Thoughts from the Smoking Rubble...

The Long March Begins

A few thoughts as we all shift through the smoking rubble…

So, What the F#ck Happened?

I guess that is the question of the day and I have an answer. During the campaign I often compared Campaign 2024 to a collision of two mighty opposing forces. I called the Harris campaign a confederacy of smaller but still powerful forces: the Dobbs decision, more money, more technical competence, generational change and a “vibe” contrast; Ted Lasso vs Voldemort. The Trump campaign, on the other hand, greatly benefited from a mighty single force that it did not create but was propelling it forward. I described this force as a 100-mile-wide wall of molten lava, moving at a slow but unstoppable pace. This force was voter economic anger from inflation and a desire to make big political change, as evidenced by the 70% “wrong track” sentiment we were continually seeing in public opinion polls.

I should have stop talking right then, stuck with the wall of lava thing and predicted Trump.

Instead, like most pundits I overlooked these fundamentals — administrations facing a 70% wrong track electorate are toast — and instead fell into that venerable trap; thinking that this time, things might be different! The reason? The relentless, epic, and noisy short-comings of Donald J. Trump. So I ultimately blurted out on Hacks on Tap that I thought, with low to medium confidence, that Kamala Harris would win.

Whoops.

I should have known better. This was an ejector seat election.  Push the Big Red Button and blow it all up. Dump them all. Send somebody in there the elites really hate, and make things like they were before stuff started costing too much. And give me my damn regular pro-nouns back!

To quote my Democratic friend Paul Begala, “inflation is particularly deadly to incumbent politicians because when prices keep going up, that’s the President’s fault. When your wages rise with inflation, that’s because you earned it as a good worker. Now that S.O.B. in the White House is burning up your hard earned raise.”

Of course Joe Biden’s selfishness made it all far worse. If ever a one-term Presidency was necessary, it was his. I do understand why Joe from Scranton chose to be such a tragic dead-ender. Climbing the mile high greasy pole to the Oval is a long, grim slog of endless rejection. You only prevail by never, ever, ever quitting. You never give up, just keep crawling forward over a bottomless desert of broken glass. So, after your scared body finally winds up in the Big Chair, any idea of giving up seems insane. (I even wrote about this phenomenon here, back in July of 2023, when Joe Biden so badly needed an honest friend.)

So, there the race wound up. A President the country badly wanted to fire, an awful debate, and soon thereafter a new candidate nominated at the last minute by a few telephone conference calls. No primary, no competition, no chance to actually beat somebody and win and create a strong image distance from Joe Biden. Or, get beaten by somebody and create a new star.  A fresh start. A change.

But none of that happened. Instead, there was that Deadly Moment on the View where the essential question was asked and the wrong answer given. You could feel the indelible ink set instantly.

At that point Kamala Harris was Team Biden, ver 2.0. The Harris campaign’s vibe-driven nuanced change was a good try but it was not enough and was never going to work. Voters wanted a sledgehammer, not a tweak. And there was a big orange mallet within easy reach.

The Bias of the Bubble

One reason plenty of pundits and most political professionals expected a Harris victory, especially during the vibe-heavy last ten days of the race, is we exist in a bubble with two confirmation biases. Among the media, mostly well educated, secular, modern and center-left, there is a strong temptation to view the Presidential contest primarily through a simplifying lens of identity issues around race and gender. Since Trump is an anathema to modern views about those topics, it’s no surprise that a majority of Americans voting for Trump seems automatically improbable.

Second, in the small world of political consulting, we love, profit from, and know a lot about political campaigns. Naturally we believe in — and often over-estimate — the power of campaign technology. The clever ad, the nifty analytics and polling, even (thought I’ve always been a contrarian skeptic myself) the endlessly cited and all-important “ground game.”

So, for a bunch of cynics, we hacks are quite easy marks for the idea that “this time, things are different” because we think we have discovered in our vast wisdom a new magic X factor.

I sure was a mark for it; I mean Trump must have a ceiling right? But deep down I knew enough about the fundamentals to be wary. I would tell friends that while my brain said Trump, but my gut said Harris.

Next time I’m going with my brain. Too much confirmation bias in the ol’ gut after so many years in politics. The argument that swayed my, and many other, political guts was that while the “wrong track” was indeed very high, part of that scream for a change was deep exhaustion with the dark tone of the Trump years. And Harris was not Biden! And she was generational change! And Dobbs anger had caused Democratic candidates to far over-perform in past elections, even in deep red states! The 2022 Red Wave had fizzled in the Congressional midterms because of it and Trump!

Plus, Harris had a mostly disciplined, if over-cautious, operation and a sane data-driven schedule! Not that crazy Trump flying to blue states and boring rally crowds with lunatic rambling and unleashing racist punk insult comics at creepy Bund-ish rallies in Madison Square Garden!!! That all had to mean something! And look at the Ann Seltzer poll in Iowa! This time, wrong track be damned, it would be different! Narrow, but different.

Whoops again.

Show Trials and One Electrifying Michigan Blunder

So now the Democratic Party, shocked and bruised, is going to stare in the mirror for a long while and squabble. I’ll just say that Harris did the best she could. I don’t fault her. She fought and worked. But the larger scene was set.

