Election Lessons Not Learned Yet

The worst Monday morning quarterbacking I've read in a while followed our last election.

Democrats nationwide blame their rout on a failure to be clear or strident enough about their message. Republicans are gloating. Neither side fully acknowledges each party has now been kicked to the curb in succession.

Democrats had one-party rule in 2008. They managed to lose it in the next election. Then the trend accelerated. If their message was right, how did that happen?

My state just emerged from a U.S. Senate race that spent $26.47 per voter, much of it paid for by billionaires. Do you really think I need better-focused messaging to tell me which side everybody is on? Pro-Republican third-party donors did a better job of labeling the Republicans as the party of privilege than you ever will.

But let's gloss right over all this and assume Democrats are right on the issues. Their message doesn't matter if people don't believe they can deliver on it. The Republicans shut down the government last year, and Democrats still got shellacked again.

Blame the lack of results since Democrats lost their absolute majority on those stubborn Republicans. OK. Then Democrats admit they can't beat them. So voters joined them.

The same electorate who just voted to raise the minimum wage also voted to put Republicans in office. Democrats marvel about how "inconsistent" those votes are. Unfortunately for Democrats, those votes aren't inconsistent. People want a pay raise and greater fairness -- but have lost faith that Democrats can provide either. So they voted for a raise while politically turning to their only other viable option.

Yeah, Democrats would win if only there was enough turnout. I've heard that all my life. I'm 55 years old. When you find that magic turnout carpet, Democrats, let me know. The fact Democrats' message can't even get people to go vote should tell you something. And they're losing the millennials. The young, hopeful voters who padded the Democratic majority in 2008 have spent the years since looking for a decent job.

Good Democrats have looked me in the eye and blamed this defeat in Arkansas on racism, because the president is black. Republicans, understandably, consider this a smear. I'm going to reply -- very coldly -- the racism charge simply doesn't help Democrats. Suppose it was true. This isn't going to become a Democratic state again by the national party nominating somebody white next time.

Democrats wouldn't go back in time and undo the gains in civil rights of the 1960s just to stop President Richard Nixon from getting elected. Progress has costs. Sometimes, those costs are heavy.

Republicans messed the country up so badly by 2006 that people turned to the Democrats in frustration. They've never had to atone or even reflect much on their disastrous performance during President George W. Bush's administration. Now they see themselves as vindicated. If wages start recovering, they'll even be poised to take credit.

Failure ought to have consequences. Right now, Republican leaders are like a bunch of Wall Street bankers who've been bailed out. They think they deserve what they've got and it's some kind of natural order of things they're the masters of the universe. The rest of the country, meanwhile, still seethes at them. Heck, most members of their own party seethe at them.

If the Democrats ever get their act together, Republicans are toast. GOP hubris delivered this country to the Democrats in 2006 and 2008. What, exactly, makes them think that won't happen again?

If only there was some way to go back in time and force both parties to take the good, hard look at themselves both have needed for years. Oh wait, there is.

Here's something I wrote in 2006, when Republicans were down: "Nothing -- absolutely nothing -- would heal the wounds, revive the spirits and close the ranks of the Republican Party like a Hillary for President campaign." Now I can say something like that for Democrats, too.

Like it or not, Hillary Clinton's apparently inevitable bid for president is exactly the tonic both these parties need. Republicans would be forced to run against somebody besides Barack Obama, their handy excuse for everything wrong in the world. Democrats don't have a better way of admitting their mistake and apologizing for nominating a rookie in 2008.

Let the 2016 race begin. Back to the future.

DOUG THOMPSON IS A POLITICAL REPORTER AND COLUMNIST FOR NWA MEDIA.