Dem Strategist: Remember When My Party Knew How to Listen?

And this time, it’s not James Carville! It is, however, one of his partners in the Clinton campaign, Doug Schoen, who writes to snap Democrats out of La Résistance 2.0 — Loser Boogaloo. 

Perhaps even Bill Clinton’s strategist simply understands the fact that Democrats lack any strategy at all these days. The results speak for themselves, as Schoen attempts to point out … on Fox News’s website. This could be the first symptom of the problem. Why hasn’t the architect of the Clinton victories and ‘triangulation’ found a place on traditional liberal platforms? 

We’ll get back to that momentarily, but Schoen spends time shooting fish in a rain barrel by pointing out the obvious:

First and foremost, there has to be recognition that, while the electorate does want fundamental change, it is not enough to say, “we need to stand up to Trump and demonstrate against him.” …

Our party needs to stand for clear ideas and have an agenda reflecting a worldview that is distinctive, but not adversarial.  

In other words, Democrats need to show themselves as a competent alternative to the GOP, but they cannot do so if their entire agenda is one of resistance. 

How does Schoen advise Democrats to adjust to the electorate? He’s urging Democrats to actually listen to voters, rather than lecture them from ivory towers:

Let’s be clear: the American people want a reduction in inflation, a secure border and a smaller, more efficient government that produces economic growth and can create jobs in other ways that increasing its own size. … 

For example, what Elon Musk and DOGE are doing agency by agency is well-intentioned, in theory, but the chaotic, wholesale cutting of entire agencies on a whim threatens to upend the economy. 

Democrats need an alternative to DOGE, yet they’ve failed to even have this conversation. 

Most of this can be gleaned by just looking at polls, especially the Harvard-Harris CAPS polling but also CNN, to which we’ll also get momentarily. Parties can’t strategize on narrow shifts of opinion, of course, but Democrats have gotten entirely dislocated from the vast majority of voters on the issues that matter most to them. They don’t need to adopt Republican positions on all of them, Schoen advises, but they have to offer some reasonable approach to satisfying voter concerns on issues like the border, the size and intrusiveness of the budget, and a number of other issues on which Schoen lands. 

The best part of this essay comes when Schoen diagnoses the source of their decline in power, and why it’s going to be tough to reverse it. Schoen quotes Ezra Klein, who also recognizes the dangers of blue-state flight and why it’s happening:

Writing in the Times, Klein noted that Democratic strongholds have seen massive population decreases almost entirely because Democrats’ anti-growth and overly regulatory agenda makes the cost of living in blue cities and states out of reach. 

Not only is this going to erode Democrats’ political power by shifting congressional and Electoral College votes to traditionally red states, but also gives the lie to Democrats’ claim to be the party of the working class. 

Schoen certainly should know this, since he helped to get Clinton re-elected in 1996. But Schoen actually joined the Clinton team in late 1994, after Clinton got shellacked in the first midterms by Newt Gingrich and lost control of Congress. Schoen and his then-partner Mark Penn — also now on the outside of Democrat circles — helped Clinton execute his ‘triangulation’ strategy that co-opted the GOP’s strongest issues and crafted solutions that allowed Clinton to seize credit for delivering on them. 

That brings us to why this matters. Yesterday, Harry Enten did a meta-analysis of polling to show how badly the Democrat brand has collapsed with the electorate … even among Democrat voters:

To quote Charles Barkley, the Dem Party’s brand is “terrible, terrible”.

Dems in Congress approval? A record low 21% overall & more Dems disapprove (49%) than approve (40%).

Dem voters want Dems in Congress to fight Trump (65%) & 77% say they’re not fighting him enough. Yikes. pic.twitter.com/Iyw1myVqnE

— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) March 17, 2025

“You just can’t get worse than these numbers,” Enten says. Don’t bet on it.

Finally, let’s revisit my initial question, which is why Schoen’s on Fox and Newsmax rather than on Democrat-friendly platforms. A generation ago, Schoen and Penn would have fit far more at The New Republic than at Fox or Newsmax. Now, though, the much-more-progressive TNR castigates Schoen as the man responsible for losing Democrats the working-class electorate. This article cites ‘triangulation” as the cause of the erosion, and it came just three weeks before their preferred class-warfare progressive agenda touted by Kamala Harris got soundly defeated by Donald Trump. 

The numbers don’t lie. Schoen turned out to be correct about the direction of the electorate, and even more accurate about the bubble mentality that progressives have imposed on the Democrat Party. 

Also, the latest episode of The Ed Morrissey Show podcast is now up! Today’s show features:

• From autopens to CRs, Democrats appear to have forgotten everything they ever knew about politics. 
• Andrew Malcolm and I discuss the basics that have been forgotten and why Donald Trump needs to learn a lesson from it. 
• Chuck Schumer’s humiliation won’t be the last for Democrats. 

The Ed Morrissey Show is now a fully downloadable and streamable show at  Spotify, Apple Podcasts, the TEMS Podcast YouTube channel, and on Rumble and our own in-house portal at the #TEMS page!