A post-election poll from Research 2000 showed what many of us on the left have been screaming for months. According to the poll, 18 percent of former Obama voters switched their vote to Scott Brown, and turnout demographics put 18-29 years-old participation (unfortunately that’s our generation…) at 15 percent.
So first, the Obama voters who switched support to Scott Brown: what happened there? For starters, 37 percent said that their reason for doing so was that Democrats were not being “hard enough” in challenging Republicans. Forty-eight percent opposed the Senate bill, which may sound bad, until you consider that 36 percent of them did so because it “did not go far enough.” This sentiment is shared with over half of those who stayed home and did not vote.
These stay-at-home voters are the ones that the Democratic Party really needs to worry about. While the logic of voters who switched support from Obama to Brown because they felt the Democrats were not going far enough is questionable, it is far easier to understand those who did not turn out. They have been swallowed by political cynicism. They heard the big words about change and a bold progressive agenda, and then saw the reality: that Democrats were ineffective at governing; that they fettered away months attempting to garner a single meaningless Republican vote.
They are the disaffected base whose inaction in November will sink the Democratic Party. A staggering 43 percent of Democrats say they are not likely to, or will not vote in the fall; only 17 percent of Republicans say the same. Among the party’s core demographics the numbers of worse, with 55 percent of blacks, 51 percent of Latinos and 53 percent of 18-29 year-olds intent on sitting out this upcoming election.
To those who say that the real reason for the electoral failures is because the Democrats have actually gone too far, will you please answer this question: exactly what have the Democrats even done with their year in office? Health care has been the big legislative push for over six months, and what does the party have to show for it? Endless capitulation and compromise to the desires of less than a handful of senators, representing states with some of the smallest populations, that has resulted in a practically worthless bill despised by conservatives (who were never going to support reform in the first place) and the party base. The piece of health care reform that impassioned voters and enjoyed stable and widespread majority support was the public option. Yet it was quickly jettisoned for the chimera of a 60-vote bill.
The Democrat’s fixation on appeasing the opposition is especially irritating because although voters claim to want bipartisanship, it is really analogous to attack ads. Voters claim to despise those, yet they are still the most effective form of political advertising. The base does not care about bipartisanship, it wants a progressive agenda that is best for the country; conservatives do not want bipartisanship, they want Republicans to return to the majority. Independents may claim to want bipartisanship, but what they really want is a government that governs, not the usual Washington gridlock that has been on display for the past half-year — independents are about action.
So where do the Democrats go from here? Abandoning the agenda they were elected on is the most incorrect move that Democratic leadership could make. The more progressive aspects of health reform, like the public option, are the ones that have showed the most support from polling. Meanwhile, the public is loathe to the idea of a mandate without such a public option and dislikes the tax on health care plans even more. Therefore, I propose that the House pass the current Senate bill, which though far from perfect, contains many good provisions, but that Congress immediately repeal the tax on health care plans and replace it with the House’s “millionaire tax” that polls far better; then, a public option of some sort should be passed through reconciliation.
After that, every bill that finds its way to Obama’s desk should be about jobs, jobs and jobs. Climate change legislation should be couched in terms of jobs. It should pay attention to how China is focusing on being the world leader in the manufacture of alternative energy technologies like solar; how the transition to green energy will necessitate the creation of hundreds of thousands of new jobs in infrastructure installation. A job creation stimulus package should be passed, along with federal aid to struggling homeowners and small business owners.
Obama needs to re-energize the base of voters whose enthusiastic turnout won him the White House, but this time he must do it through the action he promised, because words are no longer enough.