The Texas Democratic Strategy: Winnability vs. Values

We call it: "the 254-county strategy" (4.33 / 3)

and it is relevant to the "winnability" issue. We Dems need to understand how to try to win 254 counties, and to act like that is what we're raising funds, campaigning, and getting out the vote for.  "Winnability" will not win against "values".  The GOP has 'em, even if they're skewed, we don't agree, and they are not our values.  They win based on what they pitch, not on promising to win.  THAT iw what motivates their base and pulls independents to vote for their candidates.  At the same time that Dems. and independents who might vote for them choose to pass, or sit it out, or don't in fact vote for Democrats.

I have seen very little "values" campaigning in Texas in 30+ years, but lots of acting like it is a high school Senior Class President that candidates are running for.

Now, how do we light a fire under democratic candidates to actually stand for some values, instead of trying to be "Republican Lite"?

Nice post.

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by: tom 47 @ Wed Apr 20, 2011 at 17:06:15 PM UTC

nice post KT (3.67 / 3)

couple points:

1) Sharp's out of the rumors for the simple reason that he lost his right hand and hype master (RIP Kelly Fero).

2) Barnes is proposing candidates that match his value system. The thing that handicaps the Democratic party is that all the decision makers are part of the oligarchy like Barnes & Gen. Sanchez. Barnes is actually better off being the biggest Dem in Texas than he would be if there was an elected state wide official who could shoo him off the stage at long last.

My comments reflect my own personal opinion and not those of any client or colleague, current, former or future.

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by: Texas Nate @ Wed Apr 20, 2011 at 19:43:03 PM UTC

thoughtful piece. (2.00 / 1)

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by: TexMex @ Wed Apr 20, 2011 at 20:35:19 PM UTC

The last line says it all (3.00 / 1)

"Who knows, we might just find out that running on our values is the most winnable strategy for the future of Democrats in Texas." Running on values is the only strategy that has any chance of success.

As long as corporations are people and money is speech, then democracy is a farce.

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by: Blue_in_Guadalupe @ Wed Apr 20, 2011 at 21:05:08 PM UTC

We do need to run on our values, but values aren't enough (4.00 / 2)

KT, this is a terrific post and I agree that a cynical and utterly half-assed approach to winning at the top at the expense of a values based appeal has been a major problem for more than the last decade.

But at the risk of sounding like a broken record, values are to a campaign what love is to a marriage. They makes the whole thing much, much stronger, but by themselves they aren't enough.

This party needs process, tools, an approach, a new coalition (one beyond some vague demographic future), etc. We need organization AND values. We need the apparatus to be competitive and that's what we ain't got.

For this reason I view the party offices of Chair and ED to be more crucial right now than whoever runs for statewide office, because they own the difficult, tedious, thankless work of rebuilding a party machine that was neglected into a state of more or less total non-function.

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by: Rahm McDaniel @ Wed Apr 20, 2011 at 23:48:08 PM UTC

Thanks Man (3.00 / 2)

Many of those other elements you talk about are 100% necessary as well. This piece is the first of what will be a series as I get back to writing here on BOR. A number of the other points that I'm going to focus on will adress those sorts of components and how they can compliment this post.

The key thing is that if we start thinking with the right frame of mind about the type of things we want to see in our candidates, and then discuss how we can build institutions around that, we will see that the two actually go hand in hand.  

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by: Karl-Thomas Musselman @ Thu Apr 21, 2011 at 01:11:40 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Unless and until the Democratic Party and its candidates (3.00 / 2)

speak up for progressive values there will be no machine to get them elected. Why would anyone but the hardest of the hard core want to spend their limited time, energy and money working for a candidate they can't get excited about? The answer is they won't and frankly; why should they?

What's the worst that could happen by making strong progressive values the core of our campaign strategy? It's not like we can lose more than we are now.

County Chairs all over Texas have trouble finding people to even be a precinct chairs let alone enough volunteers to actually cover blockwalking even once during the general election campaign. There will be no machine without the moving parts and that's people who are excited enough to get out and personally touch voters.

