Dems earned loss
The morning after a major election loss we roll over to see who we are lying next to. It was a great night but who or what did I bed down with? Damn! They must have drugged me. Let me get out of here before they notice I’m gone. Yeah, it’s like that. Some went to bed with a Democratic Party that we really don’t want to wake up next to, because no matter how attractive it appeared to be at the height of our passion, morning comes and we can see clearly that this one is ugly from the inside out, and we need to really put that m o m e n t behind us. The Michigan and national Democratic Party organizations are not the ones to bed down, no matter your perceived need for relief. You’ll regret it. I was confronted last week by a man and woman who wanted to know why I had stated so forcefully on Fox TV’s “Let It Rip” that Mark Schauer would lose the Michigan governor’s race. [caption id="attachment_15200" align="alignleft" width="300"]
Sam Riddle discusses the election, Nov. 4, withhost Mildred Gaddis on WCHB 1200. DALE RICH PHOTO[/caption] Raw instinct guided my words. In well over 40 years of being in the trenches of electoral politics all over the planet, there is a generic reality to winning elections. It is simply not enough for the voter to know what you are against; the voter must get a feel for you and what you represent. Failure to cross that threshold will result in a defeat more often than not. The Democratic Party is suffering from some freaky paralysis that renders Dems incapable of defining who and what Dems are and why the voter should vote for a Democrat. When independent voters see Dems turning on President Obama in a most vile manner, why would they vote for candidates of such a party? Never mind that in a Karl Rove-inspired move funded with Koch Brother dollars, Dems pushed the anti-Obama crap despite the stock market being at record highs while unemployment is trending low and Obamacare works with the most terrorist-killing presidency in American history. If this president were a white boy, they’d be chipping away with an addition to Mount Rushmore. A Republican Governor Snyder can get away with an ad campaign that proclaims Detroit was a victim of 50 years of neglect until Snyder rode in on his GOP white horse. Only Gilbertville has benefited from the looting of Detroit by the Snyder Gang. The other Detroit where 60 percent of Detroit children live in poverty threatened with water shutoffs while being subjected to the poverty of a Snyder-driven Educational Achievement Authority that has failed those children was not a focal point of Democrats. Snyder’s other Detroit should have been shown in its rawest form by Democrats too worried about offending mainstream voters. The votes that would have won it for Schauer were in the impoverished households that Schauer’s people were afraid of. Detroit Raw consistently stayed on the case of Dems. The Raw column “Lon Johnson hurts GOTV” was clear: “Michigan Democrats are trending toward a lousy turnout from Black Michigan. Lon Johnson is delusional if he really believes feeding the same recycled breakfast crowd weekend after weekend will generate a winning turnout from Black voters. Feed some of the 60 percent of Detroit children who live in poverty and then you will have done something, Lon.” In urban America, we need to rethink our chattel-like relationship to the Democratic Party. But hell, that’s what the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was supposed to do. We must never let haters cause us to lose hope or dislike ourselves and never let haters make you weak in your faith. Keep the faith. Stay on the battlefield. Sam Riddle, J.D. is political director for National Action Network-Michigan Branch. Follow him on Facebook at facebook.com/samriddle or Twitter at twitter.com/samriddle.