The Democratic brand is broken. The infrastructure bill isn't fixing it.

[dutch508]

Star Member brooklynite (73,975 posts)


The Democratic brand is broken. The infrastructure bill isn't fixing it.
Politico

In the days after the Democratic Party’s collapse in the Virginia governor’s race, party strategists descended on the commonwealth to figure out what went wrong and understand just how bad the national outlook might be next year.

What they discovered, largely through focus groups and polling, was even worse than expected. The problems cut far deeper than the failings of their gubernatorial nominee, Terry McAuliffe, or President Joe Biden’s flagging approval ratings. Rather, the Democratic Party’s entire brand was a wreck.


“Voters couldn’t name anything that Democrats had done, except a few who said we passed the infrastructure bill,” the center-left group Third Way and its pollsters said in a report, obtained first by POLITICO, on focus groups they ran in Virginia.

Most of the voters Third Way spoke with in suburban Virginia focus groups, according to the report, “could not articulate what Democrats stand for. They could also not say what they are doing in Washington, besides fighting.”

And those were just the people who voted for Biden.

Let me respond in advance to the three obvious complaints I expect to see:

1. "It's Politico": Yes, because this is a political news story that actually happened, and that's what Politico reports on.

2, "Third Way is just 'Corporatist' DINO's": I've been in touch with Third Way for close to a decade. They're not "corporatists" trying to privatize everything; they're advocates fir centrist policies because that's where the votes are to get policies passed and win elections.

3, "It's the media's fault": That's an explanation, not an excuse. We've known what the media is like for a long time (Fox News is 25 years old). If an old strategy doesn't work, its incumbent on you to come up with a new one. As I told the head of the DNC last week, messaging continues to be a glaring weakness in the Party.

 

SouthernCal_Dem (796 posts)

1. Why would you feel the need to respond in advance to complaints?

Why not just post the article for discussion?

Eyeball_Kid (6,218 posts)

2. And what do voters believe that the GOP stands for?

Anything? Oh. They stand for insurrection and bullying and violence and fascism. But I guess that it's the Democrats who have the branding problem.

 

kentuck (103,606 posts)

4. True.

Much of the messaging has to do with the way Democrats prioritize their messages, in my opinion. All of the messages cannot be of equal weight and carry a majority.

 

[DUmpDiver]

Make America A S***hole is the Democratic message.

[BannedFromDU]

     It's pretty simple: the Democrats think the country is essentially a coed dormitory at Oberlin. All they have to do to "govern" is tell people what they can and can't do, and everyone is a racist except for themselves.

[USA4ME]

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216080358

.

[SVPete]

Cassandra speaks, DUmmies disbelieve.

[Carl]

Over and over..."We need better messaging"

Well here is a DUmpshit actually telling what your beliefs are.

Response to anti stupid (Reply #40)

Tue Nov 23, 2021, 11:56 AM

Ron Green (9,441 posts)
46. Neither one. Any sort of Hummer should not even be made,

much less touted by a politician, much, much less the President.

The truth is that economic growth is harmful in the aggregate and must be called into question. Are any Democrats saying this? Maybe Ilhan Omar has made some statements about an alternative to GDP as a metric, but Jesus, all politicians of both sides are still talking about growth. And Dems (most of them) are saying “green” at the same time! Is this hypocrisy, or just ignorance?

That is why you mongrels have to lie,

[dandi]

I've never heard any rank-and-file voter fret over infrastructure at national election time. They only think about it when they run over a pothole, and then they blame the local or maybe state government.