The Democrats’ 2014 problem in one sentence.

From a Hill article, discussing the Democrats’ current kitchen sink / spaghetti against the wall / Hail Mary play / spin the chamber and hope it’s the one without the bullet strategy they’ve adopted for the midterms:

Central to the Democrats’ campaign message is their “Middle Class Jumpstart” agenda — a package, unveiled last month, that includes specific proposals to expand education opportunities, empower women in the workplace and promote domestic job creation.

…this is the first I’ve heard of it.  Me, the political junkie.  And if I haven’t heard of it, even to mock it – and, believe me, I would have mocked it if I had heard of it – then it didn’t succeed as an unveiling.

Which is not to say that the election cycle cannot go pear-shaped between now and November. It can always go pear-shaped.  But – speaking purely subjectively – there’s a sense that the Democratic party strategists have already started to look past the 2014 battlefields and start thinking about the 2016 elections.  This is partially because the Democrats are still dominated by people  who think about the executive branch first, the judiciary second, and the legislative branch only when they need to get somebody a job; and partially because the 2016 cycle is considered to be more fertile territory for Democrats anyway.  And to be fair, the 2016 cycle probably will be.  But, that’s not much of a help for Democratic candidates now.  Especially since the state parties are still reeling from the 2010 political bloodbath visited upon them by an angry electorate.

So I think a person may be forgiven if he or she thinks that a ‘policy’ that plans to “expand education opportunities, empower women in the workplace and promote domestic job creation” is actually a code phrase for “we’re just going through the motions.”  Especially since all three proposals will result, as a practical matter, in the generation of more oversight, paperwork, bureaucracy, and/or regulation.  We reached the point of diminishing returns of all of that several decades ago.

Moe Lane (crosspost)