Democrats Hone a New Message: Its the Economy, Everyone.

[elleng]

'It was a blunt, plain-spoken set of senators who gathered last Monday at the Washington home of Senator Heidi Heitkamp, Democrat of North Dakota, dining on Chinese food as they vented frustration about the missteps of the Democratic Party.

To this decidedly centrist group, the 2016 election was nothing short of a fiasco: final proof that its national party had grown indifferent to the rural, more conservative areas represented by Democrats like Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Jon Tester of Montana, who attended the dinner. All face difficult re-election races in 2018.

The party, these senators said, had grown overly fixated on cultural issues with limited appeal to the heartland. They criticized Hillary Clinton’s campaign slogan, “Stronger Together,” as flat and opaque, according to multiple people present at the dinner, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Most of all, they lamented, Democrats had simply failed to offer a clarion message about the economy with appeal to all 50 states.'>>>

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/10/us/democrats-economy-working-class.html?

[Red Oak]

1. Excellent news and on target.

I hope the DNC listens.

[Dems to Win]

2. It's not 'the economy,' it's each person's individual financial situation

No matter how much the economy has grown in the last 40 years, the bottom half of the population has not gotten a raise. We cannot keep pretending that 'growing the economy' will help the people who need it. All the benefits from growing the economy go straight to the top.

[Nay]

3. Thank you. Growing the economy isn't going to do a damn thing for the rural

population -- no middling to large company wants to relocate all its presidents and upper management to the sticks somewhere to give jobs to people who can barely read. It would be insane. Also, there's no working infrastructure in those places, no basic amenities that upper and middle managers would require in order to move there.

If the govt is counting on private companies to provide jobs in these barren areas, they're crazy. I don't know what the solution is, exactly, but it ain't relocation of jobs and it ain't education.

[erpowers]

4. Democrats Are Missing What Really Happened In This Election

Democrats are taking the wrong lessons from this election. The results of the election do not prove that the Democrats did not appeal to white working class voters, or that Democrats need to appeal more to white working class voters. No, the Democrats should not completely abandon white working class voters, but Hillary Clinton did not lose the electoral college vote because she did not reach out enough to white working class voters.

Hillary Clinton lost the electoral college vote for multiple reasons, least of which was white working class voters. First, voter turnout was extremely (possibly historically) low. If voter turnout had been higher Clinton might have won the electoral college vote. Second, Clinton was unable to match President Obama's numbers with his coalition. In just about every category, if not every category, Clinton lost rather large numbers of votes from the Obama coalition. Third, there may have been a number of Democrats who voted in the election, but did not vote for President. If those people had voted for Clinton she might have won the electoral college vote. Finally, there was voter suppression. I believe Greg Palast has stated that in a number of the battle ground states in which Donald Trump won there were more people thrown off the voter roles than Trump's margin of victory. It has been stated that millions of people were prevented from voting in this election. As far as I know Trumps margin of victory in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania was about 100,000 votes.

So, it is not that Democrats need to reach out more to white working class voters; it is that Democrats need to make sure their base gets to the polls. If voter turnout had been higher Hillary Clinton might have won the electoral college vote. If Hillary Clinton had equaled President Obama's numbers with his coalition she might have won the electoral college vote.