As recently
noted, state Rep. John Bel
Edwards’ non-trivial fundraising totals for the governor’s race this year revealed
both that a consensus was forming that he was an adequate draw from the poor
options out there to bear the party’s standard in 2015 and that Landrieu could
not feel as if he was the natural selection by party activists to lead this
charge. As late as last week, others still made noise about Landrieu possibly
running, such as an official of the Democratic Governors Association thinking
that Landrieu was “carefully
considering” running and would be quite competitive.
Which tells us he doesn’t really
know Landrieu or is whistling into a gale. Landrieu’s succinct report
showed all he did was transfer the meager remains of his mayoral campaign account
to a “future office” account. No funds were raised nor spent outside of that
account aside from that election in 2014. Nobody not deluded about chances of
victory runs for governor with $33,000 or so in the bank with just under a year
to go.
So count Landrieu out and national
Democrats should concede they need to go all in on Edwards. But in a sense this
daydreaming – both of Landrieu’s running and his chances of winning, neither of
which Landrieu appears to indulge himself with at this time – represents the
larger crisis of Democrats nationally, in that they cannot permit themselves to
understand why the party has become so unbalanced, clinging to the White House
and little else. That same faith that a type of Landrieu awaits out there that
can restore the party’s fortune without fundamental change from within infects
all of its attempted self-analysis.
A serving
of this got dished out last week when a special committee formed by the
national party released a postmortem on the party’s recent electoral fortunes.
A clear-eyed, dispassionate analysis would have noted that national policy from
its electoral leaders continued to focus on redistribution of wealth and expansion
of government that has helped lower median
family income by around $2,000 per household and raise the proportion of the
adult population not working by almost 3 percent since Democrat Pres.
Barack Obama took office. It also would note its distinctly unfriendly
middle-class aspects, such as imposition of the unwanted and still unpopular Patient
Protection and Affordable Care Act that has caused the typical individual health
insurance premium to increase
24 percent, often for coverage no better if not worse than before the law
went into effect. Additionally, it would link these policy failures promulgated
by Democrats, that also trickled down from there to impressions of state and
local contests, along with the consequential generally decisive candidate rejections
at the ballot box at all levels, to the party’s core liberalism, and conclude
that the discarding of some of these – a move to the center – would bring more electoral
success.
Instead, the report turned out to
feature the blind leading the blind. It fell back on a familiar shibboleth that
somehow the “messaging” wasn’t right, rather than face the obvious that the
message itself is flawed. To want to change, you first have to admit that you
need to change, and clearly Democrats are far from making that admission for
themselves.
Hence the belief in the magical
candidate like Landrieu who can cut through it all and stave off the bogeymen
whose influence, money, etc. makes their messaging superior. But that guy doesn’t
exist and cannot exist in an environment with an increasingly informed
electorate with access to more information and a willingness for the opposition
to make contrasts with the implications of liberalism and the behavior and
rhetoric of liberal candidates, illustrating the manifest contradictions that
result. Until Louisiana Democrats face these truths, their exile in power in
most parts of government will continue, and they deceive themselves if they think
a magic candidate can resurrect their electoral fortunes.
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