It's STILL the Economy, Stupid!

That was the T-shirt I wore last night to a meeting of my local Democratic club, the Independent Neighborhood Democrats (IND). It proved to be a very appropriate shirt.

Last night, IND had a guest speaker, Hank Sheinkopf, political consultant, formerly a member of President Clinton’s re-election media team, and panelist on a local TV station's roundtable discussion. Sheinkopf is the ultimate Democratic insider and he came to discuss the 2006 election victory with us.

Sheinkopf's initial message was that we did not win this year because of ourselves, but rather because the Republicans had crashed and burned. We won because the Republicans were so corrupt, had lied so much and had, in essence, lost the confidence of the voters. His warning was this: unless we return to the populist economic message that is the HEART of the Democratic Party, we will lose again.

Sheinkopf has his own agenda: he is pushing for Hillary Clinton for President. But, that and a few other disagreements aside, I agreed with him just about completely.

The core of his talk was that Democrats need to focus on just one message, and it was the message that ALWAYS works for Democrats since the 1920's: economic populism. Actually, I would use the term "progressivism" because that is how Theodore Roosevelt described it when it was Republicans who were the economic populists. But economic populism is a good term for it as well.

It's STILL the economy, stupid! That's the message.

Sheinkopf argues that it is the blue-collar vote that determines national elections. He narrowed it down to 500,000 white, male Catholics...but I suspect that you could use other groups as the key demographic as well. This group is often socially conservative, but when faced with bread and butter issues, they vote for economic populism. They will only buy into the wedge issues Republicans run on if they don't see the Democrats offering them economic populism.

Raise the minimum wage. Make education more affordable for working class Americans. Jobs. Fiscal responsibility. THOSE are the issues that Democrats MUST focus on to win. And I completely agree with Sheinkopf on this. Democrats have ALWAYS been better on economic issues, presiding over better job prospects, better stock performance and lower deficits than the Republicans. That is our strength and that is what we ignore at our peril.

The Iraq war is a major issue right now. Republican corruption is a major issue right now. But right now is not 2008. They may still be issues in 2008, but what we KNOW is that economic populism is ALWAYS a good strategy for Democrats.

Sheinkopf believes Hillary Clinton WILL be the Democratic nominee in 2008, believes that she WILL run on an economic populist message (and I bet he wants to be the one to craft that message), and believes that 2008, and most years, come down to four states: Missouri, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. He thinks Hillary has a very good shot at winning the presidency and points to her good performance in upstate as evidence since upstate has a similar demographics to the four states he considers key to a Democratic victory. He disagrees with Dean's 50-state strategy, and I think he is wrong about that. He feels the South is irrelevant to the Democrats below Missouri, and I think he is wrong about that, particularly given the strength of politicians from those states (Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Edwards, Jim Webb, Mark Warner...). But I do think he is right that those four states are critical and that an economic populist/traditionally progressive message will play very well in those states. They have played well in Indiana and Montana recently, so let's expand that message and make it our Congressional agenda. Even if we want a 50-state rather than 4-state strategy, the same message will carry us.

Iraq
Minimum wage
Addressing income inequalities
Education

Those were the top four issues Sheinkopf advocates we focus on. I could add to that list...but it is a good starting point. And it agrees with many of the points I have made when I advocated a particular agenda for the Democratic Congress. I will expand upon my recommended agenda, inspired by Sheinkopf, in the future. For now it is simply remembering the message and starting with the four points above.

I had almost stopped wearing my "It's STILL the Economy, Stupid" t-shirt. But three things make it still relevant today. First, it is the liberal shirt I own that almost universally gets a positive reaction: a chuckle, a laugh or a shake of the head and a "you got THAT right." Second, as economists are warning of a new recession (did we ever really leave the LAST recession) as well as continuing threat of inflation, a combination we used to call "stagflation," it really IS the economy that is the #1 issue. And third, being reminded by Sheinkopf that this is the message that consistently wins elections for Democrats makes me prouder than ever of that t-shirt.

Start saying it now and keep saying it until 2008, every day: It's STILL the economy, stupid.