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The Daily Signal
The War on
Women Didn’t Work and 3 Other Lessons From the Midterm Elections
Hans von Spakovsky
November 07, 2014
Many pundits and campaign consultants are no doubt analyzing the
election results across the country to try to decipher what lessons the
Republican wave holds for candidates planning to run in 2016. But there
are four easily seen lessons that both of the major political parties
should take to heart:
First, the manipulation of election rules and political trickery didn’t
work. In Kansas, for example, the Democratic Party forced its U.S.
Senate nominee to withdraw and refused to comply with a state law that
required the party to name a replacement candidate for the ballot.
Democrats were hoping that their voters would consolidate behind
faux-independent candidate Greg Orman, a contributor to Barack Obama
and the DSCC who, according to Vice President Joe Biden, would have
caucused with Democrats if he had won. That political trickery failed —
Republican incumbent Pat Roberts cruised to an easy victory with 53
percent of the vote to Orman’s 42 percent.
In Illinois, the Democratic legislature put into effect a new law that
implemented same-day registration and extended the early voting period
(with no ID requirement for early voting) but only for this election in
an effort to reelect the incumbent Democratic governor, Pat Quinn. Yet
Quinn was beaten by Bruce Rauner, a Republican, in a 51 percent to 46
percent race. In Colorado, Democrats implemented new, fraud-prone rules
that mailed ballots to every registered voter, even voters listed as
“inactive” because they have moved or may otherwise have become
ineligible to vote. Republican Cory Gardner still beat Sen. Mark
Udall, a Democrat, by five points.
Second, race baiting and attempts to terrify black voters didn’t work.
In North Carolina, an anonymous flyer was distributed in Fayetteville
with a picture of a lynching from the 1920s and a message telling
voters that if incumbent Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan didn’t win, Obama’s
impeachment would begin. The head of the local chapter of the NAACP,
Jimmy Buxton, saw nothing wrong with the flyer and didn’t think it was
racist. Yet Republican Thom Tillis still beat Hagan.
In Georgia, the state Democratic Party sent out flyers showing black
children holding signs saying “Don’t shoot” and “If you want to prevent
another Ferguson…vote.” Michael Smith, the communications director for
the Georgia Democratic Party, was completely unapologetic for invoking
scenes of racist violence. But the flyer didn’t prevent David Perdue
from winning the open U.S. Senate seat without a runoff or Gov. Nathan
Deal from being reelected, rolling over a challenge from Jason Carter,
grandson of President Jimmy Carter.
Third, the “war on women” theme didn’t work. Just look at the results
in the governor’s race in Texas, Sen. Mitch McConnell’s easy reelection
in Kentucky, and Sen. Mark Udall’s stunning loss in Colorado. Udall was
ridiculed as “Mark Uterus” because of his almost exclusive focus on
contraception and abortion during his campaign, to the point where he
was even heckled by a large Democratic donor during the final hours of
the campaign for seeming to make that “the only thing” Udall stood for.
Fourth and finally, a dismissive attitude towards voters and
particularly black voters didn’t work. Last week on TV One, “Where
Black Life Unfolds” according to its motto, Michelle Obama told
interviewer Roland Martin that black voters should not pay any
attention to who the candidates are, what their records are, their
positions on issues, or whether they have the character and principles
needed. No, she told the audience that “It’s not about the person on
the ballot…a Democratic ticket is the clear ticket that we should be
voting on, regardless of who said what or did this. That shouldn’t even
come into the equation.”
That parallels the insulting position the Holder Justice Department and
the NAACP have taken in their lawsuit against North Carolina’s voter ID
law and early voting changes. Their experts claim that black voters are
“less sophisticated” than white voters and that they are not as capable
of “understanding who the candidates are [or] becoming informed” about
the issues.
Voters in Maryland obviously didn’t listen to Michelle Obama’s advice
or think they are less capable of becoming informed about the
candidates. In a state where Democrats have a two-to-one advantage,
voters elected Republican Larry Hogan governor. He defeated Lt. Gov.
Anthony Brown, who was responsible for Maryland’s disastrous launch of
its Obamacare website and who, unlike other Democrats, actually asked
President Obama to come to Maryland and campaign for him. Hogan’s
victory margin was an astonishing 54 percent to 45 percent, quite a
condemnation of what Brown and Obama “said” and “did” in their high
tax, pro-regulation, expansive government policies.
While it was Democrats who failed in this election with such tactics,
these lessons apply equally to both political parties. Those who want
to use political trickery and race or gender baiting to win elections,
or who have a contemptuous attitude towards the American people, are
going to lose elections. And that is a good thing.
Read this and other articles with links at The Daily Signal
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