the contested districts are located. If you live in a safe district, like me in Colorado’s 2nd CD, send your money and pound the pavement for candidates who may have a chance turn the tide. In the fall of 2017, I spent a lot of cyber-time helping get Doug Jones elected. As an analog action I had pizza delivered to volunteers in Huntsville.

There’s a lot a volunteer can do from afar.

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This is a 1980 Ronald Reagan “Make America Great Again” campaign button from my collection.

Republicans are really good at principled messaging. I think it was Ronald Reagan who originally coined “Make America Great Again” slogan and articulated what people feel in his famous “morning in America” ads.

Obama took a page out of the Reagan playbook, with his “Hope and Change” campaign. He was a very principled, retail politician. Unlike his Democratic predecessors he told stories rather than spouting facts and figures.

I picked up a book called “The Political Brain” by Drew Weston. The book shows how a different view of the mind and brain leads to a different way of talking with voters about issues that have tied the tongues of Democrats for much of forty years—such as abortion, guns, taxes, and race. You can’t change the structure of the brain. But you can change the way you appeal to it.

BUSH DUKAKIS DEBATE 1988

Michael Dukakis was unable to recover from his non-principled responses during a debate with George HW Bush.

In 1988, Mike Dukakis is asked during a debate if he would favor the death penalty for a rapist if he assaulted and murdered his wife, Kitty. His response wasn’t about how horrific the crime is, or how he would feel or his wife’s anguish, he responds with the data show that the death penalty isn’t a crime deterrent.

Sheesh.

Republicans have boiled down Democrats to “tax and spend liberals.” That’s a throwback to the 1932 New Deal and the 1965 Great Society. Democrats haven’t gone on the offensive and come up with a four-word stereotype for Republicans.

More recently, NeoCons call progressives “libtards”, a term that has largely gone with no response, but a term that galvanizes their base.

democrat republican stereotypes

Despite the stereotypes, Republicans have a better story.

When I engage in a conversation. I’ve thought about a principled response and say something like,  “I stand for strong family values – a safe home to raise kids; a strong neighborhood and excellent schools.” It’s usually the end of the conversation.

Restating this in a non-principled jargon-laced light, “I stand for marriage equality, affordable housing, community policing and a low student – teacher ratio.” This would cast me as pro-gay, handouts to poor people, anti-gun and pro-teacher unions.

Not that there’s anything wrong with these stances, but based on the Political Brain, voters will better relate to a candidate based on emotions rather than policy and data.

One of my hobbies is collecting political campaign memorabilia. Here are a few slogans I think are principled. I’ve surmised that candidates who include references to themselves have lost more times than those with visionary slogans. I’ll list them without election year or candidate:

  • Patriotism, Protection, and Prosperity
  • Peace and Prosperity
  • Making us Proud Again
  • Prosperity and Progress
  • Believe in America

Now what?

I’m standing with Bernie

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bernie hillary

I’m standing with Bernie. He endorsed Hillary today.

This just was delivered to my In-Box from Bernie who endorsed Hillary.

I know there are a bunch of my fellow Bernie supporters who are disappointed in this, but there really was no other alternative for him. He says he wants to keep his movement growing.

I also thought Occupy would have some staying power, which didn’t.

As much as I would like to see him stay active on a national basis, I’m pretty sure Bernietheism will slowly whither on the vine. I just don’t have the energy nor the spare time I once had to save the world. 

It would have been impossible for him to get any traction as a progressive candidate. Jill Stein and the Green Party are jaded and I imagine the ardent Berniephiles will go that way.

Some Bernie supporters will join Jeb Bush who won’t support Trump or Hillary and stay home on election day. I thought about Gary Johnson, but he’s a liberal Republican masquerading as a Libertarian and would likely try to junk Obamacare. I think when the debates roll around, he’ll poll high enough to at least get into one national debate. While Trump and Hillary end up bashing each other on the stage, Johnson will pose himself as undamaged goods.

If Johnson catches on and can grab 20 percent of the vote, he could send the election either way considering ClinTrump are neck and neck within the statistical margin of error. Neither of them wants to peak too soon?

