Election 2006 - Get your parachute open

Skydiving instructors, with the grim, cryptic sense of humor which seems to be endemic among them, have a little joke they often spring on new students. Quite often a prospective jumper will ask, "If my chute doesn't open on the first try, how long do I have to correct the situation or switch over to deploy the reserve chute?"

Their answer is almost uniformly, "The rest of your life."

The 2006 mid-term elections are going to occur, give or take a few days, 56 weeks from now. For a vast number of Senate, House and Gubernatorial candidates and incumbents, 56 weeks is going to effectively be the rest of their political lives. The population of the United States at the moment, as estimated by the Census Bureau, is approximately 296 million. In the 2004 election, arguably one of the most contentious and high profile in the modern era, barely 122 million US citizens could be bothered to come out and vote. History has taught us that, in years when the President is not being chosen, we're lucky to get 100 million to the polls. Of that number, given our current state of viciously divided partisanship, a disappointingly large percentage are going to vote the party line no matter who is running. The battle for the "mighty middle" is going to be more critical than ever before.

The Democrats, if they hope to stop the country's slide away from progressive values and goals, desperately need to take back a sustainable majority in the Senate and, if at all possible, the House as well. Every Republican Governor's seat which can be taken over by a Democrat represents one more state where the GOP will have to obtain a supermajority in the state legislature capable of overcoming a Democratic veto should they seek to pass radical, neoconservative, regressive legislation.

The Democrats, in addition to fighting their Republican opponents, may also be battling a sense of dejected apathy in their base. Following the passage of the bankruptcy bill, with the disappointingly high number of Democrats who voted in favor of it, many Dem supporters seemed to feel that the deck was stacked against them either way. But stop and consider how many amendments to that bill were proposed by the Democrats (and subsequently defeated) which would have made it far more palatable and less damaging to working class Americans and those most at risk. A Democratic majority in the Senate would have altered that outcome considerably.

Think also of the possibilities on the Supreme Court between next fall and when Bush finally packs up and heads home to Crawford for good. Some of the more traditionally "liberal" judges could conceivably take ill or vacate their seats for any number of reasons. Currently, as much as the idea my gall you, President Bush can appoint very nearly anyone he wants and get them approved, even if the GOP has to resort to the "nuclear option." A Senate majority for the Democrats turns that entire world upside down.

But how is this to be accomplished, given recent voting trends? Following the 2004 Presidential election, in the postmortem analysis, the Democratic plan to support Kerry seemed to be nothing more than saying, "Well, he's not Bush." Granted, that strategy came within a statistically insignificant two percent margin of working, but it failed. Likewise, in 2006 State races around the country, I believe that it will not be enough to simply say, "Well, at least our candidate isn't a Republican." The Democrats have already tried selling that story and America wasn't buying.

As Bush's poll numbers continue to decline, the figures show that a solid majority of Americans feel that the country is "heading in the wrong direction." But in order to win, the Democrats have to clearly lay out what the right direction is, and they need to be specific. If there is any up side to the poor voter turnout we traditionally see in the mid-terms, it is that you are speaking to a slightly more engaged, motivated and informed group of voters. (I definitely believe that people who will only come out to vote in Presidential elections are far more likely to be less informed about local candidates and issues and simply vote the party line.)

While members of the House and Senate vote on laws and issues which affect the entire nation, they are elected based on how their constituents feel they represent their home state more so than how they represent the nation as a whole. Smart campaigns will focus more on that in 2006 than on the huge national debates such as Iraq, abortion or gay marriage. Too many people have already made up their minds on those issues and are unlikely to be swayed. But the voters who find themselves on the fence may be won over if they feel that the candidate will really stand up and represent their own hopes and goals for their home turf.

The mid-term elections represent a chance for grassroots movements to have a much larger impact than they ever can in a national race. This means that individual action, including the work of bloggers who focus on their home state issues or door to door, shoe leather activism can do more to carry the day. But first you need a message. The Democratic candidates across the nation need to be getting that message in order today and organizing the support base which will most effectively transmit it to the public. And activists, such as bloggers, need to be learning that message and getting ready to push it across.

Get your parachutes in good working order. You've got 56 weeks left to pull the ripcord.

(Crossposted at Running Scared.)