I give the Harris campaign a gentleman’s B. Not great, not awful. I do think they screwed up in vital Michigan by not responding to Trump’s relentless attacks on EV’s as Michigan auto job-killers (of course the opposite is true). A full report on that is here, complete with ads and a statewide poll of Michigan voters taken two weeks before the election.

Now the Democrats will slug their way through a classic battle between the party’s mathematicians and high priests.

The priests will say give ‘em the Old Testament from the Left, this mushy move to the center stuff is useless. The mathematicians will counter that the Democrats have lost working class and Latino voters on cultural issues, just check out Trump’s fabled Trans ad. Time to go back to DLC style centrism and nominate moderate white dudes who will not define the party with harebrained ideas like Defund the Police and Green New Deals.

This battle will rage on for a long while and frankly, I’m already bored by it. Others have about twenty million words to write on this, so I’ll leave it to them and just be happy I don’t live in DC anymore where endless insider chatter over all this, relentless Doom-casting and a muddy army of Trumpian Visigoths preening all around town is going to make life in that grim company town even more tiresome than usual. I’ll just say I’m with the mathematicians and my advice to the D’s is to stop seeing America as a tapestry of groups to be coddled and appeased. Drop the hyphened Americans obsession and frame the party about helping the little guy and gal once again. get on the side of those who are playing by the rules and working hard to just get by.

I’m more preoccupied with another more immediate battle.

A War Cry

So dear Democrats, have your good cry, but next week please snap out of it and start the hard work needed to win the goddamn midterms. Votes are still being counted in a few California House districts, but the odds are strong the MAGA GOP will soon gain control of the House.

I know, I know… nuts on the loose, but I said stop crying. Toss away the dream catchers. Stop watching Rachel and eating ice cream. You got dumped.

Now it’s time to seize the future.

It is inevitable — a word I hesitate to use in the current bizzarro world politics we endure, but this is about the best bet around — that the Trump administration will have a good dollop of, well, lunatic chaos to it. And with control of both Congressional chambers and the Presidency, the GOP will of course over-reach in their subtle MAGA way. A big tariff regime will create huge economic pain. Massive spending without offsetting revenue, will sputter the economy.

Don’t forget that the party of the new President almost always faces a tough mid-term, especially in the House. Team Trump may well make that problem even worse.

(In the 2022 midterms Democrats lost 9 seats, a better than average showing, but Republicans took narrow control of the House.)

Now I know we have fewer swing seats now, etc. But historical norms combined with a grumpy electorate that has been promised an easy economic Nirvana combined with the likelihood of a true Keystone Cops Washington DC… well, just say the Democrats have a big opportunity coming their way in just 767 days.

So get to work Donkeys.

Photo by Carol Highsmith's America on Unsplash

Next steps? It’s time for a very hard-eyed look at the DNC and the DCCC (the House Congressional Campaign Committee). Put a ruthless but highly experienced and effective jerk in charge. (Hint: Rahm is packing in Tokyo right now. Call him.) Launch the biggest and smartest candidate recruitment effort in Democratic Party history. (Hint: try finding candidates from somewhere other than the local community college sociology department. Go with veterans, local pols, ex-Republicans. Go wide. 30+ Districts.). I know donors are exhausted and furious (Future Forward call your office) but if you give them a program worth investing in — with new faces, new approaches, and a smarter playbook — the funding will be there.

Start now. First, work relieves despair. Purpose is important. Second, the GOP pols know they could have very tough House midterms. They are afraid of losing their coveted majority. A strong move to build a Democratic midterms Goliath now will intimidate them. It could chill the MAGA nerve a bit. Why face Vikings when you can face a terrified mob of Don Knotts’s? (With apologies to Don, a great American.) Or, if they ignore caution and charge ahead recklessly, that’s good too. Better odds in 2026.

Finally, Do Not Surrender to Despair

This is a great country. Yes, it is very depressing to think that Donald Trump’s epic flaws were not an automatic disqualifier for the high office of President of the United States. The country did know who Trump is, and far too many people were just fine with it. Happy even. That is a dire warning about our culture. It is clear Americans now think so little of politics that they easily see Donald Trump as fitting right into Washington DC. That will take time to fix. In the meantime, I can only tell you what I plan to do. I’m going to watch a little less cable. I’m going to enjoy my family, and my silly hobbies. I’m going to read and learn and travel. I’m going to continue to fight for electric vehicle adoption at EVPolitics and the American EV Jobs Alliance because I care about the planet, I like fast and fun machines, I hate paying for gas and I really, really want there to still be a strong North American auto industry providing a middle-class life for millions of good Americans ten years from now. I’m also too old to learn Chinese.

One last thing. A little less politics right now is healthy for mind, body and soul. But soon, it will be time to saddle up. So in 767 days, I will have done all I can to beat that Orange Menace in the midterms and achieve the first victory in the Long March to get my beloved, responsibly conservative Republican Party back.

For my Democratic, and other never Trump allies, I’ll finish with the late, great Bob Hoskins playing another lefty in a tight spot.

And to all Americans, regardless of the color of their ball cap, I wish you a Happy Veterans Day.