Independent Neighborhood Democrats: It's Still the Economy, Stupid!
It's STILL the Economy, Stupid!
That was the T-shirt I wore last night to a meeting of my local Democratic club, the Independent Neighborhood Democrats (IND). It proved to be a very appropriate shirt.
Last night, IND had a guest speaker, Hank Sheinkopf, political consultant, formerly a member of President Clinton’s re-election media team, and panelist on a NY-1 roundtable discussion. Sheinkopf is the ultimate Democratic insider and he came to discuss the 2006 election victory with us.
But first the warmup acts. There were two stand up routines and a farcical play. Well, not really. There were two good speechs by unexpected guests, Steve Harrison and David Yassky, and some club business.
Steve Harrison, whose followers were present last night in impressive numbers, showing that if he wants to run again, he may have an organization in place ready to go, spoke about finally winning NY-13. He pointed out that the district, contrary to popular "wisdom," is majority Democratic and that the fact that he did better with only $100,000 than Barbaro did two years ago with $300,000 shows that we are making progress. He did not say whether he would run in 2 years, but it sure seemed like he was trying to plant that seed. Good for him. Let's start now and I bet 2 years from now will be the year for us in NY-13.
David Yassky focused on a bill before the City Council. No, not resolution 131, which I have been urging him to support for MONTHS now which will help protect our vote. No, he focused on another important bill which will repeal a huge tax loophole for developers. Or, at least, partly repeal it. There is an existing law that exempts housing developers in NYC from certain taxes for 15 years (if I got the details right from Yassky's speech). Essentially this was put in place during different economic times when developers didn't want to build in NYC. Yassky wants to repeal that tax break unless the developer promises at least 30% "affordable housing." In other words, if the developer is building market rate housing, which means he will probably make a killing off it, they will no longer get the tax break. If, however, they are helping alleviate the shortage of affordable housing, then they can keep the tax break. My one complaint is that, as usual in NYC, no one really wants to define affordable housing in any clear, meaningful way. But the basic premise of the bill is excellent.
The last warmup act was a spirited discussion and partial adoption of some bylaws changes by IND. Some language in the bylawas was cleared up and some anti-packing rules were adopted. Changes that would try and bar any members of other local clubs from voting at IND without sumbitting written statements that they only voted at IND was rejected.
Now we come to the main act: Hank Sheinkopf. And it was an excellent act indeed.
Sheinkopf's initial message was that Democras did not win this year because of anything we did right, but rather because the Republicans had crashed and burned. We won because the Republicans were so corrupt, had lied so much and had, in essence, lost the confidence of the voters. His warning was this: unless we return to the populist economic message that is the HEART of the Democratic Party, we will lose again.
Sheinkopf has his own agenda, of course. He is pushing for Hillary Clinton for President (more on that later for Michael and Wallner's benefit). But, that and a few other disagreements aside, I agreed with him just about completely.
The core of his talk was that Democrats need to focus on just one message, and it was the message that ALWAYS works for Democrats since the 1920's: economic populism. Actually, I would use the term "progressivism" because that is how Theodore Roosevelt described it when it was Republicans who were the economic populists, but Wallner and Gatemouth might quibble with my usage. And economic populism is a good term for it as well.
It's STILL the economy, stupid! That's the message. No...that's THE MESSAGE.
Sheinkopf argues that it is the blue-collar vote that determines national elections. He narrowed it down to 500,000 white, male Catholics...but I suspect that you could use other groups as the key demographic as well. This group is often socially conservative, but when faced with bread and butter issues, they vote for economic populism even over Republican posturing on gay marriage. They will only buy into the wedge issues Republicans routinely run on (what else do they have?) if they don't see the Democrats offering them economic populism.
Raise the minimum wage. Make education more affordable for working class Americans. Jobs. Fiscal responsibility. THOSE are the issues that Democrats MUST focus on to win. And I completely agree with Sheinkopf on this. Democrats have almost always been better on economic issues, presiding over better job prospects, better stock performance and lower deficits than the Republicans. That is our strength and that is what we ignore at our peril.
The Iraq war is a major issue right now. Republican corruption is a major issue right now. But "right now" is not 2008. They may still be issues in 2008, but what we KNOW is that economic populism is ALWAYS a good strategy for Democrats.
Sheinkopf believes Hillary Clinton WILL be the Democratic nominee in 2008, believes that she WILL run on an economic populist message (and I bet he wants to be the one to craft that message), and believes that 2008, and most years, come down to four states: Missouri, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. He thinks Hillary has a very good shot at winning the presidency and points to her good performance in upstate as evidence since upstate has a similar demographics to the four states he considers key to a Democratic victory (Wallner and Michael can now debate this). He disagrees with Dean's 50-state strategy, and I think he is wrong about that particularly since looking at Congress, we are winning our majorities thanks to a broad effort that includes Indiana, Montana, Kentucky, etc. Sheinkopf feels that the South below Missouri is irrelevant to the Democrats, and I think he is wrong about that, particularly given the strength of politicians from those states (Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Edwards, Jim Webb, Mark Warner...). As an aside, I also feel somewhat negatively towards Sheinkopf because he proudly brags about getting Betsy "do-nothing" Gotbaum elected Public Advocate. But I do think he is right that those four states are critical and that an economic populist/traditionally progressive message will play very well in those states. They have played well in Indiana and Montana recently, so let's expand that message and make it our Congressional agenda. Even if we want a 50-state rather than 4-state strategy, the same message will carry us.
