Lee Carter: Democrats, if you want to win in 2020, learn these lessons from 2016
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}With just five remaining candidates in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, Super Tuesday is upon us. Yet a recent Emerson poll finds that 48 percent of Democrats said they could still change their mind about whom they want to vote for.
Support for candidates is soft and no one can claim front-runner status. The reason why is as clear as day: Democrats haven’t learned from their loss in 2016.
As we get down to the wire, for each candidate still in the race, it is important that they do not make the same mistakes as their 2016 predecessors.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Here’s my advice for the candidates:
Demonstrate you are electable. You don’t tell voters you are electable, or you are the one that can take down President Trump, you show them. Your message can’t be just a take-down of each other or Trump.
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React less. I always say you can tell who is winning by looking at the candidate everyone is reacting to. Right now there are two of them: Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. If you are spending your time reacting to someone else’s policy and not explaining your own, you are likely losing. Remember the wall?
Democrats spent so much time talking about how it was impossible to build, how it would never happen, how it was un-American and so on. Well, guess who won that battle? As all of the Democratic candidates waste time talking about socialism and Trumpism, debating Bernie’s plan for “Medicare-for-all” and Trump’s plans as immoral, no one really knows or understands what their plans are or what their message is.
Create a simple, repeatable narrative. The 16 candidates who ran against Trump in 2016 did not have one memorable message among them. Do you remember any of them? The answer is very likely “no.” But I guarantee you remember Trump’s “Make America Great Again,” slogan or even Obama’s “Change We Can Believe In.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Love the voters. Focus on voters. Not the media. Not each other. In order to reach the electorate, you need to understand them, communicate with them and have empathy for them. You cannot judge them. And you cannot assume you know them.
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This is the key to each candidate’s success or failure. If the message doesn’t resonate with their voters – even if they have the right policy positions, the best qualifications and the deepest pocketbook – that candidate will not win. My advice is what I call the golden rule of communicating – talk to your audience as they are, not as you want them to be.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Listen to your haters. Every time I hear an interview with a candidate who is asked about how it feels when they are criticized, the candidate will say “I don’t listen to the haters.” What a serious mistake. Do you have any idea how much you can learn from the haters? Hearing the haters doesn’t mean you have to join them. But it does mean you need to understand them. And if you do, it will help you neutralize them.
Focus on a few symbolic policies. Talk about them in a way that is concise and memorable. Trump wasn’t going to have a 10-point immigration strategy. He was going to build a wall. Likewise, Sanders isn’t creating a task force on health care – he is talking about “Medicare-for-all.” Pick a few policies and make them your own trademark policies.
Lean into your criticisms. Surprising? Maybe. But deflecting them and dismissing them does not work, period. If one candidate happens to be a billionaire, defend the X number of jobs created, the taxes spent and the programs supported – proudly. Speak to those achievements and milestones directly to the people. Leadership is about dialogue: own it, be authentic, and yes – be vulnerable.
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These lessons provide a clear roadmap to success. The Democratic candidates who won midterms in the districts that voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama and then overwhelmingly voted for Trump knew this. They understood that it wasn’t enough to just defeat Republicans but that their message was clear and had a signature policy that resonated with their constituents.
If the Democrats want to win in 2020, it is imperative that they learn from the mistakes of 2016, or else they will just be repeating history and guaranteeing another win for Trump.
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