A theory has been percolating around here to the effect that Democrats in red or purple states who failed to fully embrace President Obama and/or the ACA were idiot DINOs who could have made a better showing by being REAL Democrats and endorsing the Obama administration’s agenda. Here’s why I think it’s bullshit.
Charlie Crist embraced President Obama and sang the praises of the ACA. He lost. Allison Grimes was all “Obama who?” She lost. Grimes in Kentucky may have run a tone-deaf, ham-fisted campaign (I honestly don’t know), but it’s just nuts, in my opinion, to think she would have made a better showing had she embraced Obama. There’s every reason to think she would have lost by an even bigger larger margin.
Here’s the thing: Yesterday’s elections were regional contests on a national map that heavily favored the GOP, and they took place in a time of discontent. So the GOP did the smart thing and nationalized the election. They made it all about Obama, and they won big by trashing the president.
You may not like it. I damn sure don’t like it. But that’s what happened, and people who are saying the Dems in red or purple areas should have just doubled down on support for the administration sound just as loopy as the teaturds who were shrieking that Romney and McCain lost because they weren’t enough like Sarah Palin or Ted Cruz.
We’ll see a very different political landscape in 2016 because there is precisely ZERO chance that the Republicans won’t overreach and make a hash of their control of Congress. They’ve demonstrated repeatedly that they have no intention of governing in good faith, and they aren’t going to magically turn into patriots over the next two years.
And if politics over the next two years follows its usual pattern, the future Democratic nominee, whoever she or he is, would be stupid NOT to embrace the president and run on the accomplishments of the Obama administration, such as the ACA. Does that sound contradictory? It’s not.
In 2016, we’ll be in a presidential election year. It’s no knock on Obama to acknowledge that he’s deeply unpopular in some areas and that Democrats who wanted to win regional campaigns like those decided in yesterday’s election couldn’t afford to be seen as close to the administration.
By the same token, a 2016 nominee who wants to win a national election should tailor her campaign strategy to the unique circumstances of a presidential election year and avoid pissing off Obama’s supporters. It ain’t rocket surgery. And anyone who is peddling one strategy or the other exclusively for every scenario is full of crap, in my opinion.