Subject: [big campaign] New Huff Post from Creamer - Democrats Don't Have to Moderate to Win in 2010
From: [email-masked]
To: [email-masked], [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 2009 09:43:41 EST
List-Id: <bigcampaign.googlegroups.com>

Democrats Do Not Need to Become More “Moderate” to Win in  2010 – Four 
Rules for Victory in November 

There is little doubt that over the last several months President Obama’s  
poll numbers – and those of Democrats generally – have taken a swing for 
the  worse.  The President’s job approval  numbers have drifted below 50%.  
The  popularity of some of his signature initiatives has dropped.  Last week, 
Democratic Congressman Parker  Griffith of Alabama announced he was 
switching parties –  presumably in order to enhance his odds of political survival 
next  fall. 
These events have given rise to calls that the Democratic agenda needs to  
become more “moderate” or “centrist” and that this would somehow be more  
attractive to Independent voters.   
Nothing could be further from the truth.   
“Moderating” our goals is not a recipe for  victory.  It is a recipe for  
failure.  Last fall, voters  overwhelming voted for change, and they knew 
then – and still know now – the  kind of change they wanted.   
They wanted to end the stranglehold of the private insurance companies  
that continues to put every American a single illness – or one layoff – away  
from financial catastrophe. They want to take bold, clear action to assure 
that  America is in the forefront of  creating the clean energy jobs of the 
future – and leave a thriving healthy  planet to our children. They wanted to 
fundamentally change the  bull-in-the-china shop foreign policy of the Bush 
years and re-establish  American leadership in the world.  Most 
importantly, they rejected the failed economic policies that allowed  the recklessness 
of huge Wall Street banks to plunge the economy into free  fall—and cost 
millions their livelihoods.  They desperately want leadership that will lay the 
foundation for long  term, bottom-up, widely shared prosperity.  
In other words they wanted… and  still want… fundamental change. 
No one should be surprised that fundamental change does not come  easily.   
The massive array of  forces with vested interests in the status quo will 
bite, kick, poke out eyes,  lie, threaten, bully and do pretty much 
everything else within their power to  stop fundamental change.  Frederick  Douglass 
was right: “Power surrenders nothing without a struggle, it never has,  it 
never will.” 
That means we might not win everything we want every time we enter the  
arena of battle.  But to be successful in next fall’s  elections and increase 
our odds of long-term victory we must do four  things: 
1). Democrats need to demonstrate  to the voters that we are fighting tooth 
and nail for the goals they  support.   This is  critically important to 
keep the base of the Party engaged and energized.  But it is also important to 
continually  remind swing voters that we have not forgotten our mandate for 
change.   
Remember that there are only two groups who decide elections: swing,  
persuadable voters; and mobilizable voters who would support our candidates, but  
have to be motivated to go to the polls.   
In the 2008 elections, the Obama campaign, and Democrats in general,  
demonstrated that we can and must address both.  And in off-year elections, both 
are just  as important.  In 1994, the  Democratic loss of the House not only 
involved disillusionment among swing  voters.  It was particularly driven  
by depressed Democratic turnout.  And it turns out that neither the 
motivation of mobilizable voters, nor  the support of persuadables are generally 
enhanced by a more “moderate” approach  to our policy agenda or how we talk 
about it.  That is particularly true  today. 
Both base and  swing voters need to be convinced that however successful we 
are in each given  legislative or political engagement, that we are 
fundamentally on their side,  and that we are willing to take on the forces of the 
status quo without  complaint or reservation.  
I do not personally believe, as some Progressives do, that we would be in  
a better position to get a strong public option as part of this round of 
health  care reform had President Obama been a more ardent advocate.  (I do, by 
the way, think that a public  option – which continues to have overwhelming 
public support – will be approved  before many of the provisions of the 
health care reform bill go into  effect.)  But I do believe that  President 
Obama would have stronger political support among base and independent  voters 
had he been a more forceful public option advocate.   People want to see 
their leaders  fighting for the things they support, even if in the end they 
are not entirely  successful. 
2). Democrats need to  deliver. When you’re in power, fighting is not 
enough.  The President and Democratic Congress  have to deliver concrete 
measurable results.  That is what the voters think they hire  leaders to do.  Voters 
not only want  leaders who are on their side.  They  also want strong, 
effective leaders who can turn goals in to reality.   
Even if it’s not perfect, we need to deliver on fundamental health care  
reform.  Even if it’s not everything  we want, we need to make significant 
progress on clean energy jobs and global  warming.  Recent immigrants – and  
especially Latino voters – expect us to deliver on comprehensive immigration  
reform.  And of course, all  Americans demand that we deliver on economic 
change.   
That last point requires two  things.  On the one hand, we have to  turn 
the economy around in the short  term and start creating measurable increases 
in jobs.  By next November, the economic future  must look brighter for most 
everyday Americans or we will suffer significant  political losses.  By 
