Path to Victory in the Second District

Democratic activism is pushing the party to the left.

Democratic activists represent the resurgent left.  Bernie people, and Hillary people who liked Bernie, but wanted to be practical and supported Hillary.  

Not Portland

If Trump is for it, it must be wrong.   Democratic candidates are in a straitjacket of acceptable Democratic orthodoxy.  

Maybe there is a way out of the trap.

This blog has an up close look at the campaign for Oregon's 2nd Congressional District, the bright red primarily rural and suburban part of the state that is geographically and politically part of the Mountain West.  

The incumbent Republican congressman Greg Walden repeatedly wins with 70% of the vote.  Trump, too, won big.

Yet all seven candidates for the Democratic nomination for Congress for that bright red Congressional District voice views that would be perfectly orthodox in bright blue Portland.

Is this self destructive madness?  No.  It is a response to what the candidates believe, and where the campaign energy and money is.  

Every candidate has one of these.

All seven candidates decry the influence of money in politics. They are referring to "dirty" money, i.e. PAC money from drug companies and money from the Koch Brothers, etc.  Meanwhile, they seek "clean" money, money from regular people, concerned citizens, people active enough to show up at rallies and forums and who write campaign checks--i.e. the people they are talking to.

It is clean money.  Those people don't want financial favors from government.  They want government that represents their views. That is democracy. 

But there is a grave problem.  Those people represent a point of view apparently very different from the voters who show up to vote on election day in this bright red Mountain West district.  Democratic activists are liberal, environmentalist, feminist, dovish, inclusionist, pro-immigration people.  Among this group Bill Clinton, even Barrack Obama, and certainly Chuck Schumer have been criticized or even rejected, sometimes harshly.  

So what if they were electable? They were too conservative, too accommodative of business, too cautious.  

Meanwhile, the voters voted for Trump and Walden.  There is a disconnect.

What to do? 

Three choices in strategy come to mind.

Democrats at "Our Revolution" Forum.

1.  Popularity contest.  Keep the campaign a choice among seven varieties of the same basic flavor, and hope that people like your personality and biography the best.  Raise the most money, get your name out there the best, knock on the most doors, ignore or praise your opponents and say that we all get along great. 

It is a crowded field and someone might win with some plurality of the vote.  Hope you will be the most famous or popular.  

At this moment all seven are apparently trying this approach. I suspect this is Jamie McLeod Skinner's strategy, and it is a good one. She has a niche.

It makes some sense for all the candidates.  All are appealing to niches within the same activist/donor group for campaign tools. That group of people are locked into a tight orthodoxy of acceptable thought  Anything that sounds vaguely "Trump-like" is understood to be bad.  Racist. Vulgar-By-Association. Don't rock the boat.

No one dare say anything of the kind that got the overwhelming majority of votes in the District.  

2. Try voicing some things likely to appeal to rural Mountain West voters.   Be the outsider.  There is an untapped market there.

This starts with the premise that any of the candidates want to break outside the orthodoxy of the liberal Bernie-Hillary-Portland-Berkeley-Cambridge suite of opinions.  Candidates should speak their conscience and values.  The race was a long shot on day one.  The race is personal. If the candidate is, in their heart of hearts, a Portland liberal, then be one.

But still, possibly, one of the candidates will voice something startling and non-orthodox.  That might well get them excluded from the seven person choir, but now they would have a separate niche. They would get criticized, but if they cannot handle criticism best to know now. The criticism is essential to the strategy.  Now they would attract attention, be courageous, and would have a niche. Maybe a big one.

What might be something out of the box? What is a progressive not supposed to think?

**Maybe say a border wall is something people seem to want, that borders are important, and the key is to save DACA kids and move toward a sensible comprehensive reform of immigration. The candidate need not praise the wall and could even criticize Trump for linking the issues.  I recognize that the wall is primarily a symbol for borders, not an effective barrier, but in fact a great many American like the notion of borders, the idea that America has definition and identity.  

Trump understood that desire.  Democrats seem not to understand it or want to validate it, because they associate it with Trump and xenophobia and racism.   My recommendation: accept the wall.  Say what matters to you is something else, that it makes progress on real reform.  Democrats might howl "sellout" and "compromiser", but the candidate could say as a progressive he/she cares deeply about real reform of immigration and that it is a step in a negotiation with Trump, and the candidate's eyes are on that prize. 

Crossings take place where a wall is near impossible.

**Maybe say Democrats failed to address the impediments to assimilation and the integration of immigrants into America.  Say that you love immigration, but that immigration's public support relies on smoothing cultural friction.  Advocate greater expectations on language acquisition, i.e. speak English. Democrats would howl about this being quasi racist and xenophobic, but the candidate could say that ignoring friction doesn't respect immigrants, it retards their becoming full participants in America, which is your real goal.

