House Dem campaign chief warns the majority at risk without message reboot

[brooklynite]

Source: Politico

During a closed-door lunch last week with some of his most vulnerable incumbents, House Democrats’ campaign chief delivered a blunt warning: If the midterms were held now, they would lose the majority.

Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) followed that bleak forecast, which was confirmed by multiple people familiar with the conversation, with new polling that showed Democrats falling behind Republicans by a half-dozen points on a generic ballot in battleground districts. Maloney advised the party to course-correct ahead of 2022 by doing more to promote President Joe Biden’s agenda, which remains popular with swing voters.

“We are not afraid of this data ... We’re not trying to hide this,” Tim Persico, executive director of the Maloney-chaired Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in an interview.

“If [Democrats] use it, we’re going to hold the House. That’s what this data tells us, but we gotta get in action,” he added.

Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/03/sean-patrick-maloney-democrats-house-majority-502265

[Elessar Zappa]

1. We need to start the messaging now.

Joe Biden and his accomplishments remain very popular and that should help us in 2022 if we can get our act together.

[ShazamIam]

2. The only news allowed in red states is conservative. And all our national media supports the

conservatives and Republicans. And why the hell would they give up power when they are so close to their goal of dismantling this nation as a functional democracy.

We lose because the entire media circus is opposed to democracy.
Republican and conservative lies and anti-democratic acts and talk are given blessings and credibility, every day all day by the U.
S. Media.

Some of us belong to and listen to sites like DU and TYT, etc. but the majority only get the canned news and facebook lies.
We can't win when the conservatives control the message.

[brooklynite]

4. How did we win in 2018?

[ShazamIam]

5. Why did Biden win and Congress lose so much in 2020?

[brooklynite]

6. Big difference between 2018 and 2020.....

"Defund the Police"

[George II]

38. That was disastrous.

[LanternWaste]

44. Objective data pointing to that as a decisive factor?

Or simply another post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy?

Again.

[certainot]

51. the only reason republicans win anything is dems ignore talk radio. it's their only unique advantage

and naive knuckleheads like maloney live in cities and analyze politics as if studying fish without water

messaging? guys like rove think it's funny when dems talk about messaging. it doesn't matter what dems say - it's the volume that sells lies and hypocrisy like "democrats want to abolish police but we love them except the ones that protected the capitol jan 6" . it doesn't matter what dems say - the think tanks just feed counter messaging to 1500 radio stations that repeat the lies without challenge until it's ubiquitous and becomes truth for fox, social media, internet, etc. and their russian allies add some social media trolling, etc to turn 4 years of limbaugh's 'liberal deep state coup' (ha!) leaders (clinton, soros, obama, etc) into baby-eating commie sex-slavers.]

i heard another dramatic discussion on msnbc the other day in which in the same paragraph the expert blames older white males and social media....... and none of them mention talk radio except as an afterthough

money? at $1000/hr x 1200 stations x 15hrs/day = $90M/wk or $5B/year FREE for republicans to deny global warming and covid and white supremacism. that's why the country is 15 points right and republicans are in contention. democratic leaders that don't factor talk radio are incompetent, especially since artificial intelligence makes it so easy to automatically record, transcribe and analyze rw radio on large scale.

and while dems are up in arms about voter suppression in Tx, Ga, Fla etc we let 13[/b universities] in those 3 states support 50 xlimbaugh stations. they let republican radio stations use 100s of their black student athletes to sell advertising to sell voter suppression! 1000s of black athletes in 87 universities are used to help republicans attack kneeling athletes, excuse racism, and make it harder for brown people and students to vote.

there's something really wrong with this picture

FLORIDA 20 Florida 10, Florida St. 4 Miami 2, South Florida 2, Central Florida 2
GEORGIA 14 Georgia 7, Georgia Tech 5, Georgia Southern 2
TEXAS 16 Texas A&M 9, Texas Tech 4, Texas 1, Texas Christian 1, Baylor 1

and unlike fox , republicans coordinate those stations locally

[certainot]

52. see post above, but in general biden was a no-brainer and the only reason trump even got close

to the white house, like gw bush, was dem ignorance of talk radio.

the only reason there are so many jordans, boeberts, gomerts, etc is also the ignorance of the republlican talk radio advantage and the state and local messaging and swiftboating control and volume it gives them

[nycbos]

7. Progressive policies back by center left pragmatists.

People like Lauren Underwood, not AOC.

