Purple People Eaters
Written by Larry Marciniak Monday, 01 March 2010 19:34
Views from Members
PURPLE PEOPLE EATERS
OK, baby boomers, what did you think of first? The 1958 Sheb Wooley novelty song Purple People Eater or the Minnesota Vikings’ defensive line of the late 60’s and early 70’s featuring Hall of Famers Carl Eller and Alan Page nicknamed The Purple People Eaters? In our domestic political world of red and blue I am referring to what should be our target in 2010, the independents.
Even in the worst of times somewhere around 20% of the American electorate remains true to their respective party. To stick with the color theme, remember the expression Yellow Dog Democrats? The old adage is that these people would vote for a yellow dog before they would vote for a Republican. Come to think of it one of my dogs is a yellow lab. If you need more evidence of my loyalties the other is a chocolate lab named Buddy. You got it; he was named after President Clinton’s late dog.
The people in the middle who self-identify as neither Democrat nor Republican decide most elections. Therefore our candidates in 2010 must zero in on these people. They already have the Democratic loyalists and there will be no convincing the Republican loyalists. Consider this essay an open letter to 2010 Democratic candidates especially those running for federal office.
A tip from Tip
The late Thomas “Tip” O’Neill served as the 55th Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1977 to 1987. His most famous political quote is, “All politics is local.” He even wrote a book of the same name. Candidates who forget this political axiom do so at their own risk and often demise. We only need to go back to November 2009 for proof. Doug Hoffman was the Conservative Party candidate in the special election in New York’s 23rd Congressional district. He displayed an amazing ignorance of and apathy for local issues. That was a major factor in his losing. It alienated many of the voters.
If you are going to run do some homework first and get to know the local issues that are dear to the people whose votes you are seeking! Have substantive conversations with the local Democratic Party leaders. They can help cover any gaps in your knowledge.
A lesson from Harry
Anyone who knows me or has read much of my writings knows I’m a big admirer of President Truman. One of his principles for handling the opposition was to “…tell the truth on them.” With the advent of the 24 hour disinformation cable television network know as Fox News this has never been truer. To supplement Fox News you have an army of Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levine, Neal Boortz and company on radio who all seem to have forgotten to hire fact checkers.
Never has it been more important for a candidate to know the facts. In many cases your opponent won’t even know they are incorrect. They are simply repeating what they have heard from one of the above sources. Tactfully, but with conviction, call out the untruths and refute them with facts. Avoid bad body language or anything that can be construed as pouting. Remember Vice President Gore in his 2000 debate with George W. Bush? Bush was factually incorrect but Gore lost the battle for public opinion because he sighed instead of forcefully refuting the then Governor of Texas. The honorable thing to do is be correct. The goal is to honorably get elected.
Are you an incumbent or a challenger?
If you are an incumbent there is good news and bad news. The good news is that if you have been doing your job you should already be armed with a plethora of facts, figures and accomplishments. If you haven’t been doing your job shame on you! Step aside and let somebody else run who has a chance of winning! The bad news is that 2010 is going to be a tough year for incumbents, especially Democratic incumbents. Mid-term elections are historically difficult for the President’s party and it would be unreasonable to assume that the economy will be firing on all cylinders come Election Day. The people need someone to blame, and unfair as it may be, we will be the donkey that the tail gets pinned on.
If you are a challenger then do your homework and you should be able to run a good campaign. Highlight your opponent’s record. Did they vote against the stimulus and then smile at every ribbon cutting in their district funded by the stimulus? American’s may not like the stimulus, (including some like me who supported it reluctantly because we knew it was a bitter but necessary pill), but they hate hypocrites. You can’t proclaim the tree is evil and then take credit for its fruit.
Let them hang themselves with the middle. Ask them if they believe President Obama is an American. The “Birthers” may be popular with the Right Wing fringe but you won’t get their votes anyway. The purple people think “Birthers” are nut cases.
When they talk about fiscal conservatism they will cite Reagan and if they are really stupid Bush II. Prior to this Presidency the largest deficit in history was under Baby Bush. The record holder before that was Reagan. The size of government actually grew under Reagan. Marginal Federal Income Tax rates were much higher under Reagan than they are today. Do some research for actual numbers, but trust me they exist. An excellent book on the Reagan administration is Tear Down This Myth by Will Bunch. Be careful with how hard you go after Reagan, inexplicably a lot of purple people still like him.
Team Democrats
How does a candidate assemble all the information he or she requires to be well informed and prepared? It must be a team effort. The successful candidate will have two teams behind them. First will be your own campaign team consisting mainly of volunteers. Second will be the Party organization. There will be overlap between the two teams. Where did you think you were going to get experienced volunteers from if not the local Party?
