Losing isn’t winning, so why not try winning for a change?

I used to be a Democrat, but I changed my registration to Independent around 2009 after they controlled the White House and both houses of Congress for two years and still weren’t able to pass their full agenda, mainly because they couldn't decide how liberal they wanted to be.

I considered House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to be somewhat boring and I thought Senate President Harry Reid was an empty suit, and neither was the kind of leader who inspired people to action. Certainly they did not inspire me, so I decided I would continue to support liberal causes but did not want to be identified with either political party.

With Barack Obama in the White House and Democrats running Congress, we might have been able to (finally) get single-payer health insurance in this country, except that nobody even tried. (Oooh, that’s too liberal; we can’t do that.) There were other bills introduced that failed to pass despite the Democratic majority, including a climate change security act, immigration reform, the pro-union Employee Free Choice Act and bills promoting employment non-discrimination, reduction in prescription drug prices and medical marijuana and one that would have cut down on voter intimidation.

We did eventually get Obamacare, a bill so convoluted and so heavily amended that it only did part of what it was intended to do and is now on the verge of being repealed, and a few other major gains. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform come to mind.

But gradually, over the next few years, Democrats lost both the House and then the Senate and in a scenario right out of a bad Hollywood movie, managed to lose the White House last year to the worst presidential candidate in the nation’s history. Now, today, with Republicans screwing everything up and a growing number of voters expressing their anger, Democrats see an opening that might lead them back to the Promised Land in 2018.

Last night, for example, Democrats came close to upsetting their Republican opponents in two red state special elections for Congress, and Democrats are celebrating the closeness of their losses. The same thing happened in Montana a couple of weeks ago.

But wait! Here’s some breaking news for the Democratic Party: Losing isn’t winning. Period.

If a baseball team loses 25 games in a row, it doesn’t pop the champagne corks because it only lost the last game by five runs. In politics as in baseball, if you’re not winning, you’re losing, and continuing to lose – regardless of the margin – won’t change the balance of power in Washington. Only winning can do that.     

With that in mind, here's some advice for the Democratic Party:

(1) Get rid of your entire leadership team and bring in some fresh, young, creative and energetic leaders who won't be satisfied with "almost winning" in states like Montana, Georgia and South Carolina. There are more Democrats in this country than Republicans, and I’d like to think there are fewer Deplorables in the blue states, so surely there is someone smart enough to craft a winning strategy for the party that represents the most people.

(2) Take another look at last year’s election map. Notice what color dominates it? It’s RED. It’s great that you consistently win the cities like New York, Chicago and San Francisco and other urban areas of the country, but your voters are surrounded by millions of people who get their information from Fox News and Alex Jones. In case you missed it, they put a racist, narcissistic idiot in the White House. You need a message that will win some of those votes for your side.

(3) Finally, start sending out some bright young Democrats not named Clinton, Biden or Sanders to make appearances on Sunday talk shows and evening newscasts and at public events like fish fries and county fairs. I know you have a list. See which ones start to gain a following and which ones don’t. Then cultivate an enthusiastic slate of possible contenders who can get you the White House without having to explain their vote on the Iraq War or defend their stupidity where email is concerned.

Now is the time to start building momentum for the next presidential election, especially if you have to introduce someone new. If you wait until the official campaign season, it will be too late, and your party will default to another 70-year-old relic who doesn’t inspire voters and won’t get people to actually come out and vote.      

I offer these suggestions free of charge. I’ve got more ideas but that should keep you busy for a while. If not, I’m available for further consultation, and you can always find me here.