Democratic Party Machinery Shows Rust (losses by local politicans create shortage of candidates)

The Wall Street Journal ^ | July 20, 2015 | COLLEEN MCCAIN NELSON and PETER NICHOLAS

[MinorityRepublican]

COLUMBUS, Ohio—Democrat Chris Redfern was confident of his re-election chances, and with good reason. Voters in his state House district had elected Democrats for decades, and he was Ohio’s Democratic Party chairman.

Yet on election day, Mr. Redfern lost to a tea-party Republican, a defeat that drove him from politics into a new line of work, running an inn and winery.

Mr. Redfern’s political exit came amid a string of midterm-election losses by Democrats in Ohio and nationwide that reflected a deeper problem: As the party seeks its next generation of candidates, the bench has thinned.

A tepid economy and President Barack Obama’s sinking approval ratings contributed to some of the Democratic losses last fall. The setbacks also revealed a withering of the campaign machinery built by Mr. Obama’s team more than seven years ago. While Democrats held the White House, Republicans have strengthened their hand in statehouses across the U.S.

[PCPOET7]

the reason this has happened to the democrat party is that they want followers not leaders so while there party is still large in numbers anyone with Ideas and leadership potential has been driven out of there party. another problem is that a lot of democrats life styles would not stand up to public scrutiny.

[wiggen]

look to the various interest groups that comprise their voters which is where they should be getting local candidates from. A million narrow interests. Those candidates don’t have wide appeal.

[CptnObvious]

As Democrat Jim Webb says that the Democratic party has “moved way far to the left” and is “not my Democratic Party in and of itself”

[BobL]

““I offered to do more, work-wise, but nobody ever contacted me,” said Loree Resnik, a neighborhood team leader during Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign.”

Very similar to an article from 2008/2012 - when they talked to grass-roots Republicans that had also offered to help McCain/Romney with getting out their word locally.

The phone never rang for them either.

[iowamark]