Sixty-six years ago, then-Senator John F. Kennedy accepted the Democratic nomination for President in Los Angeles. And in his famous speech from the Memorial Coliseum, dubbed the “New Frontier,” he laid out his vision of the burden laid before him and his party after eight years of Dwight D. Eisenhower's Republican administration.
“Our task is not merely one of itemizing Republican failures. Nor is that wholly necessary. For the families forced from the farm will know how to vote without our telling them. The unemployed miners and textile workers will know how to vote. The old people without medical care -- the families without a decent home -- the parents of children without adequate food or schools -- they all know that it's time for a change.
But I think the American people expect more from us than cries of indignation and attack. The times are too grave, the challenge too urgent, and the stakes too high to permit the customary passions of political debate.”
While we are not in the denouement of a consecutive two-term Republican presidency, the similarities between the problems Kennedy saw facing the nation then are remarkably similar to the issues that constantly poll as top of mind for voters in this year’s midterms. But it is the second half of that quote that I think applies even more faithfully to the mood of voters this year, and hints at the generational problem Democrats seem unable to shake.
The polling shows that as is tradition, the President’s party will lose seats in the midterm elections. How many seats remains to be determined, but from the litany of headlines about panicking from GOP operatives, talking heads, pollsters, and the like, it appears that it will be something between a Red Undertow and a Blue Tidal Wave.
President Donald Trump is certainly not doing Republicans any favors. And many of his voters from two years ago have indicated that they aren’t voting Republican this year, if they vote at all. Which leads to the question that these midterms might answer: Can Democrats actually grow their voter base instead of just motivating the same solid left-of-center voting blocs and hoping Republicans stay home.
A Reluctant Optimist
Every day I talk to Democrats both in the political industrial complex and regular voters outside of it, and there is a common thread of wanting the party to stand for something. To do something. And if by some chance we do succeed in taking both the House and Senate this cycle, there will be a deafening call for action. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (NY-08), the de-facto Democratic candidate for Speaker, has read the writing on the wall and already announced the House’s plans for just that.
But if this year’s primaries across the country proved anything, it is that what exactly a Democrat is can change from district to district. Because the Democrats who are not household names, running in districts Democrats haven’t thought about in decades, that are now leading in the polls they should have never led in, they are the ones proving the party does and can stand for something. And that fact alone converted me to something of a reluctant optimist about the Democratic Party.
Go look to the Democrats who stepped up to run across the country, from McAllen to Minneapolis and you’ll find the fight voters have been looking for. It is the doctor who decided to run for Senate in South Carolina, a firefighter in Montana, a pastor in Kansas, a fisherman in Alaska, a State Representative from Jacksonville, Florida who saw the need for new voices in the party and surprised the whole nation. These leaders are not just from every corner of the country, they represent every corner of the Democratic party.
They are the ones who will not wait for the right time to pass legislation. They will not wait because they know we cannot. They know now as Kennedy did then. They see the same families forced from their farms, the same unemployed miners, the same seniors without medical care, and the same parents unable to afford food. They are the ones who truly see the New Frontier that Kennedy spoke about that day in the Memorial Coliseum.
I believe there will be swift action to investigate and litigate the GOP corruption of the last two years. And I believe these two years should be investigated and litigated. Time will tell just what kind of Democratic Party we will be. But I am hopeful that with leaders like these candidates, we will not just rely on a Red Undertow, and that the Democratic Party will once again be the party that leads not with the apathy of comfort but with the conviction of experience.