I’m a life long Democrat and I desperately want Biden to win.

Right now — based on current polls, public denunciations of Trump by Mattis and Romney and even Kelly, peaceful public demonstrations like nothing we’ve seen before, the revelations by Bolton, and the latest Supreme Court rulings on DACA – popular sentiment seems to be that the Party is doing fine, just fine, and Joe Biden seems poised to win. Therefore, a lot of people believe it follows that any criticism of what the Party does or doesn’t do, any suggestion of new things that can be done, is negative thinking and detracts from the effort to oust Trump.

Yet I still remember when Hillary was running, the party was not just doing fine, it was doing great, really great, really really great, and Trump could never be elected.  Hillary had it cinched.  Well … after it was all over, I spoke with a well-known Superior Court Judge, who knew many of the actors in Hillary’s campaign, and he told me that, at one point, the Obama Team wanted to assist Hillary at the state level but was rebuffed because Hillary and the DNC had everything in hand.  Bottom line: The Judge said Obama always considered the Electoral College over the popular vote, Hillary didn’t.

So that’s why I’m extremely wary of this attitude that right now everything is fine, just fine.  I’ve thought about it and here are a few suggestions that could make our Party even stronger:

  1. Think about this: … The House has passed more than 275 bills that are stuck in the Senate, where Mitch McConnell refuses to bring them up for a vote. Many of them are really good bills that would benefit a lot of people. Yet, despite all this good hard work, I don’t know anybody who can name even one or two of these 275 good bills, or describe what’s in it, or explain how it can benefit our country. This good work gets lost in the on-slaught of new news every day (Trump loves this type of distraction). What’s missing here from Democrats is a continual, massive, unrelenting, powerful, sustained  follow-up campaign to publicize these wonderful bills, using TV ads and social media … so that people — Republicans, Trump supporters, Democrats, Independents, whoever — have it drilled into them again and again how McConnell is blocking something that would benefit them.  This type of TV ads and social media to convince people and put pressure on Mitch that could make a huge difference, I submit.  The public at large would begin to understand how the Democrats are really working for them, to protect their interests, to make their lives better, and more of them would begin to think about their self-interest.  (What I’m proposing here is not only getting people elected.  It’s about changing peoples’ minds beforehand so they vote Democratic.) Some of the people who worked on Bloomberg’s campaign, and some of the people who do the Lincoln Project ads and outside groups like AJ+ would be a great place to start such campaigns. 
  1. While Biden, Pelosi, Schumer and Perez and all the individual candidates all are busy, working hard to get more Democrats elected to oust Trump and flip the Senate and retain the House, separate groups like The Lincoln Project, Stacey Abrams and Eric Holder, even Mike Bloomberg, are doing a vital job in a different way. This however leads to confusion, unequal results, different styles … as opposed to a one single massive coordinated effort.  It’s obvious that no one in the Democratic Party has formulated an overall strategy for the total effort, because each of the players I’ve named have their hands full.  For example, Nancy Pelosi must be a full-time Speaker to make sure the House functions well and the right bills get passed, as well as upholding her reputation as an incredible fund raiser.  So what is needed is a person I’ll call Chief Strategist, who would form a group to develop a comprehensive strategy that goes beyond just electing candidates: An on-going entity within the Party to create and fund comprehensive social media campaigns / TV ads to address such problems as voter disenfranchisement, gerrymandering, and counter the huge disinformation efforts of the Republicans and Right Wingers. Biden, as our main candidate, would be a candidate for this but, obviously, he’s much too busy to develop anything as comprehensive.  A qualified individual needs to be found to develop and fund this comprehensive strategy and, once in place, could co-partner with Biden and coordinate with Pelosi and Schumer and Perez. 
  1. As a rule, Democrats seem loath to use powers that they have that may turn out to be controversial.  They “request” information rather than send subpoenas and only, when pushed, send out such subpoenas and, if rebuffed, never attempt to have them fulfilled. Currently Republicans have blocked any subpoenas with stunning regularity.  The House could consider the bold step of, for example, having a Sergeant-at-Arms attempt to jail someone for refusing a lawful subpoena.  Yes, this would result in a confrontation and might possibly fail.  But it would highlight the illegality of refusing to testify under oath when a lawful subpoena is served.  It is a sign of this unwillingness to use such powers that Jerry Nadler is only now currently pushing legislation to defund Barr’s Justice Department to the tune of $50 million.  What I’m saying here is Democrats need to be unafraid of such confrontations if they want to appear to be strong.
  1. Trump has probably employed more outside lawyers than any other President to block the Democrat’s ability to function as an oversight branch of Congress. Trump relishes doing this and it often succeeds even if the law doesn’t agree with him.  Although the Democrats used Barry Berke, the white-collar criminal defense attorney who was legal counsel to House Judiciary Committee during impeachment, he has returned to his New York law firm. To the best of my knowledge, the Democrats currently have no outside standing counsel or equivalent legal group to counter any moves Trump makes, or to initiate a pro-active fight about other important issues.   Wouldn’t it be great if, whenever Trump used a law firm to block a lawful action by the House, a well-know expert in-house Democratic legal counsel reacted immediately?  Adam Schiff could head up such an effort, but he’s busy with his work in the House; ditto for Kamala Harris, who is tied to the Senate.  Perhaps Schiff and Kamala could decide which outside legal group would be best to hire. Then, once they were hired, they could report to the Chief Strategist mentioned in #2. 

