We’ve already written on how extremely foolhardy it was for Senate Democrats to trust their entire campaign arm to a man, Sen. Michael Bennet, who has won exactly one election in his life. It appears we weren’t the only ones to notice. In another postmortem story on the 2014 election, McClatchy DC writes about how much gnashing of teeth is going on among Democrats. One particular comment grabbed our attention:
Too often, [Iowa Chairman Scott Brennan] said, Democrats seemed engaged in implementing strategy rather than discussing substance. “How many times can you knock on someone’s door?” asked Washington Chairman Jaxon Ravens. “It’s not so much how often you talk to them, but what you say.” [the Peak’s emphasis]
Yet, not only knocking on doors, but knocking repeatedly on the right doors was the entire thrust of Sen. Mumbles infamous “Bannock Street” strategy. Bennet took his one-off victory and extrapolated it to the nth degree, to the point where he had thought he solved how to win campaigns forever. It’s exactly this arrogance in himself and his strategy that led directly to Udall’s defeat. “No, no, no, Udall, don’t worry about being your Outward-Boundy self, just keep talking about women’s hoo-hahs, and that will be enough for my Bannock Street to finish the job.” (Except, add a bunch of ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’ in there because Bennet has never spoken that clearly in his life before).
The one thing Bennet can take refuge in is the fact that pretty much all Democrats are screwed right now. Yeah, that thousand-year Democratic majority that was supposed to follow after President Obama’s victories in 2008 and 2012, well, let’s just say no one’s going to be comparing Obama’s over-educated + minorities strategy to Nixon’s Southern strategy anytime soon. As McCs writes:
One group of party leaders sees 2014 as simply a bad year, requiring just some tweaks. Others regard 2014 as a disaster and want an overhaul, and fast.
Leading the tear-it-up side are liberals, the party’s most loyal constituency. They’re angry because they saw no clear economic message pledging to help people with middle- and lower-class incomes.
… “The national Democratic Party is just too liberal for us,” explained Richard Harpootlian, a Columbia, S.C., attorney and former South Carolina Democratic chairman. [the Peak’s emphasis]
That’s right PeakNation™, half of the Democratic party thinks they lost because they weren’t liberal enough, while the other half think they lost because the Democratic party was too liberal. Yes… just soak it in… blue on blue conflict… ahh… is just… so… relaxing.
With leaders as extreme as Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Harry Reid, and President Obama, it was only a matter of time before they pulled the rest of their party off the liberal cliff with them. Now, having thoroughly abandoned one of their core constituencies of the past century, working-class whites, Democrats may be looking for another stable, winning coalition for a while.
Especially when they have inept people like Bennet creating their campaign strategies.