Milquetoast candidates regardless of name recognition or funding aren't going to win any elections because they aren't going to get the base vote out.

You won't excite those people with Republican lite candidates or candidates that speak only carefully screened drivel intended not to offend anyone. Republicans have no problem speaking offensively about ending a woman's right to control her own body, a person's right to marry whomever they wish or the right of the wealthy to keep and gather more wealth regardless of the consequences to the rest of the country. Their base likes it and their base gets out and delivers voters because they're excited.

It's time we make an election campaign exciting in Texas and the way to do that is to field progressive candidates because candidates that people are willing to work for are what will allow us to build the machine that gets them elected.

As long as corporations are people and money is speech, then democracy is a farce.

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by: Blue_in_Guadalupe @ Thu Apr 21, 2011 at 04:13:59 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

The <i>Schwerpunkt</I> (3.00 / 1)

Both Musselman and Burka point to the party itself as the main barrier to election of a statewide candidate.

They are right: This needs to be addressed seriously. The empty abstractions like "winnability" or, for that matter, "values" are not campaign strategy, tactics or logistics. Nor, are they party organization, governance, finance, or technology from one campaign to the next.

But, as K-T says, that is another thread if not a whole blog unto itself.

Before discarding "winnability" we need to be clear on exactly what it is or was before the last decade of losses.

It reflects a political investment paradigm in which pollsters, campaign consultants, and bundlers of large donations (usually lobbyists) prepare something like the "Red Herring" used to "place" unregistered securities with sophisticated investors. These are presented with or without a live candidate in a series of very private auditions or screenings in which secret projections and a preview of what a candidate or candidate-to-be might say are presented as a good deal to get in on early.

The projections and drafts are very, very secret and, hence, strike gullible investors or candidates as true.

Individual and corporate investors carefully seek and discreetly get assurances about particular expectations they have for the public office at issue. But, their main focus is the prospect of a win or loss.

That prospect is partly some sketchy version of the future but also the of the immediate prospects for "leveraging" early-smart-big money "active" investment, based on cynical calculation, with late-sucker-small "passive" donations, based on whatever excitement the resulting campaign flim-flam generates.

Large land and small bank deals are done like this, so it is not surprising that Ben Barnes would be a go-to guy at this level of Texas politics, even though he has been on the edge of Texas politics for a long time and was not all that good at land and bank deals.

For that reason and because the string of losses recited by K-T has made peddling Texas political deals harder and harder, for some time now demographic change has been presented again and again as promising future victory. Such prospects are now also highly discounted though, save in Washington State, it would seem.

Certainly "past performance does not guarantee future results". Ricardo Sanchez might actually win and prove to be a great Senator from Texas or, at least better than the competition.

But, it is hard to see how a sophisticated investor -- left, right, soft or hard center --  will buy what of him is on offer right now.

Democrats are operating and winning on a higher plane than the GOP, the moral plane. That is why we have a latent majority in Texas, and they do not. Otherwise, we suck.

Let's discuss a paradigm shift in the party then, before worrying too much about the remote possibility of electing anybody that the usual candidate-peddlers select. We know they cannot rouse many voters, and it is time to question whether they can raise much money.

Here is what a new paradigm might look like: An entire ticket, running as "combat team", on, well, a eight-wheel "Stryker" platform. It might not look like a land deal or any sort of deal. It might look like republican democracy not like plutocracy with a little affirmative action salsa on the side.    

Maybe Ricardo Sanchez would want to take some time from preening for auditions in Washington to contribute or just follow the debate over issues much more critical for Texas Democrats than his imaginary campaign or storied military career.  

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by: JRBehrman @ Thu Apr 21, 2011 at 00:53:50 AM UTC

As an SDEC member... (3.00 / 1)

...you are in a perfect position to take all of your ideas, lay out an actual plan, and build a coalition of the willing around your Stryker strategy. Best of luck.

Now, a very great man once said that some people rob you with a fountain pen.

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by: Phillip Martin, Progress Texas @ Thu Apr 21, 2011 at 22:09:18 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

It doesn't matter who the Dems run... (3.00 / 1)

...this state of our is comprised of an uninformed, undereducated, redneck, politically RED-meat conservative, tea-party loving electorate. Tough to swim against the tide when you are outnumbered.  

