That other war: they're winning it

Political Whac-A-Mole:

In last year’s elections, [Kansas] bucked its long tradition of moderate Republicanism. Conservatives ousted several moderates in Senate primary contests and went on to victory in November. Now, for the first time in generations, the House, the Senate and the governor’s office in Kansas are controlled by conservative Republicans. In much of the rest of the country, the political equation is similar: The Republican Party now controls both legislative chambers and governorships in 24 states. Democrats have single-party control in 13.

And they--the tea partiers, the right-wing extremists, the conservative Republicans, whatever you wish to call the they of the core GOP--told us some time ago that they'd do precisely what they're doing, in Kansas: gutting government services, undermining revenue streams, heaping fiscal burdens on the working class, further privatizing government healthcare programs, decimating education funding and, reports the NYT, "repeal[ing] ... tax credits for food, rental housing and child care that benefited low-income residents."

State and local politics are the more perfect union for the right's dystopic aims: they offer even lower-information but ideologically motivated voters a rather easy chance to dominate at the body politic's lightly frequented polls. Thus while the left is cheering a reblossoming of its nationally progressive vision, the right is whistling and walking away with the citizenry's real-world, material future.

For the left it becomes a question of resources and staying power. Can it effectively fight with persistent determination a two-front war?--the newsier, sexier national crusade, as well as the state and local struggle?

I can't know the answer to that, none of us can; but we should know that the challenges are really just beginning.

Comments

[japa21]

There is little doubt that if the Dems don't take state and local level elections seriously, whatever they gain on the national level is moot. Probably the most disappointing thing that happened in WI last year is not that Walker beat back the recall effort, but that in November the GOP won back control of the State Senate.

The general rule is that people vote more based upon party affiliation than candidate qualifications at those levels, so if you have a hard core base really working on getting to the polls, such as the RW base is, they can gain control of the party and win general elections.

That is why 2014 will be so important, not just for Congressional and Senate elections but state and local. If Dems can take back control in some of those states, they can undo a lot of the damage, include the gerrymandering by the GOP.

[Peter G]

If the Republicans are sorely in need of a road to electoral victory epiphany at the federal level, the Democrats are equally in need of of such an epiphany when it comes to state politics. I would not at all disagree that more extreme elements of the Republican party dominate at the state level. They turn up and they care. the same should be true of Democrats. Why not. The larger question is why the Republicans win at the state level. And that, I think, is because people do not trust Democrats to be fiscally responsible or to be responsive to the needs of the electorate at large on a state level. Never was this made clearer than in Wisconsin where the large amounts of money spent by both sides failed to budge the opinion of the electorate much at all.

[Robert Lipscomb]

The very serious professionals in the Democratic Party mocked Howard Dean's Fifty State Strategy. I do not know how well his strategy was implemented, but his goal was spot-on.

In 2008, Obama inherited the skeletal remains of the Dean on-line, grassroots machinery to great effect. Last year, it was taken to a new level. Now it must be applied to a 50 state strategy.

[RC Chile]

Just when I thought that Democrats were gaining ground in my traditionally conservative area the gun frenzy has safely locked in the Republicans for at least the next 20 years,same as 1994.

[M Smith]

Well, Kansas. What else can you expect?