Dems Need More Diversity, Too
Here we go again. Big election defeats inevitably are followed by major rounds of teeth-gnashing, shirt-rending, soul-searching, finger pointing, self-flagellating and circular firing squad shooting. Now it's the Democrats' turn. Again.
After their recent thrashing in midterm congressional elections, the Democratic National Committee is launching a "top-to-bottom review," DNC chair and Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz announced.
Let me guess: I bet they're going to reach conclusions very similar to the "autopsy" that Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus launched after Mitch Romney's 2012 defeat. In short, they need, as the RNC says, "more outreach."
And I am sure there will be pushback from the Dems' left-wing base much like the Grand Old Party has received from the far-right, to wit: We don't need no stinkin' outreach; we just need to knock on more doors to rally our base.
In fact, a party can do both and, in these rapidly changing times, it is increasingly important for party's to do both. Both are important for the long-term survival of the parties and for the good of our national governance, which is getting lower approval ratings than either party.
Each party has mastered the art of turning out winning majorities of the electorate, but they're turning out in different election years. The coalition that brings Democratic victories in national elections doesn't show up in Congressional midterm elections -- and vice versa.
Two years ago Republican establishment leaders fretted that their party was getting increasingly too old, too white and too alienating to minorities, unmarried women and young voters.
After winning a majority of the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections, Democrats had become the diversity party, in keeping with the nation's demographic future.
But that was then. After this year's disaster, the narrative has shifted back to where it once again is Democrats' turn to fret about an old electoral woe that has plagued the party since the mid-1960s: White middle-class and working-class flight.
Democrats performed worse with white voters on Tuesday than in any other congressional election since World War II, according to David Paul Kuhn, chief political correspondent for RealClearPolitics and author of "The Neglected Voter: White Men and the Democratic Dilemma."
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