Credible third party candidates have turned elections. 
wallace buttonGeorge Wallace in 1968 – After all the violence at the Democratic National Convention, the far left forgot to vote and Richard Nixon won a close one. Back then, though, there was no voting process oversight and there’s no telling what other chicanery was perpetrated back then.
perot mup 1992Ross Perot in 1992 – Ross Perot was a fairly reasonable and very rich oil guy who funded his campaign with his own money. Turned out he and George H.W. Bush were the same candidate and after the reversing his “Read my lips, no new taxes pledge” Perot pushed the election to Clinton. Had Perot’s running mate John Stockdale been a little more articulate, Perot may have competed much better. Gore cleaned his clock in the VEEP debate.
nader 2000Ralph Nader in 2000 – I don’t think Nader was an intentional spoiler since he only won around 3% of the vote (compare that to the 20 percent garnered by Perot and the 14 percent by Wallace). Nonetheless, he took enough support from Al Gore to make it a close race. Gore won a greater percentage of the popular vote since he carried the urban strongholds, but unable to win the more important electoral college vote. Bush won the sparse Red states.
 
In a purple state like Colorado, my vote does matter. I’m a rational voter and didn’t think I’d have to select the lesser of two evils until Hillary’s arrogant and dishonest actions were revealed by FBI Director Comey.
Unlike my ultra-conservative friends who think she should be doing hard time, I see her as more of a political criminal. There are lots of those, including George Bush, et al.  (No Weapons of Mass Destruction); Ronald Reagan (Iran-Contra); Richard Nixon (Watergate, he was an actual criminal); LBJ and JFK had dirty noses. I didn’t add Bill Clinton to that list since he was impeached over lying about blow jobs and in my book, only a political high crime / misdemeanor. If he followed Monica Lewinski’s advice on foreign policy – now that would be grounds for impeachment.
The only clean guys were George H.W. Bush who had a good flip flop on a needed tax increase and Jimmy Carter who had a helicopter go bad sneaking around Iran finding hostages and they both lasted one term.
What about me?
I’m standing with Bernie on this one … here’s likely the last note I will receive from Bernie this election cycle. It will be interesting if he turns his list over to Hillary.
bernie logo

My last email from Bernie. Usually, he asks for money. Not this time.

Alan – I am writing you today to express my deep pride in the movement – the political revolution – you and I have created together over the last 15 months. When we began this historic campaign, we were considered fringe players by the political, economic and media establishment. Well, we proved them wrong.

 We showed that the American people support a bold, progressive agenda that takes on the billionaire class, that fights for racial, social, economic and environmental justice and that seeks to create a government that works for all of us and not just the big campaign donors.
 
We mobilized over 13 million voters across the country. We won 23 Democratic primary and caucus contests. We had literally hundreds of thousands of volunteers across the country. And we showed – in a way that can change politics in America forever – that you can run a competitive national grassroots campaign without begging millionaires and billionaires for campaign contributions.
 
Most importantly, we elevated the critical issues facing our country – issues the establishment has pushed under the rug for too long. We focused attention on the grotesque level of income and wealth inequality in this country and the importance of breaking up the large banks who brought our economy to the brink of collapse. We exposed our horrendous trade policies, our broken criminal justice system, and our people’s lack of access to affordable health care and higher education. We fought aggressively to address the crisis of climate change, the need for real comprehensive immigration reform, the importance of developing a foreign policy that values diplomacy over war, and so much more.
 
We have shown throughout this election that these are issues that are important to voters and that progressive solutions energize people in the fight for real change. What we have accomplished so far is historic – but our work is far from over.
 
This movement of ours – this political revolution – must continue. We cannot let all of the momentum we have achieved in the fight to transform America be lost. We will never stop fighting for what is right.
 
It is true that in terms of winning the Democratic nomination, we did come up short. But this election was never about me or any candidate. It was about the powerful coming together of millions of people to take their country back from the billionaire class. That was the strength of our campaign and it will be the strength of our movement going forward in the months and years ahead.
 
In the coming weeks, I will be announcing the creation of successor organizations to carry on the struggle that we have been a part of these past 15 months. I hope you will continue to be involved in fighting to transform America. Our goal will be to advance the progressive agenda that we believe in and to elect like-minded candidates at the federal, state and local levels who are committed to accomplishing our goals.
 
In terms of the presidential election this November, there is no doubt that the election of Donald Trump as president would be a devastating blow to all that we are fighting for. His openly bigoted and pro-billionaire campaign could precipitate the same decades-long rightward shift in American politics that happened after the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. That rightward shift after Reagan’s election infected not just politics as a whole but led to the ascendancy of the corporatist wing of the Democratic Party – an era from which we are still recovering.
 
I cannot in good conscience let that happen.
 
To have all of the work we have done in elevating our progressive ideals be dashed away by a complete Republican takeover of Washington – a takeover headed by a candidate that demonizes Latinos, Muslims, women, African Americans, veterans, and others – would be unthinkable.
 
Today, I endorsed Hillary Clinton to be our next president. I know that some of you will be disappointed with that decision. But I believe that, at this moment, our country, our values, and our common vision for a transformed America, are best served by the defeat of Donald Trump and the election of Hillary Clinton.
 