**Maybe say that you support wide support for higher education but that you are adamant that students pay part of the tuition.  Bernie supporters would see this as red-flag dead wrong headedness, and would howl, but the candidate could say that he or she wants student buy-in, and that free devalues it. Say you are pro-work and pro-buy-in because you value education so much.

Note that in all three cases, one does not need to be conservative or to reject progressive thought.  One defends a border wall because it would get a benefit to vulnerable DACA kids and because illegal cross border travel devalues legal immigration which you support. Argue that you are actually the friend to immigration because you are the only candidate working to create the political environment in which it is acceptable to Americans.  Same with assimilation.  Argue that you fully accept the progressive goal of inclusion and you are fighting for inclusion that works, not inclusion that retains enclaves.  You are a friend to higher education.

Mean spirited conservatives and racists have argued for a border wall, for English only, and against higher education.  A Democratic candidate risks sounding like them, which is not all bad.  Voters in the 2nd District like that kind of talk, which is why xenophobic racists and opponents of higher education say it.    A progressive Democrat need not accept that premise.  State progressives reasons for your policies.

That would distinguish the candidate as a sensible Democrat representing the sensibilities of the District, not Portland-Berkeley-Cambridge.  That is your niche.  A big one.

3. If the Democrat simply cannot bear to offend the activist consensus and be an outsider by disagreement on anything, then be noteworthy by talking about jobs, jobs, jobs.

There is room for a Democratic candidate to stop virtually all talk about the issues that Democrats fuss over, including immigration and health care.  Talk about money and jobs.  Everyone is interested in money and jobs.  Distinguish oneself by being the jobs candidate and speak of jobs in every answer.  

Dare to look silly.  Candidate Jim Crary risks it by talking repeatedly about campaign finance reform, and maybe that is a good strategy.  A different candidate could talk about job programs, repeatedly.  Endure the criticism that you are johnny-one-note.  It would help, not hurt, to be famous for bringing every answer back to jobs and money. 

**Speak for rural redevelopment.  Criticize the Bushes, Obama, and now Trump for ignoring rural America.  Complain about money for Amtrak and urban stuff and say that the cities get all the money.  You want money for roads in rural America, where they will do some good.  Say we need federal tax incentives for factories to be built in towns outside of large cities, including Portland. Nike should be building in Bend, not Beaverton.  Rural America elected Trump and we want our share of federal taxes.

**Speak for solar energy and wind farms.  Say Oregon can and should be a great energy producing state. You want money for that. Advocate for all the high skilled jobs that would create.

**Say the tax bill is bad not just because it rewards the wealthy but because it hurts jobs.  The new deficits at a time of full employment are already raising interest rates and will disadvantage employees in favor of more rewards for capital, i.e. stockholders.  Channel the views of progressives from the 1910's and speak of job killing economic concentration.  Voters are ready to think that maybe Google and Apple and Facebook are a danger, not a gift, and they have believed for decades that the drug companies and telecommunications companies are a danger. Argue that those companies and that concentration are dangerous and they are killing jobs in rural America through their monopoly power and concentration in urban hubs.

Summary:  The 2nd District is different from the rest of Oregon.  It votes for Senator Ron Wyden because he puts in the time and because he risks and endures the sharp criticism of  the Bernie-compliant activists in the party.  He is the 12th most liberal member of Congress but he simply is not good enough for a great many of them. The result is he can win elections, not just statewide but in that District.  Dare to risk their criticism.

It will be OK with Nancy Pelosi for the candidate to win without toeing a perfect progressive San Francisco compliant line.  The people you will actually disappoint will be those activists right in front of you--your friends, your pool of activist progressives in Indivisible, in Our Revolution, the Democratic Party precinct committee people.  

You won't be compliant enough to please them. It is OK.

There is a path to victory by being known for something that has appeal to the rural voters of eastern and southern Oregon, people who voted for Donald Trump by high margins.  Walden's money will tell voters the candidate is a Nancy Pelosi style liberal clone.  He won't try to run against the real you.  He will run against the caricature of you, the caricature that says you are a perfect compliant liberal. There is a lesson there.  They know a Bernie-Hillary Portland-Berkeley-Cambridge liberal would be rejected.

So don't be one. 

The Democrat needs to replace that image with something big and indelible and surprising and clearly agreement with something important to the District.  

Being criticized for disappointing liberal activists is OK.  Indeed, it is essential. Otherwise people won't believe you are sincere.  Welcome the criticism. It is the path to victory.