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by: Brad M @ Thu Apr 21, 2011 at 21:12:54 PM UTC

It really don't matter (1.00 / 1)

The Democratic Party will continue to lose with the party being run by secular elitists. Mainstream Texans reject your attitude. Run on the far left and you'll get whupped even worse. At least Bill White made it a respectable loss.

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by: Bluefish @ Tue Apr 26, 2011 at 11:41:30 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

TOUGH LOVE !!!!!!!!!!!! (2.00 / 1)

The problems with Texas Democrats is this.

1) Bill White lost because of Houston being a pro-illegal alien city.

2)Chris Bell was running for vengeful purposes against Delay and Perry. Second if he had enough sense he would have dropped out in a divided field. Kinky Friedman was uniting the young, the college students, libertarians, and moderates.

3)Democrats do not TAKE ON Conservative Hate talk radio like 1200 AM  WOAI'S Joe Pags.

4)The national Democrats, namely Congressional Democrats, keeps on voting in the most hated person (or the most liberal) like Nancy Pelosi into the leadership.

5)Liberal Democrats SHOULD NOT ignore the Freedom Democrats, the Blue Dogs, the Pro 2nd amendment Dems, and other Dems who are not entirely liberal.

6)If the Democrats in Texas were smart they would focus more in the state house and state senate. For example, Democratic party in Texas should be kicking the tail of the Democrats in State House district 30 over HB3015.

I got more to say but I'll let yall speak on this.

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by: BIGJ @ Thu Apr 21, 2011 at 21:39:18 PM UTC

What values? (2.00 / 1)

Tell me the Democratic values, without sounding like a laundry list of legislative priorities.

Take a look at the 2010 TDP platform: http://www.txdemocrats.org/iss...

Now, take a look at the 1996 DNC platform: http://www.perkel.com/congress...

Read each, and tell me which warms the cockles of your heart. Texas Democrats run campaigns like they do a floor vote, arguing on the utility of their proposals, rather than the inherent value of their beliefs.

There is a middle ground to the winnability vs values argument. It requires the Austin Elite (yourself included, KTM) to change the way they view politics. Campaigns have been run on specific issues and proposals, rather than the values that make individual candidates appealing to their community.

We need candidates who can win, but we also need to change the way we Democrats think of campaigns. Mostly so operatives and consultants from Virginia and elsewhere stop laughing at us. Seriously, they do that.

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by: hotcarlGOP @ Fri Apr 22, 2011 at 01:17:14 AM UTC

The Voters in Texas are the Problem... (1.50 / 2)

There is a huge disconnect in Texas. Kids in suburban
school districts protest teacher layoffs, yet most of
their parents vote republican. They just don't get it,
repubs have run this state for a decade, caused the budget
deficit etc. They should have been voted out of office. A moderate dem. or progressive dem. has to fight an uphill battle against stupid voters that vote "values" against
reality.

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by: Bluefish @ Sat Apr 23, 2011 at 11:24:57 AM UTC

.... (2.50 / 2)

Values are reality. Democrats who don't understand that are the problem, not the voters.

I respect the voters. I want to know what they think. I don't pretend to have their best interest at heart while arrogantly parading around with a list of policy ideas they don't understand.

And yes, I am a Democrat.

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by: hotcarlGOP @ Mon Apr 25, 2011 at 01:59:57 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Parading policy and not values is part of the problem (3.00 / 1)

We need to frame our ideas as values and they should be progressive values. Policy is a result of values not the other way around. People don't want to hear policy wonk talk they want to know that you care about what they care about.

As long as corporations are people and money is speech, then democracy is a farce.

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by: Blue_in_Guadalupe @ Mon Apr 25, 2011 at 16:31:45 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Running on our Democratic values (4.00 / 2)

sounds like a good idea to me. Hell, we have been beaten to a pulp by not standing by our Democratic values.

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by: Libby Shaw @ Fri Apr 29, 2011 at 03:45:43 AM UTC