One of the Democrats’ most veteran strategists warns that the party is “in decline” and “at considerable risk” when President Barack Obama is no longer on the scene.
“Since Obama was elected President, the Democrats have lost nine governorships, 56 members of the House and two Senate seats,” Doug Sosnik, the political director in Bill Clinton’s White House, writes in a new memo.
• Obama’s personal popularity does not easily translate for other candidates. The president is not building the Democratic Party’s institutional apparatus in a way that it will thrive when he’s gone.
• The losses in the 2010 midterms gave Republicans control of the redistricting process, which will be in effect until after the 2020 census. This gives the GOP a structural advantage in keeping the House.
• Millennials, born 1981 to 1994, and Generation X’ers, born 1965 to 1980, are voting Democratic, but a plurality identify themselves as independents — which makes them less reliable.
• Democrats cannot count on the same level of African-American turnout without Obama at the top of the ticket. Sosnik cites new analysis showing that in 2012 for the first time ever eligible black voters turned out a higher rate than whites.
Obama lost the House in 2010, thanks to "unreliable" voters (anyone under 50) and black voters who will abandon the party once Obama is gone.
In other words, Sosnik is blaming Obama, and me. Black voters under 48. Specifically. And he's setting us up for the fall in 2014 and 2016.
Expect that to be the theme going forward from the Hillary camp. Not all Obama Derangement Syndrome sufferers are Republicans.
What's this guy doing to advance the party? Obama's popularity will do nothing for people that choose not to stand with him. Why won't these assholes shut the fuck up about 2016. Can we at least keep our heads together in 2013?
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