Last week I wrote that the Obama campaign should serve as a master class in winning elections for Democrats, but, unfortunately, not enough California Democrats are playing attention to the Obama campaign’s most important lessons.
These Obama inspired lessons are:
1. Blame Republicans and Present a Democratic Solution
2. Use the Internet
3. Expand the Electorate
4. Champion the Middle Class
I’ve already discussed the first two of these lessons, pointing out that during the state budget fiasco, the Democratic leadership failed to place the blame for the crisis squarely on the Republicans, and failed to present a clear Democratic solution to the state’s budget and economic problems.
I also pointed out that although the Internet is a potential game changer for California Democrats – as a less expensive and far more effective alternative to the Republicans’ expertise in direct mail – we have failed to capitalize on this advantage by building effective, informative and user-friendly websites, as well as building membership in Democratic groups on social networking sites such as facebook.
The importance of the Internet and its related technologies was underscored last week when the California Republican convention made improvement in their use of technology a primary objective. The California Republican Party website now promises that their “Technology Leadership Committee is racing ahead bringing together leaders in California’s tech community to help make our state party the national leader in the use of new and emerging technologies in our operations and communications. The initiative is chaired by David Kralik of Newt Gingrich’s organization.”
This means that California’s Republicans are well aware of the devastating effect that Obama’s edge in technology and Internet use had in the last election, and are racing — and spending money — to catch-up. Democrats cannot let this happen.
The remaining two Obama inspired lessons are:
3. Expand the Electorate
4. Champion the Middle Class
Let’s tackle them now.
3. Expand the Electorate
The Obama campaign succeeded in large part because it expanded the Democratic electorate by bringing far larger numbers of young people, students, and immigrant groups into the process than ever before. Obama specifically targeted these groups and the result was millions of additional votes.
The California Young Democrats movement is doing a terrific job of maintaining the momentum of the Obama campaign and getting young people involved in the state Democratic Party.
Where we are falling short is in regard to immigrant groups.
Amazingly, here in Southern California, few election campaigns outside of Los Angeles and Santa Ana provided literature, emails, or websites in Spanish.
The website of the California Democratic Party has nothing in Spanish. The website of the Democratic Party of Orange County has only a single half-page in Spanish.
Neither website has anything in Farsi, Vietnamese, or any of the other languages of California’s immigrants.
This must change. We need to create Democratic Party literature and web materials in Spanish, Farsi, Vietnamese, and other languages.
We also need to campaign in predominantly immigrant and less affluent neighborhoods.
Despite the fact that so many Mexican immigrants in Southern California live in apartments, our Democratic candidates have tended to campaign only in areas of private homes, entirely ignoring apartment complexes.
While I’m aware of the problem of scarce resources, it seems to me that we cannot continue to fail to campaign directly to hundreds of thousands of potential voters, especially those who tend to vote overwhelmingly Democrat.
4. Champion the Middle Class
Throughout the presidential election, Obama positioned himself as the champion of the middle-class and painted his Republican opponent as the champion of the very rich.
Obama also made middle-class tax cuts a centerpiece of his campaign promises. The result was millions of votes from the suburban middle-class -– and electoral vote victories in states that had long gone Republican.
The suburban middle-class that tipped the electoral scales for Obama is probably the single most important voting group in California – especially in Southern California.
Yet despite Obama’s lesson, our local Democrats continue largely to ignore the middle-class, and related groups such as homeowners and small business owners.
In fact, I could not find the word “middle-class†anywhere on the websites of either the California Democratic Party or the Democratic Party of Orange County.
How can we expect to win in districts where self-identified middle-class, homeownering voters form the majority of the electorate without talking specifically to them and about their needs?