Subject: Re: [big campaign] New Huff Post from Creamer-Lessons from Massachusetts Defeat
From: David Donnelly <[email-masked]>
To: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>, [email-masked], [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 2010 09:25:43 -0500
List-Id: <bigcampaign.googlegroups.com>

All,

If there¹s anyone considering national polling to assess the messaging Bob¹s
urging below, I¹d be game to consider joint work, or helping in other ways.
Please let me know.

David

On 1/20/10 9:14 AM, "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]> wrote:

> Lessons from the Massachusetts Defeat
>  
>  
>      The Massachusetts Senate race is a watershed event that has enormous
> implications for this political year.  The media is intent on making it a
> referendum on President Obama and his health care reform plan. But that
> interpretation of the results is just flat wrong.
>  
>      President Obama maintains a fairly robust 55% approval rate in
> Massachusetts. And while it is true that the polling indicates that the ³Obama
> Health Reform Plan² as a general concept is not very popular there, the
> individual components of reform continue to have substantial levels of public
> support  both in Massachusetts and around the country.
>  
>      The fact is that if you see enough TV spots saying that the ³Obama health
> care plan² will cost jobs, take away your freedom, and cut your Medicare (all
> factually wrong)  you start to believe it.  Because of the massive length of
> the health care battle, the pro-health care reform forces, have simply been
> outgunned on TV by the big insurance companies and the Chamber of Commerce
> (mainly funded by the big insurance companies) that have pockets of infinite
> depth. 
>  
>      On the other hand, if you ask people if they want to end the ability of
> insurance companies to use preexisting conditions to deny care; make health
> insurance available at affordable prices to everyone; require insurance
> companies to spend the bulk of their premiums on health care instead of
> profits and CEO salaries; or give people the alternative of a public option 
> you get very strong support.
>  
>      Add to that the fact that 98% of people in Massachusetts have health
> insurance because of their own state based health care reform -- and almost
> 80% are happy with their health insurance -- and it¹s clear that the race
> there was not at all a referendum on health care reform.
>  
>      There are however major critical lessons for Democrats in the
> Massachusetts defeat:
>  
>      Lesson #1.The big take away: don¹t run a bad campaign.  The Coakley
> campaign made four critical errors any one of which, by itself, probably cost
> her the election.
>  
>      First, they did not follow the first law of the Obama campaign to ³leave
> no stone unturned².  Coakley went on vacation in the Caribbean after her
> primary victory.  She didn¹t campaign and she didn¹t raise money.  When the
> campaign¹s pollsters  the respected firm of Lake Research  proposed doing a
> tracking poll after the primary, they were told there was no money. As a
> result, the campaign was caught flat footed as Brown began to surge.
>  
>      The reason you leave no stone unturned in a campaign, it to account for
> the unexpected.   Yes, Coakley was 20 points up on Brown after the primary,
> but if the campaign was not asleep at the switch it would have discovered the
> Brown surge while it could still be stopped.
>  
>      Second, the campaign allowed Brown to define himself  and Coakley -- for
> swing voters.  When Brown began a wave of advertising between Christmas and
> New Years, it went unanswered.  The moment Brown began to surge, the campaign
> should have hit back and defined him as a shill for the Big Banks and
> insurance companies  not the attractive, charismatic outsider he appeared to
> be to many voters.
>  
>      Third, the campaign allowed their candidate to be perceived as the elite
> insider  and ceded to Brown the role of crusading outsider.  Democrats win
> when they appear to be what they ought to be  populist agents of change  not
> competent insider technocrats. That is particularly true when people are angry
> at the status quo.
>  
>      Forth, unbelievably, the campaign had no field program.  It was left to
> the heroic efforts of Organize for America (OFA) to try to save the day by
> improvising a field program in the last week and a half.  More than anything
> else, Coakley lost because of a wave of Republican turnout. Until OFA arrived
> there was no apparatus in place to increase Democratic turnout.  That borders
> on political malpractice. OFA did everything it could. Over the last weekend
> OFA made over 1.2 million turn out calls to potential Democratic voters.  But
> great field programs  particularly door to door programs that are the most
> effective means of boosting turnout --  must be organized with several months
> of lead time  not a week and a half.
>  
>      OFA proved once again how invaluable it is to the Democratic Party.  Were
> it not for their efforts  and the Obama trip to Massachusetts  Coakley could
> have been routed in a blowout that would have shaken Democratic confidence to
> its foundation. 
>  
>      Even with all of these problems, Coakley might have still pulled it out
> had Brown himself not been an exciting, engaging, energetic candidate with an
> interesting history who ran a flawless campaign.  In the end, elections are
> about the candidate and their campaigns.  People vote for people; and to the
> voters the quality of their campaigns is a powerful symbol of the qualities of
> the candidate.  
>  
>      Lesson #2: There is a great deal of anger in America that is focused
> first and foremost on people¹s own economic prospects and frustration that