A Pelosi said "a glass of water would get elected as a Democrat in Queens"

[NurseJackie]

23. Yes. Thank you.

[bucolic_frolic]

10. Surprise turnout

No one thought we could motivate our voters in off year elections. And from what I heard, on DU and elsewhere, there were a lot of progressive interest groups with staff on the ground in tight races. Everything fell to our advantage in 2018. There were maybe a dozen and a half elections undecided on the morning after election day, and a few of those dragged on for weeks. We took as I recall, ALL of them. And they were very close.

[Fiendish Thingy]

13. Trump wasn't on the ballot, current voters suppression laws not in place. Nt

[nycbos]

9. Indeed.

That's why people like AOC saying "defund the police", and Talib saying "abolish the police" is extremely unhelpful.

We will lose if people like that are allowed to distract from our message.

[DownriverDem]

33. I never see

the FB lies you talk about. Who sees it? I see left leaning stuff. My friends lean left too.

[oldsoftie]

40. National media supports republicans?? Thats a new one.

Talk radio, yeah

[ShazamIam]

49. What national news did not devote hours and hours over 3 years to Hillary's emails and have you

failed to notice they are not devoting much time to Jan. 6, they want to downplay it at every turn. Ari Melber is a big of a liar as Tucker Carlson, etc. but if you aren't firmly informed on liberal/progressive ideas and agenda's you haven
t noticed they are all blessing the racists and homophobes and giving lots of coverage to all the Republican campaign issues, like immigration and delight in repeating the claims that Democratic are all socialist or Marxist or communist.

NPR is pure Koch rubbish, their experts are from AEI, CATO, Heritage Foundation, Manhattan Institute, etc.

[oldsoftie]

57. Wow, you're WAY down the river.

Video of Jan 6th has played on nearly every nightly news show. And NPR? You must not listen to them at ALL

[ShazamIam]

58. lol, sure thing and right now in the last few days, we have been given physical evidence, notes and

emails that Trump pressured the DOJ to declare the election corrupt but the news feeds, MSN, Google, yahoo, etc are pushing the Cuomo story, disgusting, but not in any way equal to the attack on U.S. Democracy. And I am not the only person in this sub who has noted that the MSM is trying to sweep Jan. 6 under the rug. They devote a lot of time to the verbal exchanges between the Rs and Ds in Congress. They carried all insulting comments made by Rs against those 4 Capital and Metro police officers. etc.

If noting the amount of coverage given the various people and topics means I am down the river, where are you?

[oldsoftie]

59. They cover it daily; videos, testimony, emails, etc.

I dont care to see it 24/7. There IS other news going on that is important.
If you dont think its enough, fine, thats your opinion. If it is, you'll never be satisfied no matter what the coverage is.
How did you find out all the things you listed? From news sources. Just like I knew about them. Its not going away; I see it every day. More & more embarrassing news for trump & his minions

[ShazamIam]

60. I'm just going to thank you from switching from a direct insult to an actual response and move on.

[Ramsey Barner]

3. The center-progressive agenda is very popular.

It turns out the vote for all parts of the Democratic Party. Our leaders must stop being afraid of it! The days of "Republican-Lite" are over.

[nycbos]

8. Maybe.

But "defund the police" is extremely unpopular. Eric Adams said it best "people on social media don't pick a candidate people on Social Security do.

