Why Clinton County Lost the Election

That was a trick. There are no answers here. I just knew such a bold and definitive headline would be more attractive to a potential reader than a headline that said -- "I'm not sure exactly why we lost, but I know some of the influences in voters and know that it was a painful blow." Too long, too boring.

Readers-voters-humans want quick answers, easy solutions, and simple explanations. Maybe it is my background studies in sociology and communications/marketing, but my understanding of what happened begins with -- the Democratic Party is not connecting with enough of the masses. But there are doable solutions!

1. First and foremost, the Democrat Party is losing the media dollars war. The share of mainstream media for Democratic Party platform issues and candidates will continue to shrink in the future. Though there are a few progressive and liberal commentators now, they are small blips on a trajectory towards political monopoly control. They do not have the support of the ultra rich or the Corporatracy. Without the money and means of production, Democrats cannot buy the media.

• Solution - Get control of the Corporatracy...or Find a new medium for the message and/or take advantage of free communication.

2. Republican commercials were more appealing. The best marketing minds in the world began working for the Republicans for the 2010 election and their money will continue to overwhelm the undecided, the uninformed, the easily manipulated, the lazy. A profit-seeking company does not spend millions on advertising because it doesn't work. It does. Commercials sells us brands that are equal to other brands. Commercials convince us to give more of our hard earned income to products we don't need. Once the momentum has started for a fashion, product, service, it grows because people don't want to be left out.

• Solution - Create a more appealing fad & take it viral. The Republican fad will fade.

3. The Democrats have a common branding weakness. Branding is the universally-recognized and unmistakably-likable image. What is the Democratic brand? Is it gay? Is it green? Is it union? Is it poor? Is it individualism? Community? Is it local? National? International? Is it free-trade? Buy-American? Is it pro-business? It is pro-choice? Pro-family? Damn. Is it "change"? Or sustainability?  Whew! It's exhausting & messy like an over-busy logo that no one can figure out or remember.
I know what Republican is -- white, Christian, English-speaking, simple. I may not like everything about that when I dig further, but I can feel comfort in at least knowing (thinking I know) what I am getting. The unknown is scary and people don't know what they are getting with a Democrat.

• Solution - Choose a centralizing message and demand discipline in communicating it. (Might I suggest we all focus on the centralizing of power back into the few wealthiest of the world since all other fights will be lost on this front?)
  

4. Republicans have shamelessly taken advantage of the overwhelmed, the rushed, the lazy, the shallow, the stressed, the gullible. My outrageous post title served to attract the reader. Like readers, voters are attracted to easy solutions, ones without personal sacrifice or guilt at making others sacrifice. It's just human nature to want a simple explanation of what the problem is. In today's busy, stressful culture, most people do not want to delve into the complexities of a problem. I would argue, most voters simply can't. Their time, emotional energy, and brains are being spent elsewhere. Republicans are in those places. Why aren't Democrats there.

• Solution - Message people in easily-digestible chunks, when & where they are receptive, in terms they can relate to. 

5. Democrats are downers. The public is accustomed to attractive people wowing them with bright, brash showmanship. They want someone to take away their worries, not add to them. Successful marketing and political campaigns tell people they can succeed easily (Lose 20 pounds in 1 week!); there is simple answer (Just buy this deodorant & you will get this girl!); that life is wonderful (Just opening that cereal box makes loud, happy music & tons of laughing friends!); we will prosper (Just stop taxes); we'll be safe (Just ban Islam/Koran/immigrants).  Republicans capitalize on liberal cautionary tale-telling; easily manipulating voters to shoot the messenger to solve the problem. Democrats spend valuable social capital telling people how they are wrong, all the things that can go wrong, etc.  We can't afford to make more enemies or to be a turn-off to a swing voter.

• Solution - Put on your most positive public face; cheery voice, and cooperative language, every time.  

So you see, my outrageous title, was an example of a deceptively simple ploy to get my message out. Then I ruined my message by breaking every rule. I'll make the following excuse -- You are clearly a smart, committed progressive, willing to slog through in-depth analysis or you wouldn't be here at all. Do as I say, not as I do? 