Your campaign team won’t be assembled until just prior to your announcement and will only last until Election Day. The local Party should be an ongoing enterprise that is able to help all Democratic candidates. Laws, customs and policies vary from state to state as to whether or not Party Organizations get involved in Primary Elections. I do not want to get involved in that debate for a variety of reasons. I am concentrating on getting Democrats elected in November.
The local Party should be involved in monitoring local news services on an ongoing basis. This is often as simple as constantly clipping articles from the appropriate newspapers to have a dossier ready to hand over to the candidate. Where possible get audio and video recordings of the Republican opponent to build a multimedia dossier.
You
Wow, this sounds great I just sit back and let the volunteers and the Party Organization do all my leg work. If that is your attitude do us all a favor and don’t run!
You didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to run for office. This should have been something you have thought about for years. Start building your own dossiers on likely opponents and relevant issues. With the advent of the internet information is easier to collect and fact check than ever. Most newspapers are online and therefore it has never been easier to electronically save an article or print it out. Many television and radio shows are available, to at least some degree, online. It is recorded for posterity, and if you utilize it properly, to make your opponent look like a posterior. No more he said – she said. Remember what Harry said and, “Tell the truth on them.”
Read the mood
Read the mood of your district or state. Remember there is much more of an anti-incumbent than an anti-Democrat mood out there. It’s the old, “Throw the bums out,” mentality.
If you are a Democratic incumbent maintain contact with you constituents! We are political creatures and see things in red and blue, most constituents just want their problems solved. If you help them in their time of need they, along their friends and family, will remember you for elections to come regardless of party affiliation. If you are serving in Congress don’t neglect those trips back to your district. The people sent you to Washington, they didn’t exile you to Washington. I celebrated Election Night 2008 in Florida. The second most celebrated victory was Kay Hagan defeating Elizabeth Dole for the Senate seat in North Carolina. Senator Dole got elected to represent North Carolina and then basically became the woman who never returned. The voters resented that and they voiced their displeasure at the polls. They did it to the degree that Floridians were well aware of the North Carolinians’ complaint.
Make sure your voting record is a good one and that you communicate it effectively. If you are tainted and re-election is a pipe dream, do the right thing and step aside so the Party can get someone electable in your slot. You do no one, including yourself, any good if you get beat.
National Issues
If you are running against an incumbent Republican get a tape of the Republican reactions to President Obama’s State of the Union speech. Show them sitting on their hands on health care, imposing a fee on big banks and a tax break for the 95% of us not in the top 5% of earners.
Confront your opponent with his or her voting record. Paint them as an obstructionist. Did they vote as a block with their fellow Republicans to block the progressive agenda that the public elected President Obama to implement? Did they vote against projects that were aimed to help their own district?
If you can find bills that passed with overwhelming bi-partisan support and they were on the short side paint them as an extremist. Those votes exist in many cases. Dick Cheney had a few in his days in the House of Representatives. One included an attempt to legalize cop-killer bullets. Find one vote like that and run an ad campaign around it and you’ll make your opponent look like the nut case they are.
If they hold themselves out as a defender of a certain cause or group, say veterans or senior citizens, find a vote where they went against the interests of that group. Hypocrisy abounds in the Republican ranks; make sure the voters know about your opponent’s transgressions.
If this strategy does nothing else it will keep your opponent on the defensive and they will have fewer resources with which to attach you or spread untruths.
Guilt by association
If you have established your opponent as a follower of the Republican leadership who just votes the way he or she is told to vote you can now tie them to the sins of all Republicans.
The explosion in the use of the filibuster and the associated cloture vote really illustrates the Republican desire to obstruct. In 2007 the 110th Congress convened with the Democrats taking back control. The 110th (2007 & 2008) set the record for cloture votes with a total of 112. The 111th is following suit. In 2009 there were 39 cloture votes. Hey, the 2010 session has hardy started yet. If the 111th doesn’t set a new record it will only be due to the fact that the Republicans have become so proficient at the slow down game. Where does partisanship end and irresponsibility begin?
Speaking of the slow down game, remember Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma requiring that Senator Bernie Sanders’, (Vermont – Independent), proposed amendment to the Senate Health Care Bill be read in its 767 page entirety on the Senate floor? There is an obscure rule that allows any Senator to require the reading of any bill or amendment. This is an old rule that dates back to the early days of our country when some members of Congress could not read. Either we have a Republican Senator that can’t read or Senator Coburn was just wasting my country’s resources. Which conclusion do you think the purple people will reach?
