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dopamine downs the Democrats
Why did the Democrats lose big time November 4th? The answer is four inches behind your eyes.
By: Howard Bloom
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dopamine downs the Democrats - Video
Facing a tough midterm election, Democrats put aside some of their remaining scruples about the new age of unlimited campaign spending and courted unions and hedge-fund billionaires for big checks to try to salvage a Senate majority.
They spent a lot of money. But not enough.
This year, in a reversal of 2012, the big-money Democratic donors watched their investments return little on election night Tuesday. Although Republicans outspent them overall, Democrats got beaten even in states like Colorado and North Carolina where they spent the same or even a little more than Republicans.
"We just saw a national tsunami," said Ty Matsdorf, an advisor to the Senate Majority PAC, which spent about $50 million across the country in a mostly futile effort to keep Democrats in office.
"I don't think there's anything more we should have done," Matsdorf said. "Here's the truth: Everybody knew this was going to be a hard cycle. Everyone knew we were going to face extremely strong head winds."
Republican donors credited their success to a number of adjustments they had made since the last election cycle: more say in choosing electable candidates, investment in get-out-the-vote efforts that had been a Democratic advantage, and a late spending push.
The spending in the 2014 midterm showed how the remaining restrictions on campaign spending continue to weaken. More money moved into "super PACs" and dark-money nonprofits, where donations are unlimited, and away from candidate accounts that are still subject to strict limits on individual giving and disclosure.
Overall, including spending by candidates and outside groups, Republicans spent about $1.75 billion to Democrats' $1.64 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks election spending.
But those numbers come with a big asterisk: They don't include much of the spending by so-called dark-money groups.
Another tracking organization, the nonprofit Sunlight Foundation, has traced about $145 million spent in dark money, but the real number is unknown. Dark-money spending overwhelmingly favors Republicans.
Few states have experienced the political volatility that Colorado has over the last two decades.
Control of the Legislature flipped back and forth. The state see-sawed in presidential contests.
The last two years, though, have been particularly eventful.
In 2013, after Democrats seized control of the statehouse under Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper, lawmakers went on a spree, passing a liberal wish list that thrilled left-leaning constituents but alienated plenty of others, especially rural conservatives upset by a brace of gun-control measures adopted after the July 2012 Aurora theater massacre.
The result, just a few months later, was a nationally publicized recall that ended in the ouster of two Democratic lawmakers, one of them president of the state Senate.
On Tuesday, however, in a little-noticed footnote to Colorados closely watched gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races, the Democrats won back both of those seats, and it wasnt at all close in either Pueblo or Colorado Springs.
At the time, the recall was trumpeted far and wide as a victory for pro-gun activists; a third state senator in the Denver suburbs quit soon after rather than face the prospect of being tossed from office before this years elections.
Now its gun-control activists who are crowing.
Mark Glaze, a consultant to the group Everytown for Gun Safety, said the results showed that when a significant portion of the electorate turns out, rather than a small, agitated minority, support for something like universal background checks for gun buyers is a politically winning position. (That was part of the package Hickenlooper, who was reelected Tuesday, signed into law.)
The message remains that the [National Rifle Association] can bully politicians or buy them for a few pieces of silver but they have no influence over the general public, Glaze said.
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In a turnabout, Colorado Democrats win back seats lost in gun recall
Published November 08, 2014
FILE: Aug. 26, 2014: Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wassserman Schultz, D-Fla., in Weston, Fla.(AP)
Democrats are planning an extensive review of what went wrong in the 2014 and 2010 elections, hoping to find ways to translate success in presidential campaigns into future midterm contests.
A party committee will conduct a "top-to-bottom assessment" of the Democrats' performance in recent midterm elections and try to determine why they have struggled to turn out its core voters in nonpresidential elections.
"It's apparent that there are increasingly two separate electorates: a midterm electorate and a presidential electorate. We win one and we don't seem to be able to win the other," said Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who leads the Democratic National Committee, in an interview Saturday. "That is a fundamental dynamic that we have to change."
Democrats suffered heavy losses in last week's elections, ceding Senate control to the Republicans and surrendering more seats in the already GOP-majority House as Republicans ran against an unpopular President Obama.
Republicans picked up governor's offices in a number of Democratic-leaning states like Massachusetts, Maryland and Illinois and strengthened their grip on state legislatures.
Democrats have been successful in turning out an Obama-led coalition of minorities, women and young voters in presidential elections, but have struggled in midterm races when turnout is lower and the electorate tends to be older and whiter, favoring Republicans.
Wasserman Schultz said the new committee, whose membership will be announced in the coming weeks, will look at the party's tactics, messaging, get-out-the-vote operations and digital efforts in recent nonpresidential elections. The group plans to report back in February at the DNC's winter meeting.
Republican National Committee spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski said last week's elections underscored GOP momentum.
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Democrats annoucement major review of election losses
Colorado State Senator Morgan Carroll. (John Leyba, Denver Post file photo)
Republicans are officially in charge of the Colorado Senate, ending a decade-long drought where they painfully watched Democrats win the majority in five straight elections.
The streak ended in 2014. Senate Republicans hold 18 seats to the Democrats' 17.
The race that tipped the balance of power to Republicans occurred in Senate District 24 in Adams County. Republican Beth Martinez Humenik, a seven-year member of the Thornton City Council, beat Democrat Judy Solano, a former state representative, by 876 votes for the open seat.
The counting wasn't completed until late Friday.
"I'm elated," Humenik said Saturday. "Now I'm ready to get to work and get some things done for the people."
House Democrats will hold a 34-31 majority after three of their members were ousted in an election that clearly favored Republicans in Colorado and nationwide as voters struggled with midterm angst.
Political observers say split control of the legislature is a boon for Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper as he begins his second term in office. One side or the either is likely to kill controversial legislation, ensuring it doesn't get to his desk.
A GOP blindside in Adams County and gun-control efforts also played a role in Republican victories in both chambers.
Senate Democrats conceded Saturday morning, saying they would "do whatever possible to block efforts to take the state backward."
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GOP win Colorado Senate, Democrats vow to hold party accountable