Democrats try to pick up the pieces
Washington (CNN)The sting of defeat is still fresh.
But Democrats are embarking on a soul-searching exercise to determine how they ended up in the political wilderness, losing the House, the Senate and the White House at a time when President Barack Obama’s approval ratings are at record highs.
Hillary Clinton may very well still win the popular vote, and there are myriad theories about why Democrats fell short when it came to
electoral college math: inaccurate polling and modeling, an unprecedented surge of white voters for Trump, Clinton’s failure to ignite enough enthusiasm and excitement among women, blacks and Latinos.
But the former secretary of state’s stunning losses in the Rust Belt spoke to deeper problems facing a Democratic Party that has become
unmoored from its roots. Most stark in the results was the party’s disconnect from white working-class voters.
The primary exposed the deep divide between the progressive and centrist wings of the party, which clearly have not healed. And strategists learned the hard way just how difficult it is to replicate the Obama coalition without the President at the top of the ticket.
As they sift through the results, most baffling to some Democrats was how some voters who supported Obama in 2008 and 2012 ended up backing Trump.
As Clinton retreated to private life in Chappaqua, New York, and the President prepares to leave office, it was clear that there was no consensus about who should lead the party, or even lead the discussion about where the party needs to go after Tuesday.
Trump calls Obama ‘a very good man’
Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer will play leading roles. But there are broad policy disagreements among them, as well as competing objectives. Schumer, for example, must keep his eye on the 2018 races when he will have slew of Democrats up for re-election in conservative states.
Clinton’s unexpected losses in industrial states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania — as well as the razor-edge race in Michigan, which CNN has
not called — underscored the view of Democratic strategists who privately complained throughout 2016 that Clinton hadn’t found a message that connected with working-class Americans.
Though polls showed many Latinos and women were repelled by Trump before Election Day, Trump actually slightly outperformed Mitt Romney among Latinos. And Clinton drew a slightly smaller share of women to the polls than Obama did in 2012, according to exit polls.
She won the lowest share of union households of any Democrat since 1980 — notching 51% of union households to Trump’s 43%, according to exit polls. By comparison, Obama won 59% of union households in 2008.
Trump’s campaign was vacuous. Many of his policy proposals were unachievable, even in the eyes of his supporters. Yet his populist message struck a chord with voters across the ideological spectrum.
“Clearly what this election demonstrated — from the primaries through the general election — was that the centrist, more moderate wing of the (Democratic) party has no standing with working class and middle class voters in this country,” said Jeff Weaver, who was campaign manager for Clinton’s Democratic rival, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“It’s time for the progressive wing to reassert themselves and offer a bold agenda to the American people,” Weaver said. “The real losers in this campaign were the Democratic and Republican establishments. People clearly wanted change. Trump became the vehicle for that change in the general election. I think many people voted for him in spite of his outrageous positions, as opposed to in favor of them. So we need to demonstrate to people that we stand with them, not with the wealthy and powerful.”
Though Clinton was raised in a middle-class household familiar with economic struggles, she never managed to find a message that connected with struggling working class families. That was particularly ironic considering she ran against a billionaire who lives in the penthouse of a gold plated tower.
Long before Trump was viewed as a real contender, Bill Burton, a former adviser to Obama, recalled discussing the message challenges facing Democrats in 2016 as far as two years ago.
Source: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/11/politics/democrats-election-2016/index.html