[Ferrets are Cool]

22. Show me where "defund the police" is on a Democratic platform?

That message is ONLY being sent out by repugs and member of the media wanting ratings.

[NurseJackie]

24. The great care being given to parse words and split hairs...

Show me where "defund the police" is on a Democratic platform?

The great care being given to parse words and split hairs indicates a keen awareness that the argument being made is a weak one.

Platform.

That message is ONLY being sent out by repugs and member of the media wanting ratings.

[Ferrets are Cool]

25. I really respect you NJ, but you didn't answer my question. You only derided it.

And then laughed.

[NurseJackie]

26. You know perfectly well that it's not a plank in the Democratic platform...

... and it's ridiculous to make excuses for those promote the "defund" message. Fact of the matter is, it doesn't MATTER that it's not "in the Democratic platform". As if that somehow makes a losing and divisive message a-okay and something we don't have to worry about.

Let's get real, okay.

[Ferrets are Cool]

27. Yet, if you were to listen to SOME here, one would think it's actually ON the Democratic platform

and something the majority of Democrats are running with. The simple fact is that IT IS NOT.

[NurseJackie]

29. I know of nobody who thinks that.

one would think it's actually ON the Democratic platform

I know of nobody who thinks that.

and something the majority of Democrats are running with.

Nor that.

The simple fact is that IT IS NOT.

That's true.

But again, you're very specific and qualifying (ie: not on the PLATFORM... and not the MAJORITY of Democrats...) so am I to understand that because of these two qualifiers, then you believe the "defund" philosophy is a-okay? Or maybe you're ambivalent about it, but think that real-world Democrats shouldn't rebuke that far-left "defund" agenda.

Fact of the matter is this... it doesn't NEED to be "on the platform" to hurt Democrats. It also doesn't need to be supported by the "majority of Democrats" in order to cause great harm to the party. People need to stop promoting it. People need to stop defending it.

It's a losing message.

[Ferrets are Cool]

54. "o am I to understand that because of these two qualifiers, then you believe the "defund" philosophy

is a-okay? Or maybe you're ambivalent about it"

I am not sure how you gathered that from my post. I believe nothing of the sort. This seems like nothing more than a misunderstanding so I will shut off this discussion on my end.

[oldsoftie]

42. Well, show where the GOP platform calls for supressing votes?

It doesnt
but it says it in other ways.

[NullTuples]

46. Dems could counter that by calling for funding to "replace the police" for mental health calls

It would be enough to deflect & muddy the waters - normally a GOP specialty - and use the technique against them.
Dem politicians would love it because they wouldn't actually have to defund the police.
And in the end, a small bit of good could be accomplished.

[DownriverDem]

34. Defund the Police really

hurt us in 2020. It was not a popular message no matter what "progressives" think. We lost seats because of it too.

[NullTuples]

47. That's b/c the Dems allowed the anti-racist aspect to be completely overwhelmed

[totodeinhere]

16. The center-progressive agenda has been very popular during the past few election cycles.

But the Republicans keep winning their share of elections anyway. We have to find a way to get majority public opinion accurately reflected at the ballot box.

[DownriverDem]

37. Never heard of

center - progressive. We are the Democratic Party. Why don't folks call us who we are?

[totodeinhere]

45. Because the party is a big tent, not a monolith.

I don't think there is anything wrong with discussing the various factions within the party.

[turbinetree]

11. Lets see they, republican fascists' are trying to deny people the right to vote

They, republican fascists' want to change the law on Medicare Act
They, republican fascists' want to abolish the Social Security Act

And then finally they basically support the insurrection...

And they, republican fascists' ran around telling everyone that virus was a a bunch of BS and that individual and states rights for greed are more important that some kid, family members...and they supported a "guy" that got a vaccine shot in secrets and they damn near all supported that shit sandwich....shows.....

Think that should be the message....