Iraq
Minimum wage
Addressing income inequalities
Education
Those were the top four issues Sheinkopf advocates we focus on. I could add to that list...but it is a good starting point. And it agrees with many of the points I have made when I advocated a particular agenda for the Democratic Congress. I will expand upon my recommended agenda, inspired by Sheinkopf, in the future. For now it is simply about remembering the message and starting with the four points above.
I had almost stopped wearing my "It's STILL the Economy, Stupid" t-shirt. But three things make it still relevant today. First, it is the liberal shirt I own that almost universally gets a positive reaction: a chuckle, a laugh or a shake of the head and a "you got THAT right." Second, as economists are warning of a new recession (did we ever really leave the LAST recession) as well as continuing threat of inflation, a combination we used to call "stagflation," it really IS the economy that is the #1 issue. And third, being reminded by Sheinkopf that this is the message that consistently wins elections for Democrats makes me prouder than ever of that t-shirt.
Start saying it now and keep saying it until 2008, every day: It's STILL the economy, stupid.
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2006 Elections | 2008 Elections | Campaigning | Culture | Economics | Elections | Iraq | Labor | Marketing | Politics | Democratic Party
Kane St. Synagogue
Submitted by mole333 on 1 December 2006 - 2:45pm.
Yassky and I have had extensive "debates" about stuff. But overall I have liked him in the City Council.
Last night's meeting was unusual. It was at the Kane St. Synagogue in Cobble Hill. But the club usually meets at its clubhouse. Their website isn't kept up too well, but you can find their calander and meeting info at their website. They are a good club to join...even if I have had my disagreements with them ; -)
Thanks
Submitted by sidnora on 3 December 2006 - 11:39am.
for posting this. I had to sneak out about 15 minutes into Sheinkopf's talk, due to work-schedule pressures; I didn't think the bylaws discussion would take so long, though I'm satisfied with the result.
I wasn't as impressed with him as you seem to have been, mainly for two reasons: one, his obvious pushing of Hillary's candidacy, and second, that "four-state" strategy, which seems very much rooted in the past of both the party and the country. And the second point is the one that concerns me more.
I think the 50-state strategy has been given way too little credit by the Democratic power brokers and pundits for what happened last month, partly because people like Sheinkopf feel professionally threatened, both by Dean himself and his "outsider" cachet, and by the grassroots/netroots movement that tends to cut high-paid consultants out of the loop. That could be because they are married to the idea of the four-state strategy (19 states was too many?), which is based on a demographic concept of the country that is at least a generation old. Yes, that half-a-million guy group still exists, and they should be a targeted group, but there are many other demographic fractions that have grown much more important than they were 20 years ago, when the Republicans were sinking their teeth into those Rust Belt white ethnics. And they are in other parts of the country, notably the Mountain West and the Southwest, fast-growing areas where I think the near future of the party lies geographically and ethnically. The Democrats were given a golden opportunity to stop the bleeding away of Hispanic voters this year by the Republicans' ugly attitudes towards immigration; if we can be seen as the party that produced rational, humane immigration reform we can draw and hold the fastest-growing ethnic group in the country for a generation to come; who would you rather have voting for you, them or the Minutemen?
The other problem with basing our strategy on those guys is their age, which is rapidly climbing. They are starting to die off even now, and they live in a part of the country that, while still populous, is becoming less so. I read somewhere recently that people overwhelmingly tend to remain loyal to the party they voted for in their first Presidential election, and one of the reasons for the Republican hegemony we have lived with was that the last generation's "baptism" came during the Reagan years. It has taken Bush's unparalleled horribleness to awaken them. But the political attitudes of today's young people are being formed from scratch by the Bush disaster, and they are exhibiting an interest in political engagement that we haven't seen since...well, since Reagan's "glory" days. They, too, are the future of the party, if we can hold them.
After all those criticisms, though, I have to say that I couldn't agree more with him about those four platform positions - they are huge. But could we please have a teeny bit of accountability, too? The people seem to have had corruption on their minds when they were voting, and I suspect they're more open to the idea of housecleaning than the Dems in power want to believe. And I'm not sure if the Constitution and the structure of the government can take two more years of unrestrained erosion.
Largely agree
Submitted by mole333 on 3 December 2006 - 12:17pm.
I am focusing on the best points of his talk. I agree that a 50-state strategy for the DNC is a MUST. The DSCC and maybe DCCC can be more targeted, but the DNC at a minimum should be 50-state.
And Hillary...well, I keep waiting for Michael to weigh in on that one!
As far as accountability, I place high priority on that. BUT...Sheinkopf is right that for the bulk of Americans, even that issue pales in the face of survival economics. And Democrats have traditionally been extremely good at winning when they focus on survival economics.
I think fighting Republican corruption can fuel Democratic popularity early in the Congressional session. But we need to rapidly move into economic survival issues to make lasting friends in the electorate.
Where did you guys meet at?
Where did you guys meet at? I always like to hear my main man Yassky in action!! And Harry was right and keep wearing your t-Shirt.