We’re all concerned about the prospect of God knows how many more years of Trump. The ghost of the debacle of Hillary’s failure haunts us based on a fear that the Democratic Party may have blind spots similar to those in the Hillary campaign. My hope here is that the proposed ideas, especially utilizing social media and TV ads as an integral part of the Democracy Party’s strategy, can strengthen our chances of winning the Presidency, flipping the Senate, and retaining the House. The ideas I’ve described here are not an ultimate cure-all, but consider it a call to action.  I’d encourage anyone who reads this to think of  additional ideas that could result in an even stronger Party.

What I have proposed in this article obviously involves a shift in thinking and a massive effort.  It would end up strengthening the Democratic Party, I believe. So if you who are reading this also believe that it can make a huge difference, I urge you: Share it with everyone possible and make it go viral.  Who knows? It could even give birth to a new PAC “Strengthen the Democratic Party”, which would raise the necessary funds to translate internal projects like these from an idea into a reality.

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Lawrence Michael Light’s Facebook page has 4800+ friends and discusses the Daily Outrage created by Donald Trump and the Republican Party.  He also created eJobCoach.com to help people find, and get jobs. Previously, he worked for Xerox, IBM, CSC and AGS Software as V.P. of Sales, Marketing and Consulting Services. His email is [email protected].

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1 COMMENT

    • Thanks. I’m asking people who think this is valid to distribute it to as many people as possible. See my web page either “Daily Outrage” and like it or join as a friend on “Lawrence Michael Light”.

      • Lawrence, I love all your ideas! This sounds like the work of what we used to call a political party “think tank,” which I have heard has gone by the wayside in the last few decades. Is there still any kind of a working group within the DNC or someplace else that discusses and proposes party direction, policy, and initiatives? In business, this would be a long-range planning committee or something of that nature. I have no “connections” myself, but I am making calls for our state Democrats. I will forward your ideas to them and also to Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, our Minnesota Senators. GREAT IDEAS!!!!

  1. You must have been reading my thoughts! I keep wondering where the Dems are at. I’ve been a Democrat all my life and have always wondered why they can’t blow their own horn better. We HAVE TO WIN. Four more years of this cabal would ruin this experiment.

    • Thanks. I’m asking people who think this is valid to distribute it to as many people as possible. See my web page either “Daily Outrage” and like it or join as a friend on “Lawrence Michael Light”.

  2. I been saying it for years. The Democrats act like a bunch of pansies. They need to grow a backbone and go after these dam turkeys. One of the reasons that republicans appeal to voters is that they are confrontational. They want to see some argument and sass. Get it together. Show them who’s boss.

    • As Col Sherman T Potter might have said, “Horse hockey.”

      Democrats are not allowed to be confrontational. If they dare do that, the GOP goes to all their friendly media outlets to complain about how “mean” the Dems are being and, within 6 hours, the right-wing noise machine gets picked up by the “lamestream” media (as Himself would describe it) and echoed infinitely to the point that any Democrat who gets on one of the “lamestream” shows winds up having to defend himself or herself against the accusations and whatever subject they’d PLANNED on discussing gets absolutely no time on the air whatsoever.

      And, you may have noticed that Democrats don’t seem to get quite as much face time on the news talk shows as the GOPers do. When Bush was in power and had a GOP Congress, the rationale was “the Dems can’t really do anything”; when Obama was in charge and had a Dem Congress, the rationale was “Obama’s the face of the Party”; when Obama was forced to deal with a GOP Congress, the rationale was “The GOP are a ‘minority’ since Obama can veto any of their legislation”; and now, with Trump in the White House and his subservient do-nothing, know-nothing GOP lackeys/bootlickers in Congress, we’re right back to “the Dems can’t really do anything.” The impeachment process was the exception but the media covered it mostly for the dog-and-pony show we *rational* people knew it would be (there was absolutely no way that Trump would be removed, even with all the “wavering” GOP Senators because removal requires a 2/3 vote and there was no way there would be even 60 “guilty” votes, much less the necessary 67).

      I’m also personally offended at your use of “pansies.” That word has a history as an anti-gay epithet and for it to be used during Pride Month is especially offensive. There’s also the fact that, as flowers, pansies cannot “grow a backbone” but, consider the shark. It’s one of the most dangerous predators in the world and it doesn’t require a “backbone”. And that little pandemic we’ve all been forced to deal with? It’s a virus–no backbone, and it’s pretty much crippled the world’s economy singlehandedly.

      • You just get too excited here, sir especially about that word “pansies.” I don’t recall using it. You seem to be coming from that place where the Trolls live, without calling for whatever action you really want. My intent was to show how to strengthen the Democrats, who are the only hope today for toppling Trump and Barr and all the rest of the Republicans who are ruining our country, have mismanaged the coronavirus and killed more people than WWI, Korea and Vietnam, and put us into the most horrendous national debt we’ve ever experienced. You sit on the sidelines and merely say horsepucky.

    • It’s not a matter of showing who’s boss; it’s a matter of countering the unlawful underhanded moves by the Republicans by being even stronger, faster, more agile, more sophisticated in the tools they use. A good deal of the time the Democrats use old fashioned tools and don’t understand social media or even the power of TV ads, leaving it to individual candidates or outside groups to fight back.

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