You should know that in the weeks since the last primary, both campaigns have worked together in good faith to bridge some of the policy issues that divided us during the election. Did we come to agreement on everything? Of course not. But we made important steps forward.
 
Hillary Clinton released a debt free college plan that we developed together which now includes free tuition at public colleges and universities for working families. This was a major part of our campaign’s agenda and a proposal that, if enacted into law, would revolutionize higher education in this country.
 
Secretary Clinton has also publicly committed to massive investments in health care for communities across this country that will increase primary care, including mental health care, dental care, and low-cost prescription drug access for an additional 25 million people. Importantly, she has also endorsed the enactment of a so-called public option to allow everyone in this country to participate in a public insurance program. This idea was killed by the insurance industry during consideration of President Obama’s health care program.
 
During the Democratic platform proceedings in St. Louis and Orlando, we were victorious in including amendments to make it a clear priority of the Democratic Party to fight for a $15 an hour federal minimum wage, expand Social Security, abolish the death penalty, put a price on carbon, establish a path toward the legalization of marijuana, enact major criminal justice reforms, pass comprehensive immigration reform, end for-profit prisons and detention facilities, break up too-big-to-fail banks and create a 21st century Glass-Steagall Act, close loopholes that allow big companies to avoid taxes by stashing their cash in offshore tax havens and use that revenue to rebuild America, approve the most expansive agenda ever for protecting Native American rights and so much more.
 
All of these progressive policies were at the heart of our campaign. The truth is our movement is responsible for the most progressive Democratic platform in the history of our country. All of that is the direct result of the work that our members of the platform committee did in the meetings and that you have been doing over the last 15 months.
 
But none of these initiatives will happen if we do not elect a Democratic president in November. None! In fact, we will go backward. We must elect the Democratic nominee in November and progressive Democrats up and down the ballot so that we ensure that these policy commitments can advance.
 
It is extremely important that we keep our movement together, that we hold public officials accountable and that we elect progressive candidates to office at the federal, state, and local level who will stand with us.
 
As part of that effort, we still have a tremendous amount of work left to do in the Democratic Rules Committee that will be meeting in the coming weeks. We have to enact the kinds of reforms to the Democratic Party and to the electoral process that will provide us the tools to elect progressive candidates, to allow new voices and new energy into the Party, and to break up the excessive power that the economic and political elites in the Party currently have. As with our fights on the platform committee, that will only be possible if we stand together.
 
You should know that I intend to be actively campaigning throughout this election season to elect candidates who will stand by our agenda. I hope to see many of you at events from coast to coast.
 
In conclusion, I again want to express my pride in what we have accomplished together over the last year. But so much more must be done to make our vision a reality. Now more than ever our country needs our movement – our political revolution. As you have throughout this historic campaign, I ask for your ongoing support as we continue through the fall and beyond.
 
On a personal note, I cannot say with words how appreciative Jane and I are of the kindness, dedication and love we experienced from so many people across the country. We are deeply touched by it and will never, ever forget it.
 
Please let me know that you will stand with me to defeat Donald Trump, and to elect candidates who will stand by our agenda as part of the future of our political revolution. Add your name now.
 
Forever committed, forever fighting, forever forward,
Bernie Sanders

Forget Trump, Hillary is the big GOP unifier

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donald-hillary-billThe three men in Hillary’s life right now will be nothing but trouble until she can get them in line. I, like Noam Chomsky and Robert Reich, am Feeling the Bern until I can no longer.

Bernie can’t win. Why doesn’t he quit?

The better question is why doesn’t Hillary adopt some of Bernie’s tenets before the convention?

As long as Hillary keeps wearing the blinders, her path doesn’t get any straighter.

Bernie is sticking around to nurture his populist movement. So far, do good, but I thought Occupy would get traction, but turns out Occupy morphed into Bernie.

Hillary, likely, is betting Bernie, like Occupy, will be irrelevant. His followers have zero chance of changing Wall Street.

Trump is showing his campaign hand. He’s going after Bill. I’m pretty sure, he’s dis-entombing Monica Lewinsky, Gennifer Flowers, Paula Jones and others we might not have known were hidden in the crypt.

It’s gonna get ugly.

Hearsay, innuendo, made up stuff, the whole shebang.

The political pundits are dancing around the issue, bracing for the onslaught. Hillary is ignoring it.

Then there’s the email thing. I don’t agree the latest reports are a rehash. She’s tried joking it off, ignoring it, sending Claire McCaskill to run interference, even apologizing.

