There is another, more serious problem with the Democrats’ current plight. Having successful candidates on all levels of government means having politicians who have learned to appeal to a wide range of constituents and not just to left-leaning urban hipsters. After all, part of the Democrats’ current plight comes from electing a president who came of age as a hothouse plant, nurtured in the one-party rule of left-wing Chicago politics and then protected by the adulation of the press. He never really learned how to work with political opponents or assuage the concerns of voters outside his narrow partisan base. Those are the skills now being learned by Republicans who are winning races in formerly blue and purple states.
In this regard, Democrats seem to be in a downward spiral. You can see that in the way they have made no plans for changes in leadership or agenda after this year’s big failure. You can see why they wouldn’t: most of the Democrats who remain in Congress were elected from solid left-leaning states or districts. Let’s just say that Nancy Pelosi isn’t going to lose many voters in San Francisco by doggedly continuing to support ObamaCare…
The problem for Democrats isn’t that they are relying on a majority of the black and Hispanic vote. It’s that they are relying on a total death-grip on that vote. They need 90% of the black vote in every election and 75% of the Hispanic vote, and not just that, but a high voter turnout among those groups. So if the new crop of Republican leaders can manage to peel off just 10% or 20% of the vote among blacks and Hispanics, the Democratic Party would be pretty much doomed.
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