After a brief two years in power, few Democrats feel we deserved quite the beating we got last night. On the morning after, our temptation will be to write it off as the inevitable result of a terrible political landscape. But we urge a different response. The public has given our party a rebuke; and we believe Democrats need to accept the verdict and make some changes.
Before turning to these changes, a few bright spots: In particular, we are very pleased to congratulate Senator-elect Chris Coons on his victory in one of the nation's marquee Senate races. Chris is a long-time friend, and a participant in the Fellows Program that is the pride of our state and local government program. His success is a reminder that -- now more than ever -- we need to focus on recruiting and supporting the next generation of Democratic leaders. We're happy to see many New Democrat House members, Senators and state candidates -- Gabby Giffords in Arizona, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz in Florida, Ron Kind in Wisconsin, Dan Malloy in Connecticut, Gavin Newsom in California -- prevailing in sometimes close races. And we note for the record that President Obama and the 111th Congress came to Washington to do big things, and achieved many of them: an historic reform of health policy, new policies for student loans and K-12 education, an improved trade adjustment assistance program and broadened support for scientific research, all while managing an inherited crisis and two wars. These are major achievements, and Democrats should be proud of them.
But all in all this was a night in which the public judged Democrats harshly -- taken as a whole, certainly the worst defeat since 1994 and perhaps since 1980 -- with net losses of at least 60 House seats, 6 Senate seats, and 9 Governors' mansions. True enough, our party faced a bad landscape: high unemployment and necessary but politically costly decisions like the continuation of TARP and the automobile industry rescue took a toll, and all the more so against the backdrop of a midterm election with its typical swing against a new president and many marginal House seats. But Democrats knew the landscape was bad, prepared well with early campaigning and strong fundraising -- and in the Senate might have fared still worse, had Republican primary voters nominated better candidates.
Fundamentally, Democrats lost the middle. In 2006, moderates decided the election, voting for Democrats by 22 million to 14 million. This year's Democratic moderate vote probably fell by about 6 million. Doubtless many changed votes or shifted to the conservative camp simply for the sake of change in a bad economy -- but many also looked at our agenda and began to worry.
Why? Moderates are aspirational and pragmatic, seeing an important but limited role for government in economic life. For them, the party's apparent lack of interest in a long-term path away from emergency stimulus toward fiscal balance revived a pre-Clinton reputation for carefree attitudes toward public money. And without a clear route back to growth led by the private sector, moderates wondered whether Democrats were beginning to see government as replacing entrepreneurs and inventors as the driver of growth. Worried that Democrats might be pushing beyond their limits, they looked to the other team.
To rebound we need to recover their confidence, with a reshaped set of policies that recognizes and responds to their disenchantment. Here are a few suggestions, drawn from the DLC's research and policy development over the past year:
- Economic Growth: Moderates see the private sector as the main
source of growth, and don't see the government as a credible
long-term replacement. In a period of crisis, they want
businesses and government to collaborate to find new sources
of growth -- encouraging broadband internet deployment to
homes, easing business creation and finding effective
incentives to hire, promoting exports -- rather than blame
and accuse one another for creating or prolonging the crisis.
And while they want businesses and rich families to contribute
their share to the greater good, they are also more alarmed
than inspired by populist attacks on business and wealth. We
are particularly hopeful Democrats will drop the gloomy
trade-bashing ads of this past campaign, and the administration
will instead embark on an aggressive, export-oriented trade
negotiating program (like that Ed Gresser suggested late in
2009) in a time when -- as stimulus phases out and families
continue save -- the country needs exports more than ever
for growth.
- Innovation and Education Reform: Moderates see a role for
government as a provider of public goods and a facilitator
of innovation, worker skills, and competitiveness. Part of
this is a continued robust commitment to scientific research
and top-quality infrastructure; part of it is improving science
and math education, and attracting more technically skilled
immigrants; part is a commitment to give workers the skills
they need as computers and robots replace human workers at
construction sites and in factories. Here Paul Weinstein and
Jessica Milano point to greater federal support for community
colleges as a way to help more unskilled, low-wage workers
qualify for high-wage jobs in rapidly growing fields like
health care and information technology.
- Fiscal Discipline: Moderates worry about the country's
financial health. Especially with baby boom retirements
threatening to swamp government finances by mid-decade, they
need a credible route back out of emergency deficits and
toward fiscal balance -- and Democrats need to win back
public trust on this issue. The White House's Fiscal
Responsibility and Debt Reduction Commission, with the DLC's
Bruce Reed as Executive Director, will offer a set of options
this December on controlling spending, entitlement policy,
growth measures and tax reform -- and Democrats should be
its advocates. We are also working with state and local
officials on reinventing government, drawing lessons from
private-sector expertise in cost-savings through logistics
and information technology, to reduce the cost of public
services and to rebuild confidence that Democrats are careful
managers of public money.
A final lesson: Rebuilding is not impossible. Democrats bounced back after the Republican landslides in the 1980s that led to creation of the DLC, then after the 1994 defeat as the Clinton administration embraced and enacted a bold New Democrat agenda, and in 2006 when Democrats put forward a plan of ideas that spoke to the needs and frustrations of swing voters across the country. Our challenge now is not essentially more difficult than it was then, and we look forward to the debate and the fresh start.
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