Pamela Drake is Clinton County's Gal

Pamela Drake is a thoughtful, kind, and hardworking woman who wants to represent all of Bath, Laingsburg, and Ovid. Her knowledge of taxation, public health and other issues is much deeper than her opponents. While Glardon can spout pro-farming slogans, he refused to a live debate. Pamela knows the difference between a law or tax break that benefits a big corporate animal operation (CAFO) versus one that protects homeowners and responsibly-run family farms. 

Pamela Drake Interview this month on MiVote.org.
Her opponent refused to attend.

She cares about keeping our local agriculture healthy, but also cares about residents working and living in  home offices and in town. Pamela has done her homework, studying what works in other communities and what legislative paths are dead ends.

Pamela Drake instills confidence in people of both parties. She has support from the Shiawassee County Sheriff. She supports a reform of the Michigan business tax and unabashedly prioritizes our K12 and university educational institutions as part of preparing for our future.

I love that Pamela Drake is positive that Michigan can remain attractive to young families and businesses – if we make some small sacrifices now. She has a vision of Michigan that includes diversifying our state and local economy to make it more stable. She is dedicated to helping local businesses stay in Michigan and helping new entrepreneurs connect to larger markets.

We are not fully over this recession and will need compassionate, but cool heads to lead us to the future. Pamela Drake’s decades of church positions and volunteer projects have brought her face-to-face with local residents’ hopes and concerns. She cares about making things better and knows what works on the ground -- not just what looks good on legislative paper.

I’ve seen Pam’s bravery and fortitude this summer. You would never see Pam or her campaign team physically bully or curse in the face of her opponent like Glardon’s supporters did to Pam at several public events. When Glardon shied from a televised debate, Pamela Drake admirably faced tough questions from Ken Lavery on the economy, taxation, and education reform. I encourage you to go to the mivote.org/videos to view her interview.

Resources:
Farmer Lynn Henning highlights the differences between CAFO & sustainable responsible, sustainable family farms in Michigan http://www.goldmanprize.org/2010/northamerica

Pamela Drake website: http://drakeforrep.org/

Key issues that will be affecting Clinton County in the State Legislature during next term.

• Diversifying the economy - supporting innovation, small operators, and selling Michigan
• Local control of land use -- particularly for controlling the growth of landfills and incinerators in Clinton County rather than concentrating power in a few wealthy owners
• Education budget -- particularly in maintaining & recruiting quality educators & focusing upon long-term success of the greatest number of studentes
• State government services - protecting public health, safety, consumer protections, and worker's rights in the face of increasing concentration of power by the wealthy and out-of-state executives
• Redistricting -- ensuring Clinton County voters get fair treatment

Rick Curtis says, "Your vote counts, Progressives!"

It's time again for local residents to begin analyzing their choices for public office -- both in the voting booth, but perhaps more importantly, in the run-up to the election.  The Clinton County Dems received the following letter from a member who had this to say in a post published on their website.

          Again, the rhetoric runs thick. Television news has been driving home the mantra that the 2010 elections will swing the political pendulum back to the right. If you listen to talk radio, you'll hear that 2010 is in the bag. They use the smallest of election results as a crystal ball that tells us what is in store this November. While we cognitively know that these early primaries and special elections don't constitute a national mandate, the truth is, Republicans could regain control--but only if we allow it to happen.

           A little over a year ago we witnessed what was arguably the most historic Presidential race of this nation. It was a time of excitement, anticipation, and victory. But historically, we tend to lose that excitement during the important midterm races--the elections that effect us just as much as Presidential election, and in many ways more directly. Local and County elected officials affect nearly every aspect of our lives. Michigan Senate and Representative elections shape the future of our State, control the use of our tax dollars, and set voter district boundaries. Because this is the year of the new census, this midterm election must be taken as seriously as general elections.

            We can no longer afford to allow Republican to set policies that continue kicking the citizens of Clinton County down the road. We can't afford to give them power to gerrymander the electorate districts again. We need to work hard for our Democratic candidates in every publicly held office in Clinton County. If we become complacent and give up without a fight we allow our lives to be governed by people who don't have our best interests at heart.

            The tide is turning. Democrats can win elections in Clinton County. Only Democrats are able to change the tempo that Tea Bag Republicans continue trying to sell to a complacent voter roll. Republicans keep telling us government doesn't work, they win elections by a thread, then prove their rhetoric true. This merry-go-round needs to stop. We need Democratic candidates to step up, run for office [and volunteers & donors helping them], and prove we can do things better. The time to start is now.  

