Will Jeff Merkley or Sherrod Brown now decide to run for the 2016 presidential nomination?
So who won the 2014 midterm elections?
The easy answer is the Republican Party.
On election night, the party managed to seize control of the Senate by picking up at least seven seats previously held by Democrats, a goal that has eluded Republicans since 2006.
The GOP also captured at least 14 House races, expanding its already sizable majority to at least 243 seats — the most it’s claimed since Harry Truman was president.
While a dizzying 14 gubernatorial races were tossups heading into Nov. 4, almost all of them broke toward the GOP — meaning that Republican governors will still vastly outnumber Democratic governors on Inauguration Day.
And Americans are plainly disillusioned with President Barack Obama; according to the exit polls, a full 54 percent of voters disapprove of his performance as president, and 65 percent say the country is headed in the wrong direction.
There was good reason, in other words, for conservative journalist Philip Klein to crow on Twitter that “this is what a wave feels like” — because it is.
But here’s the thing: In politics, the easy answer isn’t always the only answer, and the winner of an election isn’t always the one who benefits most. Take a closer look at demography, geography and the road ahead for the parties, and it’s clear that the long-term winner of the 2014 midterms wasn’t the GOP at all. The long-term winner, in fact, wasn’t even on the ballot this year.
Her name is Hillary Clinton.
Of course the GOP is celebrating right now, as it should. Any election that ends up putting Republicans into the governors’ mansions in Illinois and Maryland is worth getting worked up about. But under the surface, almost everything about last night’s midterm results — and the map, the math and the legislative morass that lies ahead in the run-up to 2016 — suggests that the former first lady and secretary of state could have a better next two years than the party currently guzzling champagne.
Which is not to say that Clinton will be unbeatable (even if her path to the Democratic nomination got a little easier after Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, a likely rival, watched his hand-picked successor lose Tuesday night). Far from it. Clinton spent the last two months holding 45 campaign events in 18 hard-fought states, but almost all the big candidates she stumped for lost, from Alison Lundergan Grimes in Kentucky to Bruce Braley in Iowa. Critics will say her campaign skills leave a lot to be desired, and she certainly won’t be heading into 2016 with many chits to cash in. But that doesn’t change one simple fact: Even Tuesday’s huge GOP victory shows that Republicans still have some catching up to do if they want to defeat her in 2016.
— How Hillary Clinton won the 2014 midterms, Andrew Romano, Yahoo News, yesterday
Why, of course! Isn’t everything Democrat all about, always about, Hillary Clinton? All Hillary Clinton, all the time?
Please stop. PLEASE. STOP.
I read somewhere (I can’t remember where) this morning that Clinton is huddling today with some of the Clintons’ longtime political aides to analyze the election results and figure out how she should proceed. Not whether she should proceed, but how. And yesterday I read that she and her longtime aides are trying in light of the election results to figure out what her “messaging” should be.
Does anyone remember reading anything about Hillary Clinton and her impending campaign that doesn’t mention longtime aides, longtime associates, longtime supporters, longtime consultants? Y’know, people in her “orbit”? People who hope to profit directly from a Clinton campaign and then a Clinton presidency? I sure don’t.
And, while—granted—the Yahoo News story I excerpt from above was published yesterday, the day after the election, rather than, say, today, two days after the election, it does show how thoroughly the political news and commentary media has precluded even from consideration that the Democratic Party recognizes Tuesday’s earthquake for what it is. And what it is is a primal call for a Democratic presidential nominee who doesn’t have to search for and then settle on a message. Someone who already had one of those.
One that is long steeped in what matters to voters and potential voters now: issues that can be addressed only by policies of populist economics.
The Democrats have won the culture-wars issues, everywhere except in Texas and the South, and it’s (past) time to accept their victory and move on from it. They also have won the economic-policy issues. It’s time for them to recognize that … and move on to it. In depth. In specifics. In spades.
In other words, what they need—and soon—is a presidential candidate who really knows the specifics, the actual nitty-gritty, of these policies, because he or she has been deeply involved in and openly committed to them for a long time.
Last year, when it appeared likely that Obama planned to nominate Larry Summers to replace the retiring Ben Bernanke as Fed chairman—reportedly, Obama had offered it to Timothy Geithner, who declined; Timothy Geithner! Seriously!—three members of Senate Banking Committee told Obama that they would vote against Summers’ confirmation. Those three members effectively nominated Janet Yellin, by forcing Obama’s hand. Those three Banking Committee members were Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, and Jeff Merkley.
I’ve noted several times here at AB my abiding hope that Brown would run for the nomination, whether or not Clinton runs. I know that others here and there have voiced the same hope, and I don’t know whether he would be interested were it not that Clinton has the entire Democratic establishment cowed, and if so, he might reconsider in light of Tuesday’s message. But I’d also wondered whether Merkley has toyed with the idea of running against Clinton, once he was past his reelection campaign. He won comfortably on Tuesday, albeit against an awful, self-imploding Tea Party opponent, in a largely liberal state that votes entirely by mail.
