Mediaboss Marketing

As Democrats take stock of their grievous losses in the 2014 elections, party leaders are confronting a challenge perhaps even more daunting than their defeats in the House and Senate: the virtual wipeout of the Democratic talent pool across the country.

After the Republican waves of 2010 and 2014, the party is depleted not just in its major-league talent, but also in its triple-A recruitment prospects. It amounts to a setback, Democrats say, that will almost certainly require more than one election cycle to repair.

At the start of the 2014 campaign, Democrats envisioned an election that would produce new national stars for the party in at least a few tough states Georgia Sen. Michelle Nunn or Kentucky Sen. Alison Lundergan Grimes, for instance, or maybe even Texas Gov. Wendy Davis. Even if the party fell short in those reach states, Democrats hoped to produce new heavyweight blue-state Democrats Maryland Gov. Anthony Brown, the countrys only black state executive; or Maine Gov. Mike Michaud, who would have been the first openly gay candidate elected governor.

(Also on POLITICO: Obama: Midterms? What midterms?)

Any of them could have landed on a vice presidential short list in 2016.

Instead, all of them lost.

Joining them were numerous down-ballot Democrats widely viewed as future contenders for high office: attorney general candidates in Nevada and Arizona who looked like future governors; aspiring state treasurers in Ohio and Colorado who could have gone on to bigger things; prized secretary of state candidates in Iowa and Kansas as well as countless congressional hopefuls around the country.

Arizona Rep.-elect Ruben Gallego, a state lawmaker who will be one of the few Democratic freshmen in the next Congress, said the party will need to redouble its efforts at recruitment and voter registration in order to bounce back. Along with other state and local Democratic leaders, Gallego predicted that city- and county-level officials would be the best place to look for ground-level Democratic recruits in the years ahead, thanks to the partys strength in urban America and these officials relative insulation from national trends.

(Also on POLITICO: Obama, McConnell shaky ceasefire)

The way we rebuild is really by having a deep investment in our local city council races and state races, by really starting to recruit and pipeline strong local candidates, said Gallego, a 34-year-old Marine Corps veteran. Thats where your good congressional candidates in the future are going to come from.

Read the original post:
The Democrats lost generation - Alexander Burns ...