Why The Democrats Lost

By Ukachi Uwadinobi

It is generally believed among astute political observers in and outside the United States that Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore lost the 2000 presidential election to Republican George W. Bush, ostensibly because Gore practically dis-owned President Bill Clinton, his boss who put him a heartbeat away from the Oval Office. Yes, the gravity of Bill Clinton’s personal indiscretion
with then White House intern Monika Lewinsky was stunning and hard to fathom. Mr. Clinton was publicly humiliated through the impeachment ordeal that followed. Yet ironically, Bill Clinton, till this day,
never seem to have lost his charm and connection to the American people. Gore’s choice to keep Clinton away from his 2000 presidential campaign was politically peril-
ous. He lost to Geoge W. Bush in that election. In the 2014 Kentucky U.S. Senate race, for a while it

seemed Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes running to unseat incumbent Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell was going to win. But with the skittish nature of the polls showing McConnell regaining momentum and leading Grimes in

the closing months of the Mid Term
Elections, the Grimes campaign concluded that President Obama’s declining approval rating was to blame, and as a result decided to dissociate her from President Obama.
It was stunning to see how — like

some of the other Democratic candidates in the south who lost in the Mid-Term Elections — they chose for her to avoid any contact with
the president as if he had a political strain of the Ebola virus.
To the point that Alison Grimes ould not even give a direct answer to a reporter’s question as to whether or not she voted for Obama in the 2012 presidential election.The one major legislative success of President Obama —the Affordable Care Act — which in Kentucky became one of the early success stories of implementing the government-led health care reform in the country, was not pushed strong enough in her campaign as a model of legislative success Democrats ought to be proud of.Instead,in a campaign commercial to underscore the difference she had with President Obama’s environmental policies, Grimes — touting her support of the coal industry and gun rights advocates — looked straight intothe camera and tartly uttered: “I am not Barack Obama.”How mean!
And what was that supposed to convey to Democrats, especially among
African American voters, who must have seen that and shrugged their
shoulders in disbelief?It is one thing to hear that coming from a Republican candidate and be dismissed as election time partisan rhetoric, but coming from a candidate perceived to be a member of your own political family? It’s hard to see how that would have appealed to even Independents to fetch her votes from a broad coalition of supporters.In some of the States where Democratic candidates had embraced
the president and allowed him to stump for them, they won. Incumbent Governor Dan Malloy of Connecticut, is a case in point. In Pennsylvania, the President campaigned on behalf of the Democratic candidateTom Wolfe in the gubernatorial race and he won. In Michigan,
Gary Peters, the U.S. Senate candidate, who embraced President Obama, also won. Appearing on MSNBC “Hardball” with host Chris Matthews, reelected Connecticut
Gov. Dan Malloy was unapologetic in his embrace of President Obama during his campaign. There might have been a few things he disagreed with the president on policy matters, Gov. Malloy noted, but there were
other successful policy initiatives he whole-heartedly agreed with the president on and wasn’t shy to applaud the president for. The lesson learned is, you can disagree with the
president but not disown the president like the proverbial “throw away the baby with the bathwater.”
Not a good move.

 

Posted by on Nov 16 2014. Filed under Community News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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