Monthly Archives: September 2014

The Problem With The Democrats

As the 2014 election draws closer and as we look forward to 2016, the Democrats are facing an uphill climb. While the punditry concedes this for the 2014 election, many of them treat this as a function of Obama’s low approval numbers and the fact that the election is largely being fought in red states; on territory normally unfriendly for Democrats. However, many pundits view 2016 as a likely, if not guaranteed, Democrat win. This is especially considered to be true if Hillary runs.

However, this conclusion I think ignores some fundamental weaknesses with the Democrats. While people rightly point to the Republican brand problem and conclude that the Democrats will win in 2016, this is not the same thing as saying that the Democrats are strong. The Democrats have some real weaknesses that can and will eventually weigh them down.

The first problem is that (in many ways like the Republicans), they don’t really seem to have real answers to the problems facing the country. While certain individuals such as Paul Ryan has put forward serious plans to deal with the fiscal situation facing the country, the Democrats don’t really offer a serious alternative (unless President Obama’s comment that Ryan’s plan was a “meanwhich” can be considered a serious alternative). While Republicans over the last decade or so can rightly be criticized that their economic programs have consisted of tax cuts and not much else, the Democrats answer to everything has been more government spending. Bringing the American fiscal house in order will require reform and the real reduction of spending at some level. The Democrats proposals for more government spending run counter to this reality.

The second problem is that the Democrats have in many ways evolved into a political party that represents government and those that collect their paychecks directly (government workers, welfare recipients, etc) or indirectly (my privately held employer exists to fill government contracts) from government, and not one that really concerns itself economic growth. This focus on generating more regulations and micromanaging the economy wouldn’t be a problem if the result was more growth and more jobs, but it doesn’t. For an existing economy with no government (think Somalia), putting in some government with stable rules, the power to impartially enforce contracts, and the funding of infrastructure can lead to increased economic growth. However, the United States is far past that point, and the continually increasing of regulations and the power to micro-manage the private sector is inhibiting entrepreneurialism and “animal spirits” that create a dynamic and growing economy. The result is lower job growth and a lower standard of living more broadly. The fact that roughly half of the country still thinks that the country is in a recession (it has been officially over for 5 years) means that the economy is not generating enough jobs to create a broad sense that living standards are rising, regardless of what the employment rate says.

The 3rd problem that is likely to have a negative long term effect on Democrats is that the experience that Americans have with government is becoming increasingly divorced from the experience that they have in other aspects of their lives. While the customer service experience with government has always generally been worse than the one experienced in the private sector, this experience gap is becoming increasingly wide. In many ways, the auto industry in America in the 1960’s and 1970’s was similar to American government at the same time: bloated, inefficient, poor quality product, and a poor customer service experience. However, today things are much improved in the auto sector with higher quality products and a broadly better customer service experience. On the other hand, the DMV experience of the 1970’s is still similar to the DMV experience today. Simply put, you cannot have a world in which the citizen has the power to view any movie they want, any time they want (for a cheap price), a choice of almost any food you want, a choice of dozens of high quality cars, the ability to handle all your financial transactions from your couch, and at the same time have a Soviet-style experience when it comes to government services.  It simply isn’t politically sustainable.

Going forward, the Democrats are likely to find that their perceived strength is more the result of Republican weakness. The more people have to deal with government, the more ridiculous will seem the notion that government is a solution. Continuing to pile on regulations, opposing fracking and energy exploration (which would create good, middle class jobs) in areas that will are barely inhabited, and generally showing little concern with private sector job growth, is not likely to improve the perception that the Democrats lack solutions to the problems facing the U.S. Unless the Democrats start to concern themselves with broad economic growth, and not just growing government, the day will come when it is the Democrats, rather than Republicans, who have a brand problem.

The Problem With The GOP

With Labor Day in the rearview mirror and campaign season ramping up, media stories are full of the story line as to whether the GOP will recapture control of the Senate. Although currently most prognosticators are assigning roughly a 60% probability of this happening, what should be good news for the GOP is really an indication of weakness. The GOP needs to pick up 6 seats to flip control of the chamber to their side. The current administration is confused (we don’t have a strategy to deal with ISIS), scandal ridden (we didn’t use the IRS to persecute political opponents, but everybody’s hard drives with potentially incriminating evidence seem to be crashing), and economically sluggish (roughly half of the U.S. believes the we are still in a recession even though it has been over for 5 years). Add to this that the electoral map favors the GOP this cycle (the Democrats are defending many more seats), are more motivated to turn out to vote (parts of the Democrat coalition tend to skip midterm elections), and the GOP nominated respectable candidate across the board (no Todd Akin, Sharron Angle, or Christine O’Donnell in this bunch), and there are 7 Democrat seats in states that Mitt Romney won, and the chances of a GOP takeover the Senate should be closer to 90%. If the GOP can’t win under these conditions, it is not clear under what conditions they would be able to win.

So what is wrong? Why is the GOP lagging? Pundits talk about how the GOP brand has been damaged, and perhaps this is part of it. The other part of it is likely that the GOP is not offering a vision of where the country should head? In 1994, the Republicans had the Contract With America. Whatever else it may have been, it laid out exactly what the Republicans would do if they were given control of the House and Senate. So what is the Republican vision now? Have they offered an alternative vision? We know that they are “Not Obama”, and in an election under these conditions, that could be enough. Occasionally, certain individuals will talk in generalities about this or that. Or they will say what they are against. Or they will argue in generalities that we need to cut taxes and reduce regulations, but these are not a vision. If the GOP squeaks across the finish line with a 1 or 2 seat majority in the Senate, what do they intend to accomplish. Sure, Obama will likely veto anything that they pass over the next two years. But what do they intend to pass that will serve as an argument for why Americans should elect more Republicans to Senate and a Republican President in 2016? They don’t say.

If the Republicans want to be the majority party in America again, they can’t just say what they are against. Yes, the Republican electorate is angry and frustrated, and they have a right to be. They are put upon by the state (the IRS), they are mistreated and caricatured in popular culture (when was the last time a Republican was the good guy in a movie), and their money is taxed and given to people who vote against them, and when they do pass laws, they are often invalidated by courts (sometimes on dubious legal grounds). But being angry and being against things isn’t a governing philosophy. Simply “reducing the size and scope of government” is a meaningless platitude. It tells me nothing about where the Republicans want to take the country, except that they want less of whatever it is that we are doing now.

The Republicans need to lay out a vision of where they want to take the country, and have to put forth a credible plan for getting there. Rather than being “against illegal immigration”, they can be FOR an immigration system that brings in the high tech foreign workers we need, and keeps out low wage migrants that compete with American low wage workers. Rather than being “against high taxes”, they can be FOR a much simplified tax code that gives us the revenue we need without the exhausting forms and credits that require paid experts to comply with even the most basic tax situations. Rather than being “against excessive regulation”, they should put forth a plan that will give us a regulatory structure for the 21st century, instead of simply building on the outdated regulatory infrastructure of the 20th century. This can be done within the broad context of renewing and rebuilding America for the 21st century, which is a positive agenda.

The problem for the GOP is that it isn’t articulating a coherent, positive vision. If they can articulate one with a single voice that is positive, plausible, and coherent, they will give people a reason to vote for them. And they will likely find that people will.