Nor was it a conservative initiative. Conservatives don't seek ways to increase the minimum wage, be it on the state level or the federal level. You seem to agree with that. So, I have no clue why you preface your reply, with "on the contrary." Are message board posters duty bound to contradict, even when they are not disagreeing with the statement actually made?
Even if it wasn't a conservative initiative, it certainly had the effect of helping conservatives.
That is a different issue from what I posted before. As to this different issue, my response is, Maybe. Maybe not.
Did it really take a core issue away from Democrats? It was on the ballot in both red states and blue states, but not in every state. Some Democrats certainly could have run on it. Did they? Democrats did increase the minimum wage in 2009. Not by anywhere near enough, but they did increase it. Did any of those running this year remind voters of that? And increasing the federal minimum wage is different from the state minimum wage and provides workers with a safeguard against the vagaries of state government. Democrats still could have run on that.
I saw a lot of ads this election season for incumbents and challengers of both of the two largest parties. Not a one of the ads I saw so much as mentioned increasing the minimum wage, past, present or future. IOW, Democratic incumbents and challengers in my area were not running on increasing the federal minimum wage or even on being the party that increases the minimum wage, or fights for sick pay or fights to decriminalize marijuana, all ballot initiatives that succeeded this time, just as the Maddow video explains.
What might have hurt Democrats even more--running on it and then not passing it, even if they held the Senate, as is very likely. However, we'll never know.
This time around, Democrats seemed to run mostly on, "I'm not Obama. Hell, I'm barely even a Democrat, as you might think of that term." So, it's hard to say if having the minimum wage on the ballot was what hurt them, or if was their abysmal campaign strategy and forgetting their roots as a Party. Well, maybe not their 18th century roots as a Party, but their post-1929 roots as a Party.
Meanwhile, having it on the ballot at least helped millions of working Americans--and about damned time, too.
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