> change appears so difficult.  Democrats have to do everything in our power to
> deliver jobs.  And we must focus that anger at the people who caused the
> economic meltdown and are delaying fundamental change: the insurance
> companies, the Big Wall Street banks, the energy companies.
>  
>      The fact of the matter is that when people are angry, if you don¹t focus
> that anger on the people who really caused their problems  they will focus it
> on the people in charge  in this case Democrats  even if they were not
> mainly to blame. 
>  
>      It was the financial sector  Wall Street speculators, the Big Banks, the
> insurance companies  that caused the worst economic disaster since the Great
> Depression.  And the Republicans  and their ³markets uber alles² philosophy
> made it all possible.
>  
>      Democrats must have a clear, populist frame to win elections in 2010. In
> Massachusetts the campaign began to talk about the President¹s proposal to tax
> Wall Street in the final hours, but it was too late. Coakley had allowed
> herself to be framed as an insider, technocrat versus a crusading populist
> outsider  even though Brown will in fact go to Washington and vote down the
> line for the big insurance companies and Wall Street Banks.
>  
>      To appeal to independent voters we do not have to be ³more moderate² or
> ³measured² as some have argued.  We must be bolder and more populist.
>  
>      And the problem is not  as one commentator argued last night  a
> frustration with the ³fiscal overreach² of the Democrats.  The problem is that
> we have not produced enough jobs. Democrats must pass a large jobs program
> now, and the deficit can¹t stand in the way.  And let¹s remember, it was
> George Bush who turned a Clinton surplus into more debt that all other
> previous President¹s combined.
>  
>      Lesson #3: We have to keep our base inspired and mobilized -- to make
> change and to win elections.  The Massachusetts special election taught the
> same lesson as the Democrats¹ catastrophic loss in 1994  we have to inspire
> our voters to go to the polls. Democrats lost control of Congress in 1994
> because our voters stayed home.
>  
>      In Massachusetts the right wing base was infused with excitement over the
> possibility of taking progressive icon Ted Kennedy¹s Senate seat  and
> hobbling Obama¹s agenda in the Senate.  The Democratic base was not inspired
> by the relatively bland Coakley and has been generally dispirited by the
> difficulty of passing health care, Lieberman¹s sabotage of the public option 
> and the general recognition that Barack Obama can not simply wave a wand and
> make change.  
>  
>      The insurance companies, Wall Street banks and energy companies haven¹t
> just rolled over and played dead.  They have put up tough  tooth and nail
> battles  to defend the status quo.
>  
>      Though I don¹t believe that the shape of the health care bill would have
> likely been a great deal different, there is no question that President Obama
> would be in better political shape with the base of the Democratic Party if he
> had been a more forceful advocate of the public option  and appeared more
> forceful in taking on Wall Street.
>  
>      On the other hand, Progressive leaders across America need to direct
> their own frustration at the forces that are defending the status quo and
> standing in the way of the Obama agenda.  They need to take personal
> responsibility for rallying the base against our true enemies  Wall Street,
> the insurance industry, the energy companies and the Republicans -- not
> encouraging cynicism and disaffection of base voters.  That sense of
> frustration lead directly to a victory for Brown and now we are stuck with one
> more huge impediment to change in the U.S. Senate.
>  
>      Lesson #4: Democrats must do whatever is necessary to pass a good health
> care reform now. The President, House Speaker and Senate Majority Leader have
> all pledged to do just that. The absolute worst response to the Republican
> victory in Massachusetts would be to cut and run. We have to muster our forces
> and do whatever is necessary to get it done.
>  
>      Bad enough that the late Senator Edward Kennedy¹s seat is now in the
> hands of a Republican that does not share his progressive values.  We must do
> whatever is necessary to assure that the fulfillment of his life long dream of
> health care for all is not thwarted as well.
>  
>      That will probably require that some portion of the bill be passed
> through the budget reconciliation process that requires only 51 votes, now
> that the Senate no longer has 60 members who caucus with the Democrats.  If
> so, so be it. 
>  
>      The idea that a minority of 41 members of the Senate can thwart the will
> of the majority is fundamentally undemocratic in the first place.
>  
>      In fact, the Senate needs to change its rules to eliminate the abusive
> use of filibusters that now effectively require 60 votes to pass any
> significant piece of legislation.
>  
>      The Massachusetts loss was a set back for the Progressive agenda. But it
> is in times of adversity that voters get to test the mettle of leaders and
> political parties.  Time to square our shoulders, stand up straight, and show
> America that we can really make fundamental change.
>  
> Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author
> of the recent book:  ³Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win,² available
> on Amazon.com. 
> <http://www.amazon.com/Listen-Your-Mother-Straight-Progressives/dp/0979585295/
> ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213241439&sr=8-1>
> 
>  
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>      .
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