[Fiendish Thingy]

12. Gerrymandering will have far more impact on midterms than modifying Dems' message

If voting rights isn’t passed, Dems will lose the house before a single vote is cast, regardless of their message. Projections are Dems lose 6-13 seats just through redrawn districts alone…unless S1 passes in the next few weeks.

[turbinetree]

14. Exactly.....

[totodeinhere]

48. Two can play at that game.

In a perfect world there would be no gerrymandering. But we all know that this is far from a perfect world. So until we can finally eliminate gerrymandering once and for all, where the Democrats control a state like in California or New York, we need to make sure that boundaries are drawn in a manner that will benefit us just like the Republicans do. Sometimes I get tired of us always having to be the nice guys who let the bad guys walk all over us without us fighting back.

(And yes I am aware that in some states by law redistricting is handled by a non-partisan commission. Or sometimes the courts take over the process. So my idea may not work everywhere.)

[Fiendish Thingy]

53. This has already been calculated and the GOP has a clear advantage

Dems could lose 5 seats in FL alone, and up to 13 in 3 other states (GA, TX and AZ?)

Dems don’t stand to gain and seat via gerrymandering AFAIK

[LenaBaby61]

55. THIS 👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻 ....

And if Dems lose the House, Biden and Harris now I'm hearing the right-wing drum beat picks up will be impeached as well. They've done nothing, but the GQP will make up something.

Dems are in deep trouble if we don't get rid of the filibuster, or do a carve out of some kind to protect voting rights but the guy in West Virginia and the woman in Arizona are effectively in charge of the Democratic party, and both of them are DINO's. The one in WV says constantly that Dems must be bipartisan 😑 and the other one from Arizona has shown that she doesn't even KNOW what the filibuster is or represents she's so dumb 🙄

Dems are in trouble If the voting rights bill isn’t passed, and that's before a single vote is passed as you rightfully point out.

[totodeinhere]

15. It will be a sad day if Kevin McCarthy is ever handed the speaker's gavel.

We have to do everything legal in our power to see that that doesn't happen.

[orleans]

35. let's use that as the new democratic catch phrase

just kidding.

i think a couple simplistic catchy phrases would be a good thing

something like: getting america back on track or back on track with joe
(just off the top of my head--but i don't like those; something like it though)

[peoli]

17. How about, "Nothing will fundamentally change"

[orleans]

36. um... i think it should be more optimistic and hopeful nt

[Raven123]

18. I like Maloney, but I saw him on a morning show a few weeks ago and he wasn't an effective communica

Surprised me a bit. Wish I could remember the interview. He sounded like those with prepared talking points that were unresponsive to the questions he was asked. Hard to believe they can’t figure out messaging, but they might consider

1) Stay local. Personally I don’t like representatives from other states campaigning for candidates in my state.
2j Stop fighting among each other publicly. Makes no sense
3) Don’t take the media bait. They love a quote that can be taken out of context and played over and over …..
4) study the language they plan to use BEFORE launching it publicly.

[Johnny2X2X]

19. He's doing his job

But his job is to raise the alarm to motivate Dems.

Here's what hurts his argument, Reps win on outrage, the Infrastructure deal is about done and that will not generate any outrage. What will they have to be outraged about? Trump isn't running, his voters are staying home, Reps need some big outrage or their regular voters will stay home too.

[Lonestarblue]

20. "Defund the police" has been one of the most damaging phrases for Democrats.

I live in a Democratic city where the Mayor and City Council moved a very small portion of money out of the police budget and into responses for mental illness. Now, whenever there’s a robbery or some minor property crime, the police sometimes will not respond for days, telling the victims that they do not have enough officers to respond because of defunding. Local homeowners are on Nextdoor constantly complaining about the cut to the police budget and pushing the talking points of a conservative group that sprang up to fight any cuts to the police budget.

And now that crime is up in many areas, Republicans are saying its because of defunding the police, even in areas where no such defunding took place. They know their voters won’t check and actually don’t care if they’re lying.

