If I Ran the Democratic Party

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist 

I live in Missouri, very rural southern Missouri, a state and a region that the National Democratic Party has ceded to Donald Trump.  Neither Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris will spend much time in Missouri, if any, and they certainly won't wander down to the Ozarks where I live.   For that matter, Donald Trump and Mike Pence will not be roaming my neighborhood either because they know that they will carry the area handily - so why bother?

The election is three weeks from today, and it is playing out exactly like the ill-fated election of 2016.  The candidates are focused on only a handful of states and have written of much of the country where they consider the outcomes to be foregone conclusions.  The political number-crunchers have already divided the states up into three neat groups:  those that are decidedly pro-Trump, those that are pro-Biden, and those few that could go either way - and it is that third group, the ones that could go either way, where the candidates will actually campaign and spend their time and cash.

The presidential candidates and their teams for focused on putting together wins in enough states to reach the magic number of 270 in the Electoral College.  They are concerned with winning very specific states - they are not concerned with the total number of "popular" votes that the candidates receive, because "popular" or individual votes do not win US presidential elections.

So if they know that a particular candidate - Trump, for instance, will carry a particular state - Missouri, for instance, there is no reason to spend any money there.  Yes, if Biden and Harris spent more money in Missouri, they would garner more votes, but not enough to win the state - so why bother?

It's a defeatist attitude and serves only to place artificial ceilings on the amount of votes that the candidates receive.

Several years ago when Howard Dean was Chairman of the Democratic Party he promoted a "fifty-state" strategy where the party committed to actually fighting for every state.  The party's current leader, Tom Perez, has foregone Dean's strategy and is focused on a more sterile and scientific approach to winning just the right combination of states to carry the vote in the Electoral College.

If I were chairman of the Democratic National Committee, I would put some effort into driving up the popular vote as a way of adding political weight to the outcome.  Donald Trump won the Electoral College vote and the presidency in the last election, but he lost the popular vote by nearly three million - a fact that has dogged him for four years and has given many the confidence to speak out against his presidency as something less that completely legitimate.

The Democratic Party has an abundance of "stars" who are either being seriously under-utilized in this election - or not utilized at all.  These well known individuals could be out knocking on doors and speaking at local events in an effort to swell the popular vote.

There is no one breathing air in the United States today who knows more about Arkansas than Bill Clinton.  Yes, Trump will carry Arkansas, and carry it handily, but Clinton spending a couple of weeks walking the hills and hollows of his boyhood could cut into Trump's Arkansas vote - probably fairly significantly.  And Biden will carry New York, but Hillary and Chelsea Clinton could increase his popular vote New York by attending and even hosting some Democratic Party events between now and the election.

The Clinton family has done quite well for itself with assistance from the Democratic Party, and now would be the time for some payback.

If Missouri's former senator, Claire McCaskill, was of a mind to, she could storm back into the state in full campaign mode and really cut into Trump's numbers in the large urban areas and the central part of the state around Rolla and Jefferson City.   Former Governor Bob Holden could return to his roots in impoverished south-central Missouri and pull votes from Trump, and the Carnahan family could also pry votes from the big orange menace in the Rolla area.   Even with all of that Trump would probably still carry the state and win its electoral votes - but his actual win would be less impressive with diminished numbers.

Social media is littered with celebrities who spend great amounts of time spouting anti-Trump snippets.   Why couldn't they be utilized by the Democratic Party to go out into America's neighborhoods and speak directly to real people about the candidates and the issues?

If there was a full and sustained push to increase the popular vote for the Democratic candidates across the country, it would add momentum and enthusiasm to the national campaign, momentum that would slip across state lines, and in the process it might even turn some state losses into victories.

And it would sure as hell make more people feel as though they were a real part of the process!