We don't have to choose BETWEEN addressing voter suppression or being more progressive on economics.

[Ken Burch]

24. Everybody on the Left AGREES that there is voter suppression, though.

It's not a denial of voter suppression to point out that ending voter suppression does not, in and of itself, lead to us making a comeback in 2018 and 2020.

Some of it is voter suppression...some of it is changing the way we run fall campaigns-which is something a lot of us have argued for decades.

The dynamic of the fall campaign tends to be like this:

The Republicans launch an all-out campaign to demonize everything we've supported since 1932(and especially everything we've supported since 1972), while our party's response has been to say next to nothing in defense of things like social spending, strong labor laws, civil rights legislation. Every time we choose that strategy, our support erodes, because the voters assume that if a party won't defend its policies and its core values loudly and passionately when they are under attack, that party is admitting that those policies and those values are as horrible as the right claims they are.

When Barack Obama did stand up and defend at least some of what we stand for, the change was dramatic. The voters actually started believing that we weren't wrong, that we stood for something-and they decided that we could be trusted with the presidency. The people trusted us because we trusted THEM.

That's part of what we need to do in the future.