What you can learn from Alabama (no, seriously)

Just a few months ago, the political cognoscenti were bullish on U.S. Rep.-turned-gubernatorial-candidate Artur Davis in Alabama. Davis, a four-term Congressman representing Birmingham, had an impressive record in Congress, was close with President Obama, and was generally seen as the man to beat in Alabama’s Democratic Primary.

And, earlier this week, he was just that. Davis, considered the favorite, lost in a 62-38 rout to Alabama Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks.

Conventional wisdom tell us that in addition to his impressive resume, Davis carried another advantage – his race. Much like Georgia’s primary, in Alabama’s primary, African-Americans represent a significant part of the electorate.

However, as Nate Silver points out, that actually worked against the African-American Davis. According to Silver, “Sparks trounced Davis by winning votes, not by exploiting some fluke of racial turnout patterns.”

So what’s the takeaway for Georgia Democrats?

If you want to win a Democratic primary, act like a Democrat.

Reading the analysis of the Alabama upset, one thing stands out clearly. Davis ran to the right and ran there as fast as he could. It’s a hallmark of wrongheaded Democratic strategy in the South.

The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein points to several problems with Davis’ strategy. As has been widely reported, Davis essentially blew off key African-American leaders in the state. But just as important, and more wide-ranging in electoral terms, he ran away from the Democratic banner, such as his “no” vote on health care reform. He pre-emptively ran away from the “too liberal for us” attack.

What candidates ought to be doing is so rooted in common sense that I’m almost embarrassed to say it. If you want to win a Democratic Primary, act like a damn Democrat. Stand up for the core philosophical values of the Democratic Party.

“Fine Matheny,” you might say, “but you know as well as I do that if you stand too far to the left to get the Democratic nomination, you’re going to get slaughtered in the general. This is still a conservative, Republican state. Home of the Fair Tax sham movement, ideological umbilical cord for the Tea Party movement, yadayadayada.”

I disagree. Far from hurting you in a general election, acting like a Democrat might just actually help you.

Voters want a choice. They want and need clearly-defined contrasts between candidates, especially in a general election. Running as Republican-lite offers an essentially false choice for the voters. By accepting the premise that you’ve got act conservative in order to win, you’re giving the voters two flavors of the same choice – Republican versus mealy-mouthed, watered-down Republican-lite.

Now guess which one they’ll choose.

Instead of running away from our party, some of our candidates need stand next to us. We’ve spent a lot of time over the past few years talking about defining the Democratic Party in the South. Who we are, what we stand for, and most importantly, overcoming the fact that for years, the Republicans have been painting us the most unflattering light possible.

But the real heavy lifting in defining Democrats in our terms, as opposed to, say, John Oxendine’s, has to be done by candidates. The candidates are the ones who, every two years, get the lion’s share of the earned media – the platform by which they help us define our party for the electorate at large. Democrats who act like Democrats help us. Democrats who run away from us hurt us. It’s as simple as that.

The key, obviously, is framing and context. Democrats who run to the right would be better-served to worry less about making their positions malleable enough to pass some sort of non-existent conservative litmus test and and instead, put their mental energies into expressing their values and principles in ways that are intellectually familiar to the contexts of the electorate.

Forget about pandering on the issues. Say what you believe and make a compelling case for it. Not only is it more intellectually honest, it’s just… easier.

Ideally, I’d be writing this post in November, after Ron Sparks, Joe Sestak, and Bill Halter have proven me right, as I suspect some of them might. But, November’s going to be too late. If Democrats want to pull off a few upsets in the general, we ought to learn from Artur Davis in the primary.