So … here are highlights about his Senate record, from Wikipedia:
Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, citing Bernanke’s failure to “recognize or remedy the factors that paved the road to this dark and difficult recession.” As a member of the Senate Banking Committee, Merkley became a leading force in the effort to pass the Wall Street reform bill. Along with Michigan Senator Carl Levin, successfully added an amendment, usually called the Volcker Rule, to the Dodd–Frank Wall Street reform bill, which banned high-risk trading inside commercial banking and lending institutions. Merkley also championed an amendment that banned liar loans, a predatory mortgage practice that played a role in the housing bubble and subsequent financial collapse.
He was a founding signatory of a mid-February 2010 petition to use reconciliation to pass legislation providing for a government-run health insurance program in the Senate. Merkley also championed legislation that provides new mothers with a private space and flexible break times to pump breast milk once they return to work. Merkley’s breastfeeding amendment was included in the health care reform law and signed into law by President Obama in 2010.
In late February 2010, Merkley again made headlines when he unsuccessfully tried to persuade Republican colleague Jim Bunning of Kentucky to drop his objection to passing a 30-day extension of unemployment benefits for jobless Americans. Bunning replied, “Tough shit.” A spokesman for Merkley claimed that the Oregon senator did not hear Bunning’s remark at the time.
In late 2010, Merkley began circulating a proposal to his fellow Senate colleagues about the need to force Senators to filibuster in order to block legislation. In 2011, Merkley introduced a bill to reform the filibuster and help end gridlock in the Senate. He was joined by Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico and Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa.
Brown would have the advantage in the general election of being from large swing-state Ohio, and I suspect at this point that John Kasich will be a strong contender for the Repub nomination, as might Rob Portman. But if he won’t run, then maybe—hopefully—Merkley will.
And, yes, in light of Tuesday, it’s conceivable that Elizabeth Warren will change her mind and run Certainly she will be urged to, more intensely than she has been. But I don’t think she will.
But the nascent Ready for Warren movement could be easily adapted to a Ready for Sherrod or a Ready for Jeff movement. And there are, I’m certain, some large Dem donors who have had more than enough of “women’s issues” campaigns and don’t give a damn whether the Clintons will cut them out, should Hillary win the nomination and the election.
It’s time now, folks, for an end to the Hillary Clinton obsession and an end to the Clintons’ campaign-industrial complex. Really.
Maybe the long-term winner, in fact, was on the ballot this year, after all.
His name is Jeff Merkley.
Democrats have to understand that the office of president is not the be all and end all of electoral politics. It is likely that pretty much any decent Democratic candidate can win the presidential election given the sort of turnouts that occur in presidential years. Tuesday’s loss can be tied directly to turnout – at 37% it’s clear that the folks who vote for Democrats didn’t participate.
Democrats, or better, Progressives, actually have a solid argument that they are the true conservatives in today’s political landscape. They represent the idea of conserving the gains and fairness embodied in the New Deal and the Civil Rights movement, both of which are under reactionary assault. Democrats represent a responsible sort of American individualism, and individualism grounded in the realistic context of society and institutions. Today’s Right embraces a nihilistic form of individualism that is more akin to every man for himself than anything that speaks of order and progress.
Yes, it’s important who is president but equally important is who fills the slots in the legislature – our system is heavily weighted towards legislative power. There is a clear line from local county commissions and school boards to state legislatures to Congress. Democrats need to build an electorate that doesn’t show up once every four years to cheer a leader but instead grows and sustains itself from basic fundamental principles of the value of the individual citizen participating in the larger enterprise of self-government.
I know we’re going to talk about who runs for president but the way to combat money in politics, to overcome the power of the plutocrats, to ensure a society built on fairness and opportunity is to focus on issues of justice, economic growth, and, most important of all, participation in the process of active citizenship. I’m not talking about some sort of populist fire that is equal parts reactionary conformism and reductive individualism but true, active participation in the political process.
Preserving the positive changes of the New Deal and Civil Rights means reinforcing the ideas of broad participative responsible citizenship and that involves much more than focusing on who wins the presidency. The way to take the message away from the consultants and the plutocrats that hire the consultants is by building solidly from the ground up.
Beverly–
I guess you don’t care that Hillary Clinton is the most popular
Democrat in America.
Or that Bill & Hillary will be able to do something that no other
Democrat can do: get out the African America,, Latino and poor
white (under 60) vote.
African Americans, Latinos, poor whites and single mothers:
those are the people that need our help & those are the people that progressives should be worrying about.
Finally, what do you have against “women’s issues”? (by which I assume you mean abortion, equal pay, universal pre-K,
maternity leave, and the fact that the U.S. has a larger percentage of children living in poverty than any other developed nation?
Sorry, but nobody votes in mid-terms and you have a 2 term president nearing the end(outside Bill Clinton they are always in a sense “unpopular”). There was no wave. That is why Hillary makes sense from a political pov when the base expands.
