February, 2020
Washington – Since 2016 I have seen, sometimes close-up, three colossal blunders by national Democratic leaders.
First: Hillary Clinton's failure to campaign effectively in key rural states, which cost her the election.
Second: the decision, following that loss, by Senate Democrats not to compete on rural issues in key states in 2018, which prevented Democrats from taking control of the Senate even as they would win the House.
Third: House Democrats' decision not to pursue both censure and impeachment of Donald Trump in 2019. It should not have been seen as either/or; impeachment only was never a winner. The consequence of impeachment acquittal has been an actual rise in Trump's popularity.
As to the Clinton 2016 election failure, this was entirely predictable, as I wrote two months before the election. She needed a bold stroke to win, but failed to act. Why did not more people see this coming?
As to the Senate Democrats' strategy to retake the Senate following the Clinton defeat, it can only be described as doomed from the outset. Democrats needed a strategy to hold seats in rural heartland states, especially Indiana, North Dakota, and Missouri. As insiders explained to me, however, Senate Minority Leader Schumer, Senate Campaign Chairman Van Hollen, and Senate Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Stabenow deliberately decided not to bring out a bold Democratic plan for rural America through the 2018 reauthorization of the Farm Bill, as a platform on which to campaign. Their reason? Anything coming out of "Washington" was bound to be unpopular, so it would have to be everybody for himself or herself regarding rural issues. The whole Senate Democratic Caucus signed on to this losing strategy. Consequently, not only did Democrats fail to take the Senate in the otherwise blue-wave election of 2018, they even lost a seat, net.
Regarding the impeachment acquittal, it was foreordained because the Senate was still in Republican control, not to mention that a supermajority is a requirement for conviction. Democrats should have had a censure strategy to leverage the argument that if Trump wasn't going to be removed, he should at least be disciplined. Democrats got neither, despite a convincing argument to which many Senate Republicans had to accede, that Trump had committed serious wrongdoing in Ukraine. Now Democrats go into the 2020 presidential election with Trump emboldened to get away with even more.
These three blunders have built on themselves to devastating effect. I don't see much sign that Democrats even acknowledge these critical strategic mistakes, let alone correct for them. Subsequent blogs will offer plausible ways to overcome the blunders.