Here are just two examples. There are a plethora of them. If you don’t already know them just do a little homework.
The big enchilada
The biggest segment of potential Democratic voters that we do a poor job of communicating with is small business owners. I can hear the naysayers now, “Small business owners are overwhelmingly Republicans.” While many in the Republican base are like a blind mouse following the leader, small business people are different. They are inherently independent. They are purple people by nature. They will listen. They can be convinced to vote in their own self-interest. While they may be motivated by greed, (which in the case of most small business owners would more literally translate to self preservation), but they are not motivated by racism/bigotry and fear like so many of the Republican sheep. If you can show them where our policies are better for their business and by extension their family, they will vote for us and perhaps support us physically and/or financially. This is a talented group! Anyone who thinks you can just hang up a shingle and make money is sadly mistaken!
Small business people are a brave lot. It takes guts to strike out on your own. For first generation entrepreneurs it would have been much easier and certainly safer to go to work for someone else. For those who inherited their businesses perhaps, but only perhaps, staying on familiar turf was easier.
Fear is currently being used against them in the form of uncertainty. As the Republicans dedicate themselves to the Party of No concept they logjam all federal legislation. Therefore it is difficult for the small business owner to plan when he or she doesn’t know what the rules will be and in fact when or if they are changing. How do you do an optimal job of planning in this environment?
Most small business people are retailers of some sort. They rely on consumer demand. Their customers are everyday people, the 95% that benefit under Democratic policies. This fact has never been effectively communicated to the small business community. Again we see fear creep in. Consumers spend cautiously in times of uncertainty. They fear losing a job and/or the liquidity and value of their assets.
How many of their customers are senior citizens? It is the Democratic Party that created and has defended Social Security and Medicare. Where would most senior citizens disposable income, (read buying power), be without those two programs?
One of the biggest complaints that small business owners have is the burden of government regulation and paperwork. These people are talented at their specialty but not necessarily at paperwork. More importantly, they either have to take precious time away from their family and business to comply with the government regulations or they have to spend precious money to outsource it. Know whether the regulations they are complaining about are at your level, (Federal, State or local municipality), and have a plan to eliminate silly regulations that exist at your level. Again, the key here is homework. Before you start to campaign have some good discussions with small business owners in your area that you know well and can speak openly with. If you don’t know any local small business owners well enough to have a civil and fruitful conversation then you shouldn’t be running.
Paint the Republicans for what they are: the Party that deregulated big business, (their real friends – not small business), to the point that it almost collapsed the global economy and did nothing to remove silly and burdensome regulations on small business. Now that the current administration wants to regulate the big banks the Republicans are courting them and obstructing regulatory legislation. It is the old socialize the losses and privatize the profits for the big boys. Small business gets the Republican yoyo. You’re on your own. What has the Republican Party done to help the Mom and Pop business?
Health care is a difficult place to go right now because it is in such an uncertain state. This is another Republican success of spreading fear via uncertainty. If we actually get a bill through it will be short of the original ideals. However, obtaining health care is, at best, difficult, for small business owners. They often do not have it for themselves and their own families let along being able to provide it to employees. Throughout the entire process to date only two Republicans have been of any help in getting better health care for Americans. Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine cast a vote in the Finance Committee to move the bill to the Senate floor. Representative Joseph Cao, (Louisiana 2), was the lone Republican to vote for the health care bill on the floor of the House. Could we have crafted a better bill if we had the cooperation of the Republican caucus? I think only a fool would answer in the negative. More important, it would be a reality by now.
Historically, small business owners do vote. Therefore every time you convert a small business owner it is a two vote swing. The vote you received and the vote your Republican opponent did not. The true multiplier effect is higher because most small business owners have family they influence so keep adding by twos.
Pac Man
Go forth with courage and conviction. Be prepared so you will be armed with the facts. You already have the knowledge that our path is the better path for America. Speak to business groups at every opportunity. It may be outside your comfort zone, but elections are not won by preaching to the choir alone. Business groups tend to behave and listen. This gives you the opportunity for the conversions you will need to be successful. It not like talking to a bunch of Teabaggers whose only goal is to shout you down. Talking to them is like trying to argue with an elementary schoolyard bully.
I envision the successful Democratic candidates in 2010 looking like Pac Man in the old video games. They will have to be relentless in their pursuit, agile in their ability to knowledgably change topics, all the time constantly gobbling up the purple people.
Larry Marciniak
February 2010