Election Day  people have to see things in their own  personal everyday life 
experience (not just political rhetoric from  Washington)  that gives them 
hope that in the short run their economic prospects are  improving.  
To make that happen we don’t need  to “moderate” our goals.   God  knows 
we don’t have to be more concerned with the deficit.  Democrats need to use 
every organ of  political power available to them – in the Executive Branch 
and Congress – to  create jobs.   A jobs bill at least as robust as the one  
that passed the House in December should pass the Senate and be signed into 
law  ASAP. Every ounce of executive power should be mobilized to convert 
available  funding from the Economic Recovery Bill – and every other possible 
source --  into jobs NOW.  November is coming  up on the horizon very fast; 
we cannot afford to wait.  
Second, we must lay the foundation for long-term economic growth by  
continuing to tackle the problems of health care reform, creation of clean  energy 
jobs, immigration reform, investment in education at all levels – and  
especially taking action to shrink the bloated financial sector that almost sent 
 the world into another Great Depression.   It is no time to be “moderate” 
in  our approach to Wall Street.   
3). Not only do we need to  forcefully rein in the power of Wall Street and 
the Big Banks – we need to frame  the political dialogue in decidedly 
populist terms.   
Voters are angry – as they should be.  We can’t be talking about financial 
 regulatory reform in cold, clinical economic terms.  We need to make the 
issues that brought  our economy to a standstill very personal.  We don’t 
need “moderate” language here.  The debate needs to be cast in moral terms – 
in the terms of right and  wrong. That’s how the voters see it.  
The fact is that a tiny number of people who dominate our financial  sector 
systematically skimmed off all the fruits of financial growth during the  
last decade for themselves.  They  justified literally billions of dollars of 
bonuses, stock options and perks  while the average income of most 
households shrank.  And then – as if that was not bad enough  – their reckless 
pursuit of personal greed created a massive financial house of  cards that 
collapsed and cost millions of Americans their livelihoods.   
Voters are furious that after hundreds of billions in taxpayer bailouts  to 
prevent complete financial meltdown, much of this gang is back in business, 
 and worse yet, acting as if they somehow deserve to make ten million 
dollar  bonuses – or to get 70 million dollar golden parachutes – while everyday 
people  trudge through this winter’s snow to the unemployment office.   
When “moderates” talk about more “centrist” positions on financial  
reform, they mean positions that are more acceptable to the bankers that bundle  
together big financial contributions for Republican and Democrats alike.  
That’s not what we need to do to  win.  That’s what voters find most  
repulsive about politics.   
Voters want the proverbial money  changers thrown out of the temple of 
government.  They don’t want Democrats to be more  milquetoast and “sensible.” 
They want something done to right this extraordinary  wrong and to create a 
society and economy that once again allows everyone to  succeed together, 
and rewards hard  work – not sharp speculators whose chief skills involve 
making themselves  rich at the expense of the working people who actually create 
the wealth that  they squander on $5,000 blouses, $50 million dollar 
estates, and trips to the  South of France. 
If you want to get people in rural and small-town America fired up for  
Democrats, it won’t be by sounding more “moderate” or tepid in our goals or in 
 the way we talk.  It won’t be by  cozying up to banks and health insurance 
companies.  It will be by focusing their legitimate  anger where it 
belongs: on the Big  Wall Street Banks.    If it’s not focused there,  it will be 
focused on those who are in charge of government: Democrats.  
The recipe for victory for  Democrats in November does not involve more “
moderation,” it involves more  populism.  But holding Big Wall  Street Bankers 
accountable is not enough. 
4). We must continue to  forcefully and proudly stand up for progressive 
values.  And we must, in particular, contrast  those values to the values of 
greed and division that lead us down the path to  economic failure only a 
year ago.   
To win, we must continue to define the value frame.  We must continue to 
assert that we’re  all in this together, not all in this alone.  We must 
continue to hold up the vision of  a society built on principles of unity not 
division, hope not fear, equality not  subjugation. We must re-commit to the 
premise that if each of us is better  educated all of us will be wiser, that 
it is not true that in order for me to be  richer you have to be poorer – but 
rather that if each of us is more prosperous,  all of us will have more 
opportunity-- that our success comes from cooperation  and mutual respect.  
We have to continue to stay on the offense because in politics, if you’re  
playing defense you’re losing. If we fall back into old bad habits of 
allowing  our critics on the right – the forces of the status quo – to define the 
terms of  debate, we will lose more than political ground in 2010. We will 
lose an  historic opportunity to create a progressive realignment in 
American politics.  
Robert Creamer is a long-time  political organizer and strategist, and 
author of the recent book: “Stand Up  Straight: How Progressives Can Win,” 
available on _amazon.com_ 
(http://www.amazon.com/Listen-Your-Mother-Straight-Progressives/dp/0979585295/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qi
d=1206567141&sr=8-1) 

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