Basically the old base of the Republican party came out in excess, which was similiar to the middle age base of the Democratic party in 2006.
“Nobody votes in midterms”
Well that’s sort of the point isn’t it. If you want to pass progressive policies and have a progressive movement then you have to show up more than once every four years.
Bill and Hillary don’t get out the vote as much as the highlight of a presidential year does. Obama “got out the vote” and he’s been arguably less effective than he might have been because he didn’t have supportive legislatures behind him. Bill Clinton spent two terms triangulating, essentially playing sides off each other and splitting the difference. That may have been enough to keep him popular but it also meant never forwarding a coherent agenda or message. The point of acquiring power is to do something with it not just hold it.
For far too long Democrats have allowed Republicans to make social issues wedge electoral issues. These are important issues but they work differently than economic issues, at least in some ways. The consensus for gay marriage has been moving towards acceptance on a sociological level for years. The national consensus on abortion is actually pretty clear, a solid majority want it to be available with some restrictions. The consensus on marijuana is moving.
For the most part the people these issues motivate are reactionaries, folks who wish to turn back the clock. The true “conservatives” on these issues are progressives who, at the very least, endorse a sort of Burkean move towards acceptance of changing social mores while preserving institutional structures.
The simple fact of the matter is that progressives are not going to turn out voters on a consistent basis if elections are allowed to be fought on social issues. Winning legislatures and the consequences that follow is the key. The way to do that is to create a movement based on an articulate view of social justice, which includes the arenas of economic and social justice.
Democrats need to get past the idea of messianic leaders. It’s great to win presidential elections but if you can’t force the conversation in a consistently progressive direction, if you can’t make that the compromises are made on your terms and in your preferred direction then filling the office of president is a hollow victory.
Maggie, I have nothing at all against women’s issues. Either does Merkley (read his full Wikipedia bio), and either does Sherrod Brown (read his full Wikipedia bio). What I’m against is a campaign that addresses only the issues viewed a women’s issues—a campaign that doesn’t focus on the broader populist-economics issues, ones that a broad swath of women and men both care a lot about. Issues that cut to the heart of so many current problems with American society. Ossification of socio-economic status, for example. Huge corporate profits but no wage increases. Absolutely huge chasms between the rich and everyone else. Laws actually written by the very wealthy. Etc. Etc.
I think it’s false, and also condescending, to think that only Bill and Hillary Clinton could bring out black, Hispanic, and poor voters in a presidential election. And certainly they’re not the only ones—by any stretch—who could bring out young voters. In fact, I can’t imagine that turnout among any of these groups would be larger with Hillary Clinton as the nominee than with Elizabeth Warren, or Merkley or Brown, both of whom have policy backgrounds and preferences similar to Warren’s.
What will matter, across the board in 2016, are the specifics of policy proposals and the ability to inform the public of them. And it’s infinitely easier to inform the public in a presidential election year than in an off-year. Although if the message is just “women’s issues,” informing the public of the nominee’s policy positions won’t be enough, whether the nominee is Hillary Clinton or anyone else.
I don’t think anyone younger than 50 gives a damn about Hillary Clinton. Other than Chelsea and her husband. Baby Boomers are fixated on this couple, but no one else is.
Don’t get me wrong: Bill Clinton makes very powerful–beautiful, really–speeches that articulate the essence of progressive policy (even though he himself isn’t all that progressive on some things). But he never talks specifically about “women’s issues”. Yet he is far, far more potent than she is. Far, far more.
“Democrats need to get past the idea of messianic leaders. It’s great to win presidential elections but if you can’t force the conversation in a consistently progressive direction, if you can’t make that the compromises are made on your terms and in your preferred direction then filling the office of president is a hollow victory.”
Yeah. Indeed, Mark.
And anyone who thinks Hillary Clinton is a messiah is dreaming.
I think a lot of the assumptions about a Hillary Clinton coronation ignore the difference between Democratic primary voters and general election voters. Primary voters of both parties tend to resent being sold an heir apparent and rightfully so. Ask Mitt Romney.
Beverly–
Bill was our first black president. The young Latinos and African-Americans who I know (including my son-in-law) love him.
Far more than Obama.
This is why the Democratic party sent Bill to campaign in the South to try to help mid-term Democratic candidates.&
And young women are now very enthusiastic about Hillary
(& Chelsea).
I can recall a time when young people didn’t like Hillary–no longer true.
She is an extraordinarily skilled politician–as she showed when she went to the Senate, and won them over.
And voters will see Hillary/Bill as one package.
(A great many people in this country just wish that Bill could run again.
Finally, suggesting that Hillary is all about “women’s issues” suggests that you haven’t followed what she has done internationally.
Or her recognition that, in this country, children are our neediest
citizens.
Beverly, three great alternatives choices for the democratic party. Clinton has so many negative’s there’s not enough space to list them. Well mention the most out rages, being under real gun fire.