Immigration is another big issue for Democrats. It’s a thorny problem that no president has solved in decades, but Republicans will make outrageous claims about the crisis at the border. This is definitely an area where Biden and team need to get ahead of the messaging. People in the administration need to be spending a lot more time at the border and not just talking to ICE and looking at facilities. They need to be talking to people who live on the border—citizens who feel their rights are being ignored and whose lives are affected when thousands of migrants pour into their communities.

[Ferrets are Cool]

21. I am so very glass half full guy...

but I just do NOT see how the Democrats are pushing the wrong message WHEN compared to the "message" the repugs are sending out. I realize I am not in the know, but what the FUCK are the repugs giving to the people of America? I refuse to believe that the "majority" of Americans want to hear the message of hate, bigoty and racism that the repugs are sending out.

[peoli]

28. Message reboot 7 months into a presidency? Build Back Better Better?

[Cryptoad]

30. Bull Shit,,,,,

u can buy polls that read however u want it read. Rethugs will be luck if they can get there own families out to vote for them to read.... WE need to keep working hard and not fall for playing the GOP game plan!

[movingviolation]

31. I guess "republicans are trying to cancel your vote and democracy itself" doesn't work?

Oh, and then there's the cruel and incompetent governance by a violent and belligerent minority part that gives me shivers.
The republican party is one big obvious nauseous turd, that will kill you for a meal.
It scares me that we actually have to compete for votes.

[Mr.Bill]

32. While I wouldn't totally discount this information,

I wouldn't exactly call generic ballot polling "data". It could mean different things in different districts.

[HUAJIAO]

39. Hell, I could have told them that....

[DallasNE]

41. Trump Is Out There Every Day Pushing His Agenda

It doesn't matter what he says because it is the optics that count. He is on the news more than Biden. Democrats need to reclaim the bully pulpit. No message is a negative message. Republicans still dominate Sunday talk shows - another mistake. People are numb to everything Trump/Republicans say is a big lie. People believe it because bothsidesism pushes it. 2022 will be a tough year for Democrats unless they get their act together on messaging. The Republican base is fired up because they think the 2020 election was stolen and they are hopping mad. Democrats are not really paying much attention to the 2022 election, even though they have been winning the registration battle.

[LenaBaby61]

56. "2022 will be a tough year for Democrats unless they get their act together on messaging."

IF those fascists can gerrymander and steal the Congress, Biden/Harris will be impeached. They're calling for that NOW, and tRaitor tRump is all over the news. The liberal media which hasn't been fair in decades, continue to show that SOB. I remember when his fat as was running for POTUS, you know, the one he stole successfully from Hillary? I can remember when Bernie had won a few primaries in a row, and he was speaking post his primary win and in the small corner of the screen you could barely see Bernie talking about his primary victory over Hillary that day. Nope, the whole screen was filled with a damn empty podium where the camera was fixed and waiting for fatass45 to show up, but he never did. 30-40 minutes that screen shot was fixed on an empty podium, and Bernie had just won a particular primary. That was not Fox Noose, that was on MSNBC.

Even if Dems get a message, how will they get it across if the so-called liberal media fixates on fatass45 continually, as he tries to steal yet another election? He's lying and spewing and hoping for violence or a race war to pop off and nothing can stop him He's free as a fat fascist bird to do whatever the hell he wants to do and say. Hell, DeathSentence is actively murdering folks in Florida, yet I continue to see too many in the GQP get away with calling Dr. Fauci a murderer as they try to blame Covid-19 deaths on HIM. Hundreds of thousands died on tRump's watch as he golfed, tweeted and ate and even before that he called Covid-19 a Dem/media hoax, but it was mostly crickets about that then--not many people even talk about that now 😣

[Historic NY]

43. Problem is herding Democrats everybody has their own agenda...

[Gore1FL]

50. It scares me that this will be the excuse to go GOP-lite again nt