                                                                           ~ Rick Curtis, Bath Township

More info on Redistricting: @pbratt (July 2009). Redistricting in 2010 at Swing State Project

Farm Bureau spreading manure past its prime

This week Michigan Farm Bureau sent messages out that served multinational corporate influenceres much more than Clinton County's farmers. They re-served the mega-rich's propaganda against the Health Care Reform Bill. They were misguided. Our rural communities, farmers, farmer-workers and their families need healthcare choices now and there a lot of benefits to them in this bill. Too bad the Bureaus couldn't have influenced their legislators earlier.

Corporate Constitutional Rights & Wrongs

Why does a local-yocal care about our U.S. Constitution being mangled to provide profit-laden companies and powerful groups with individual human rights? Because the Constitution was intended to provide protection of the least-powerful individual's rights and small rural communities in Clinton County (as well as lower and middle income consumers) are even more defenseless against multinational corporate giants.

A Moving Vision of Tomorrow

Clinton County residents and government officials had a unique opportunity to get information and network with others at the upcoming Regional Visioning Workshop hosted by Greening Mid-Michigan. The Tri-County Regional Planning Commission and Michigan Trails and Greenways Alliance were involved.

Corporations dump on our courts...again

It's interesting that corporations express outrage when individual citizens and our elected government agencies "clog up the courts" to address a grievance. Yet, here again, a corporation is trying to use the court system to increase its profits at taxpayers' expense. This time its the landfill company who wants to push around the locals who currently have control over how much garbage can be put in their township and counties. (MRC, 2010)

Previous courts have ruled in favor of local planning commissions who want to limit and collect taxes to recover costs to citizens for the roads, inspections, losses from environmental degradation, loss of other business investments, etc. Those decisions just weren't good enough for Pitsch Disposal Corp. They want to shift the balance of power from the locals to themselves.

If Pitsch wins in Ionia Circuit Court, it will set a precedent for control of all Michigan land use and planning commissions and taxing authorities. Likely Clinton County Board of Commissioners will have significantly reduced say about garbage that is received into our boundaries. This is pretty scary, given we are home to two landfills.

(Court of Appeals Docket 2007-08 showing the many briefs by Pitsch which our gov't must respond to) 
(The relevant regulation can be found at R 299.4119 page 22 of DEQ regulations)

The Smell of Old, Worn-out Ideas

Clinton County hosts 2 landfills -- a disproportionate number given the County's population. Our past leadership allowed us to become the garbage dump of mid-Michigan. People driving northbound on US-27 wrinkle their noses shortly after crossing Lake Lansing Road. Drivers entering Clinton County on I-96 at the north-east end will occasionally get a big awful whiff of the Landfill in Grand Ledge. Now the County residents are also downwind of a garbage incinerator at the airport.

An invitation

Two a.m. is probably not the best time to start a blog, especially a political blog that could be picked apart by critics in the daylight. However, 2:00 a.m. is when volunteers like myself (and other progressives and liberal commoners) are forced to find time and resources. We don't have super-wealthy corporations pushing an agenda with well-equipped and paid staff to produce polished essays and videos and uber-edited sound-bite friendly slogans. What I believe we do have, is a large scattered set of individual critical thinkers, who could bring deep and broad analysis to issues that concern residents of mid-Michigan and Clinton County in particular.

So I'm inviting locals to take a few turns at blogging on topics that you have special knowledge of, topics that concern you, or that should concern everyone. Let's use this space to explore facts and feelings, persuade AND listen respectfully, learn from each other, and build a common body of knowledge. I'll get the ball rolling in a minute, but then I invite you to contact me or one of the executive officers to become a temporary or regular blogger here. I can be reached at online@clintoncountydems.com. Write soon.

Now on to an interesting quiz I came across tonight. politicalcompass.org. It did take me 5-10 minutes to complete the quiz, but it was well worth it. I'd be interested to hear from any other classical music listeners who took it. Did you also discover that your favorite composers have similar political leanings? More importantly, how does this model help people like myself make connections between the two predominate groups in northern Clinton County -- the Libertarians and the Catholics? I can empathize with each group on a few different issues, but alas, according to this model, they will often be politically opposite of each other. It seems that this may be part of the ongoing social struggle to increase personal freedoms while still reaping the benefits of group cooperation.