All Eyes on CA-50, Part 2
Yesterday’s special election in California to replace jailed Republican Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham was seen as a potential bellwether for the upcoming midterm elections in November.
If Democrat Francine Busby could get more than 50 percent of the vote in this red district, the thinking went, Republicans would really be in trouble this fall. Well, Busby didn’t get 50 percent. Turnout was “abysmal,” according to DailyKos, and she only got 44 percent. Now, because no candidate, Republican or Democrat, got over 50 percent, the race goes into a runoff election to be held in June.
Kos has pessimistic analysis here and here.
The Democratic leadership thinks that the GOP implosion will ipso facto translate to Democratic victories in November. But the electorate is universally disenchanted with politics.The GOP has proven, time and time again, that it is incapable of governing. But Democrats have not shown they are any different. They do not paint any bright lines between them and us. And they do nothing to motivate the Democratic base to turn out and vote.
My sense of pessimism for November’s elections only gets deeper the more elections show lower and lower turnout. Our supporters have stopped giving a shit. They were burned three elections in a row, and seeing nothing different come from the leadership, it has become easier for them to tune out.
There has got to be change in strategy from DC. Because right now, the Democratic leadership is just as reality-addled as the GOP’s.
I read your book review about the future of the democratic party and found it confusing. First, you state that in order for the democrats to win elections, they need to stop keeping single issue advocacy groups such as NARAL as part of their inner circle when it means that they'll lose the election based on the issue. Then you go on to claim that the reason democrats lose votes is that they don't stand for anything and there is too much disagreement within their party on where they stand. These two statements seem to be in direct opposition to each other, as surely supporting NARAL regardless of the state you are running in shows that you stand for something and don't pander to voters, and I wish you would have explained the point you were trying to make, as it did not seem to make sense in the context of the rest of your article.