"The Secret Weapon Democrats Don't Know How to Use" [View all]

[Honeycombe8]

An article in Politico talking about one of several Democrats who won big in districts that Trump won, and examining how she did it.

She apparently does it the old fashioned way. She puts on goggles, or hardhats, and goes to small venues like local factories or farms or grocery stores, and shakes hands and listens. She avoids discussions about social issues like abortion, since she views that as a lose-lose, focusing instead on her stands on things that would make a difference in their lives, like jobs and the economy and fixing Obamacare instead of repealing it. She won big in a district with agricultural, industrial, and blue collar workers.

Interesting article on how to win the old-fashioned way. This is especially relevant with the upcoming 2018 midterms, if the Democrats want to take back the House.

The Bustos blueprint, she told me in January as the Taurus dodged raccoon road kill outside a speck of a village called Maquon, is rooted in unslick, face-to-face politicking. She shows up. She shakes hands. She asks questions—a lot of questions. “Don’t talk down to people—you listen,” she stressed. When she does talk, she talks as much as she can about jobs and wages and the economy and as little as she can about guns and abortion and other socially divisive issues—which, for her, are “no-win conversations,” she explained. And at a time when members of both parties are being tugged toward their respective ideological poles, the more center-left Bustos has picked her spots to buck such partisanship. She’s a pro-choice Catholic and an advocate for limited gun control, but she has supported the Keystone pipeline and called for improvements to Barack Obama’s “imperfect” Affordable Care Act. It’s worked. She’s the only Democratic member of the Illinois’ congressional delegation from outside Chicagoland.

She has met with the new DNC boss, Perez. And others who are up for mid-term elections are taking note of how she ensured a big win. But she says she has taken a lot of flack from other Democrats, since she's more moderate, in view of her district. Different areas of the country have different viewpoints and concerns.

“There’s people who think we’ve got to just work on the base—right?—and get people fired up, and that’s going to get us to 218. I don’t,” she said. “I don’t think that’s going to get us to 218. I think what’s going to get us to 218 is to understand these tough districts where we have not done well.”

She cited as evidence last month’s special election in Kansas. The Democrat won Wichita but lost everywhere else. “That candidate bombed in all those rural areas,” Bustos said bluntly. “If he just didn’t bomb in those rural areas, we could’ve won that.”

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/05/12/cheri-bustos-trump-territory-democrats-215126