She can’t shake it. It keeps popping up in the tabloid and ‘legit’ news cycles with click bait headlines of all kinds. She isn’t helping her cause.

gennifer-flowers-monica-lewinsky1It’s gonna be uglier than any campaign I’ve seen before, which isn’t saying much since none of them have been this gossipy and personal.

This seems different than Nixon’s lying, cheating, and stealing, but campaign 2016 is being treated as if it’s the same as politics as usual though.

In fact, many of the Hillary supporters I know, at least who I read on facebook, say something to the effect, “Well, the Clintons have baggage and have had their clocks cleaned for 25 years or more, and have emerged relatively unscathed – so, blah blah blah?

I don’t think the election season will play out like typical politics.

Hillary just said that Bill is in charge of job creation. He’s officially fair game assuming Hillary finally gets enough delegates and she’ll have to accept not only his successes but his less successful actions.

Trump may have a 70 percent disapproval rating among women voters but he’ll prove his detractors wrong by being one of the biggest supporters of women when he continues to pile on an abusive Bill Clinton.

Hillary needs to own the violence against women narrative and along with it, solidify the electorate behind her story. So far, she doesn’t really have many stories. She’s campaigning on her political savvy – which is diverse at the state and federal levels and in the community. There’s no doubt she’s smart and experienced.

Without a good narrative, her political experience and knowledge will go the way of Mike Dukakis, Al Gore and John Kerry. These three also campaigned as highly experienced statistics-spewing policy wonks and ignored the simple Republican story lines against them.

dukakis-hortonDukakis didn’t respond to attacks about being weak on crime and Willie Horton. Al Gore couldn’t shake Bill Clinton nor did he have any answer to the “fuzzy math” comments by Bush 43 about his Medicare lock box  that couldn’t get any traction a month before the election. Kerry ignored the “Swift Boat” smear campaign and allowed George W. to paint himself as an “ah, shucks rancher” when he and Kerry both shared the same upper crust pedigrees.

What if Hillary said something like, “You know, it’s no secret that my marriage has had it’s share if problems, maybe like yours. There were times I thought my husband was a big SOB there were other times when things were great. I’m not proud about how my personal life went down like an episode of “Scandal.” Bill was impeached, he’s had a tough hill to climb. I have to tell you our entire family paid for his screw ups, and we moved forward.”

Victim blamers ask, “Why did Hillary stay?” as opposed to “Why didn’t Bill change?”

Well, Bill got a loud wake up call from the public-humiliation perpetrator treatment program almost lost his job and that was that. Hillary is putting him in charge of job creation. I did think his welfare to work program was a good one. The same could happen with a new look for incentive-based Medicaid.

Trump’s misstep about his “Bill strategy” is blaming Hillary because she “enabled” hom to philander – he leaves a lot of subtext there without having to explain. That will back fire except among the men and women who believe that women should be subservient.

So far, Bill has been brushing Trump off like lint, but his message should be the same. Something like, “Well, Anderson, we had some rough patches. They were all caused by my stupidity and it really messed up our family, in fact, I don’t know if it will totally heal up.

“We’ve gotten through it. Chelsea has a family of her own now and being a grand father has really put things into perspective. Hillary could have sent me packing, but instead we decided to work things out and I can’t say that’s been easy, but we support each other 100 percent now and want to get down to being responsive to the American people.”

What about Bernie.

He’s not going away anytime soon. He has a pretty good chance to win the rest of the states, including California. Lucky for Hillary, she has the super delegates mostly in the bag come June 7th.

If Hillary wants Bernie to go away, her campaign needs to start capitulating a bit. If it’s viewed as a zero – sum game (we won, so go home) there will be a bunch of disgruntled Bernie supporters, myself included.

Here’s how I would mansplain her strategy.

What if Hillary called up Bernie and said, “You know Bernie, you’ve raised a lot of good points over the past year and figured out how to harness that grassroots energy particularly among young people. To tell you the truth, I’m not so good at that.

Buffett Gates“You’re right, I agree with you about figuring out how to keep money out of politics and I’ve been a little to complacent on that and it’s going to be a little uncomfortable for me to deal with the big banks and Wall Street after the PAC that’s been supporting me has accepted all that money. I didn’t think it was that big a deal, but apparently it is.

“But you know what? They’re going to have to cry in their beer when I’m not with them. I’m also okay with raising taxes on the upper one percent and they better get on board with that like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and others have about spreading out the wealth.

“So are we going to do this together? That means you’ll have to reign in your young horses and let them know we’re all in this together!”

It will take some doing, but she can win this thing. It’s not going to be politics as usual.