What Democrats Should Learn From Republicans

Most Americans have no idea who the Speaker of the House is. A large portion don't really even know what the House of Representatives do. Now sure, we can talk about why that's terrible, and what's wrong with that for our society, but the reality is just that most people judge the government on results, not process, and they aren't paying attention to the Congress and who runs it.

That's not always true, of course. That's true when Republicans are in charge. Democrats rarely demonize a Republican Congressional leader in the way Republicans demonize Democrats. Tom Daschle was turned into a Saddam Hussein sympathizer in the period between 2002 and 2004, taking him from Senate leader to defeated in 2004. After the Democrats took control in 2006, the GOP took direct aim at Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid, demonizing them to the subsection of society that makes up their base, and always shows up for elections. They relentlessly attack Democratic Congressional leaders as a way to put a negative face to the name for their base voters. It's worked decently in midterms.

Democrats should take a lesson. Rather than talking about faceless "Republican obstruction" with their voters, Democrats should be attacking Boehner in a sustained manner in paid and non-paid communications. We should put the same kind of negative face on Mitch McConnell for the entire nation that the GOP has done to our past two Democratic Senate leaders now. Bring the Republican leaders all out of the shadows, and put them into the mainstream. The last time that happened to a Republican- Newt Gingrich- it didn't end well for him.