Lessons from Georgia

Lessons from Georgia

John Ossoff lost the Georgia 6th Congressional District last night. It was a tough sell: a District that had been Republican since 1979, and included Newt Gingrich and present Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price as the past two holders of the seat. It clearly was not a “moderate” seat (Price, Gingrich were never considered “moderates”) but it would seem if you spend $35 MILLION to win one Congressional seat in the first six months of the chaos called the Trump Administration, you ought to be able to pull it off.

It wasn’t money. What are the lessons of Georgia 6th?

First, in an uphill battle, it doesn’t help that the candidate didn’t live in the District. “Carpetbagging” is a very familiar term in the South. The “nice” name for Northerners who came down to the South to take advantage of the Reconstruction Era, it never has been a popular position for any candidate, anywhere. Even Evan Bayh, the veteran Senator from Indiana, failed in a bid to return to the Senate in 2016, when it became clear that he had spent most of the last six years in Washington, D.C rather than Indiana.

For a candidate to run with that near-fatal flaw in a traditionally right leaning and Republican District in the South, just seems to be like starting a car race with four flat tires. His opponent, Karen Handel, never let him, or the District, forget it.

This points to the first dramatic problem for the Democratic Party. From the Presidency on down, where are the candidates? The fact that clearly Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden  are keeping their hands in for the 2020 Presidential race, shows that there isn’t a “bench” to draw from. Ohio is a dramatic example: beyond Senator Sherrod Brown there is NO state known office holder. While some mention Richard Cordray, former Ohio Attorney General and current Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; other statewide “contenders” include “family friendly” show host Jerry Springer, former Governor Ted Strickland, 76 years old, and Mike Coleman, 62 year old former Mayor of Columbus.

Where are the young guns? Where are Ohio’s John Ossoff’s, where are the strong women and men who have ideas that appeal to Ohio’s hard-working voters?

Which leads to the second problem: what is the message of the Democratic Party? Clearly the current message is that Trump is wrong (and Obama was right) and while that certainly appeals to the Democratic base, it requires more than just the base to win elections in Ohio and it will certainly require more to turn the House, Senate and Presidency around.

One lesson the actions of the Republicans from 2008 – 2016 is that obstruction works. And while that may have been true for them, I hope that the Democratic party can do better than that. Clearly the message of the party has been compassion for the poor, minorities, and folks that have been disenfranchised. What is missing: the Democratic Party that also represented the needs of the “worker.” How did the party which was based in “blue collar” workers, allow them to get ripped away by a party committed to defending the wealthy? And more importantly, how can the Democratic Party reach back to those workers, as well as keep the “rainbow coalition” (thanks Jesse Jackson) intact?

And, can the Democratic Party do that and still appeal to the highly educated white collar suburbs that have been gerrymandered into Congressional Districts?

What is required of the Democratic Party now? A message that is bigger than the current one: Obama was right, Trump shouldn’t have won, and he needs to be removed. While I agree with all of those things, it won’t win elections tomorrow.  We need to find new faces and support them (Duval Patrick where are you?) and we need to define a message that appeals to more than just our base.

Author: Marty Dahlman

I'm Marty Dahlman. After forty years of teaching and coaching track and cross country, I've finally retired!!! I've also spent a lot of time in politics, working campaigns from local school elections to Presidential campaigns. View all posts by Marty Dahlman