Fwd: Fw: H: Break in case of emergency. my memo on post-midterm. S

                                                            CONFIDENTIAL

                                                            October 31, 2014

For: HRC

From: SB

Re: Post-midterm

These are quick notes on the post-midterm environment in the event of a Republican capture of the Senate (an opinion written with the concurrence of J. Carville, including on counter-intuitive points):

1.     The coming media punditry: After savaging Obama the instant analysis of the media in the event of the Democratic loss of the Senate will be that HRC and WJC were ineffective campaigners in key states, especially Arkansas and Kentucky, where they devoted the most attention. Potential corollaries may be that “Clinton fatigue” persists, Obama irrevocably taints HRC, and the Clintons are part of the generally contaminated Democrats. The media analysis will conversely hail the Republicans for the triumph of their reasonable establishment, suppression of the Tea Party, control over candidate selection, optimism about the ability of the Republican leadership to shape a successful agenda, and extend a new found hopefulness to the next Republican presidential nominee. Do not be drawn into any of this version of events. As soon as the action of the Republican Congress begins, the media will adopt a new narrative.

2.     The next Democratic mood: After the midterms, Democrats will be disoriented, demoralized and desperate. Some of them will form the circular firing squad as they do after every election loss. They will typically stage a blame game pointing to everyone in and everything about their own party, especially Obama, who the left will blame as a centrist sellout and the center as a left-wing sellout. Democratic activists of all varieties, not just on the left, will be active participants in this self-destructive exercise. This will be their activism for the next few months. Do not be part of any of the dumping on Obama (see below).

3.     Democrats are the salient post-midterm audience: The next scheduled election is not the general election of 2016. It is the series of presidential nomination primaries leading to that election. Above all, for those elections, the Democratic Party is the principal arena, Democratic figures are the principal players and Democratic voters are the audience. Slighting this fundamental political reality and imagining that the general election campaign must determine the overall message here and now would be based on a misconception and create undermining distortions, including short-circuiting communication to Democrats in the immediate aftermath of the 2014 debacle.

4.     The message post-midterm to Democrats: For HRC and WJC, the message in the days and weeks after heartbreaking defeats and the despair of losing the Senate should be directed to the Democratic Party—not to the media narrative. The message aimed at Democrats should have two points: First, the Clintons demonstrated their undivided loyalty to the Democratic Party. They campaigned their hearts out for all Democrats. They are always there for Democrats. They are completely committed to the Democratic Party. Second, the Clintons believe in the Democratic Party as an inclusive national party. They campaigned all over the country—north, south, east, and west. They believe the Democratic Party is and must be a national party. They campaigned for Southern, Midwestern and western Democrats because they are true-blue Democrats, and they are dedicated to helping Democrats everywhere. If there is any argument for Democrats that will rebuff media accusations of selfishness, egotism and narrow ambition, it is one on behalf of the Democratic Party. It also happens to be an argument that will generate support and loyalty in return. 

5.     The Obama factor and why this is the wrong time to criticize Obama: The 2014 midterms have been fought on unpromising ground for Democrats, to say the least. It is the second midterm of a presidency, almost inevitably when losses are incurred. The Senate seats up this time were mostly in the South and border-states. That geographic anomaly tilted the election to those electorates, which are the most hostile to Obama and most difficult for Democrats in the midterms of Democratic presidents, coloring the election across the country. Those Democrats up for reelection, after all, won in the Democratic sweep of 2008 when the tide was rolling in. Now they have faced the voters when the Democratic tide is out and the turnout naturally down. No Democrats in the South have wanted to run with Obama’s endorsement or, for some, even to claim they supported him. It has therefore been impossible to articulate the case for his achievements in the face of Republican negativity and intractable opposition. But when the midterms are over, including runoffs and Democratic candidates not at risk, that would be a propitious time, if there is one, to make the positive case for Obama at the beginning of his defense of progressive legacies for the next two years. The notion that Obama is finished is a dangerous illusion. He has two years more in office with the powers of the presidency. Defending the progressive legacy will be an essential and significant task ahead. Nothing would serve the Republicans better than acceding to their propaganda that Obama is over. No matter the disillusionment with Obama among Democrats, they will resent attacks against him, especially in the coming period. Attempting to angle between Obama and the Republican Congress would raise insinuations of presumption and arrogance. Obama’s vetoes of Republican bills, cynically cast as “reform,” will be depicted as Obama turned wholly negative and evidence of his demise. He will not be credited with protecting and defending generations of progressive achievements, including his own, upon which the nation depends for its general welfare, prosperity and security. To grant him such credit would take an active position for the media. Instead, the media will goad HRC not only to separate herself from Obama but also to condemn him. If and when she does so the media will seek to isolate and diminish her as ungrateful, churlish, crudely ambitious, grasping, envious, and a backstabber. Having framed the issue of attacking Obama as necessary for HRC’s future well being, the media will inevitably portray any differences as evidence of her inherent political weakness and lack of political instinct, a revival of the 2008 primary clash, alienating Obama’s constituencies and proof she is a bad politician (forgetting the simultaneous accusation of ambition). Counter-intuitively, his accomplishments should be defended—and his defense of the progressive legacy back to Theodore Roosevelt should be defended. Leave the nuanced judgments of the Obama presidency, his mode of decision-making and style of leadership, to the historians. As a political matter in the present tense, when he is at his lowest ebb, this is the opening for defending his accomplishments that must be defended against the Republican onslaught.

6.     The Democratic primary campaign will in great part be run against the Republican Congress: A Republican Congress will attempt to rollback healthcare, undermine environmental protections, undo and rewrite regulations for the benefit of a host of special interests (not least Koch Industries, i.e, Georgia Pacific, etc.), launch a hundred investigations into fabricated pseudo-scandals, try to back Obama into agreeing or half-agreeing to various bargains that would put the Democratic candidate of 2016 in an awkward position, and of course attack women’s rights, especially reproductive rights, voting rights, immigrant rights, block nominations, and continue their wholesale assault on science. The Tea Party caucus in the House will in fact be larger than ever and will define the limits of moderation. This is the setup for the Democrats, who can set the test for the Republicans: Will the Republicans reject extremism? On this, issue after issue, their party can be discredited and split as we immediately enter the post-midterm presidential campaign.

7.     The Republican presidential campaign will begin on November 5^th and intersect with the Republican Congress: The GOP presidential contest will begin at once. It will loom over the Republican Congress, just as the Republican Congress will loom over the candidates. Scott Walker has already lambasted Chris Christie. The right wing is laying in wait to trash Jeb Bush. If Ted Cruz were to run, he would hurl missiles at the infidel Rand Paul (the media’s most interesting man in the world). Nothing will stop the Republican candidates from attacking each other. If Jeb Bush doesn’t run, there is no viable establishment candidate. If he does run, he will be subjected to an unprecedented assault that might culminate in a splintered party, even a third party. This will not be like the period of 1999-2000, when the leading GOP candidates were George W. Bush trying to position himself as a new version of Republican moderation and John McCain, the GOP party outlier. The rightward tilt of the Republican primary electorate, more right leaning than every before, will be reflected in the candidates’ jostling, and have a gravitational pull on the internal processes of the Republican Congress. Unanticipated opportunities will naturally emerge that will define Republican candidates in terms of the Republican Congress. The Republican civil wars should be accelerated whenever possible through tactics to exacerbate their internal frictions. Publicly suggesting how Obama might make this or that deal with the Republican leadership would better be left unsaid. Instead, every instance of the Republicans’ incapacity for governance, internal turmoil, subservience to special interests, and vicious rivalries should be pointed out as a constant lesson.