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In a shocking loss for Democrats this week, New York’s heavily Democratic ninth Congressional district that has never before elected a Republican, cast a majority of votes for Republican Bob Turner. Turner defeated David Weprin, a Democratic State Assemblyman, 53% to 47%, for the House seat vacated by Anthony Weiner who resigned this past June over a sex scandal. The district has 3 times as many registered Democrats as Republicans, and is nearly 40 percent Jewish. Weprin, an Orthodox Jew, was thought to be a perfect fit by his party. However, his earlier support for the controversial Islamic Center in New York and his support for legalizing gay marriage may have played a part in why he lost the seat. Republicans are painting Turner’s victory as a referendum on President Obama. The election is reminiscent of the 2010 Massachusetts special election to replace the seat held by the late Senator Ted Kennedy. A staunchly Democratic district surprisingly elected Republican Scott Brown over Democrat Martha Coakley. Now, Brown may have to prove to his New England voters that he is worthy of keeping that seat in 2012. Elizabeth Warren, known for her work on the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, and snubbed by Obama to head it in the face of Republican pressure, announced her bid for Brown’s seat this Wednesday. Warren has been championed by progressives nationwide for her strong critique of Wall Street. Organizations and unions like the National Nurses United backed a Senate run even before she officially announced one.

GUEST: John Nichols, political writer for The Nation Magazine, contributing writer for The Progressive and In These Times and the associate editor of the Capital Times, the daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin, co-founder of Free Press, co-author with Bob McChesney of The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution that Will Begin the World Again

Read John Nichols’ article about Warren’s Bid for Senate here: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/09/15-3.

More from John Nichols can be found at www.thenation.com.

ROUGH TRANSCRIPT:

Kolhatkar: Before we talk about Warren let’s discuss the Democratic loss this week. I mentioned the various reasons that people are speculating why Bob Turner won this seat that has never been held by a Republican before. What is your assessment?

Nichols: Well I think that there is a lot of excuse making going on and the first thing, if we’re honest with ourselves and put aside the spin from both parties, the reality of what happened in that district is that first and foremost that Barack Obama’s personal appeal, his popular appeal, has collapsed and his numbers are very very bad. Not just there, but frankly in a lot of places across the country, and as a result the Republicans had an opening to run against the Democrat who they associated with Obama and then to lay on a host of side issues that really are secondary. The Mosque issue, even some of the Israel Palestine issues. Important. But they certainly would not have been sufficient to defeat a solid Democratic candidate in most circumstances. What we have to recognize is that President Obama’s declining popularity and the sense that President Obama and Democrats are doing a lousy job of battling unemployment, managing the economy is being harmful, is having a harmful impact on Democrats. This is something that Democrats have got to wake up to acknowledge and deal with. It doesn’t mean you have to hate Obama or oppose Obama per say. It does mean that there is a need for recognition that at this point that the president and his economic policy do not provide any sort of cushion or support even in very democratic districts. Until Democrats wake up to that and start to recognize a need to counter this trend they are going to run the risk of this around the country.

Kolhatkar: Did the fact that this was a special election play any role in the outcome? Because generally special elections don’t attract as many voters and sometimes that can benefit the more conservative voters.

Nichols: Well, it can attract the more conservative or the more liberal. Special elections are places where you send messages. Just as in Upstate NY in the Spring where Kathy Hochul won a traditionally Republican seat running on a strong defend Medicare Medicaid social security message, she was able to prevail there so Bob Turner has just prevailed in a NY district.

Kolhatkar: The comparison with that was that the incumbent there who resigned was Christopher Lee also over a sex scandal.

Nichols: I know these guys who go to Congress and use telephones and computers. . . But what I would argue is that the send them a message thing ought not be underestimated. Because both on the Right and Left when you are in a period when people are trying to send messages to Washington its important to actually listen. I happen to think that Bob Turner is a silly character and not going to be much of a congressman but this effort to say to Washington to say we’re not happy with you is a big deal. And the biggest deal of all is the special election on Tuesday that we’re not talking about as much, the Nevada one where in a district where Obama got half the vote in 2008, where as recently as 2006 Democrats are getting 45, 46, 47 percent of the vote for congress in that district in a special election the Democratic candidate dropped down to 36 percent. This is something Democrats have got to pay attention to, they have to recognize that their numbers are not going in the right direction at this point. I think the summer of debt ceiling obsession that allowed this austerity talk is really allowing base Democratic voters to just drop off and not come out.

Kolhatkar: But yet the polls showed that people were quite disgusted with Republicans and their approach. Throwing out obstacles, creating a crisis, where there was none over this debt ceiling issue. Wouldn’t they be the ones paying the price in elections?

Nichols: No, this is the interesting dynamic because if you cause people to believe that the great mass of people especially younger voters, people of color, a lot of folks who were drawn into the process in 2006, 2008, people who actually had some enthusiasm for Obama back then, if you cause them to believe that the process is broken that there is not much chance to really achieve change, they begin to get disenchanted and move away from the process. They are also in some cases disenfranchised by new voter ID laws. Whereas very conservative voters the smaller base of conservative voters, are sort of on the march right now they think that they are rising politically they don’t get disenchanted. Remember, that for the far right even in the mainstream of the Republican party that debt ceiling fight is seen as a victory. They destabilized Obama, they destabilized Washington, they forced a response to their Tea Party agenda. They are energized, excited whereas a lot of the broader Democratic base is frustrated, disenchanted and this becomes a real challenge if Democrats do not counter the right’s populism the right wing populism that is very anti-government, very anti-social services, programs for people who really need them. If that’s not countered effectively by Democrats what you may end up seeing is the situation in 2012 where the right wingers all turn out. They are all excited they are feeling they have a good chance of moving forward whereas progressives disengaged disenfranchised don’t turn out and that’s how elections are decided. Elections are not decided by swing voters who go from left to right or from Democrat to Republican they are decided by the level of enthusiasm by the part of the relative bases of the two parties. If Democrats can’t get their base excited and they did not in New York or in Nevada on Tuesday they’ve got a big problem.

Kolhatkar: My guest is John Nichols, political writer for the Nation Magazine and we’re talking about some of the changes in Congress. Well, speaking of populism lets move on to Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown whose seat she is hoping to win next year is the senator who replaced the late Ted Kennedy after he passed away and beat Democrat Martha Coakley briefly before we go to Warren herself that special election if you apply the same analysis that special elections are a chance for electorates to send a message to Washington can you apply that same analysis to Scott Brown’s 2010 election?

Nichols: I think you can and I think you have to recognize that the 2010 election was the first signal that Democrats had real trouble that they weren’t winning where they traditionally should be winning. Remember how the November 2010 election turned out? It was a nightmare for Democrats. They lost all over the country, fell back far in the Senate and in the House and notably lost a lot of seats that were traditionally Democrat in the Minnesota iron range in places like that. I think we do look at the send them a message votes the special election votes and if a party and its leadership is smart they say hold it something not’s going right we have to rethink our approach and on the other hand if they go on autopilot and they say who cares about that they run the very real risk of 6, 8, 10, 12 months later ending up with nightmarish results.

Kolhatkar: Well lets talk about Elizabeth Warren because Scott Brown was elected in a special election he has to face a real election in 2012 and he is likely to face Elizabeth Warren. And, she was certainly somebody who has played a big role in Washington DC but because of Republican pressure was snubbed by Obama to head the consumer finance bureau that she essentially designed. What do you think she has to offer as a Senator particularly for progressives?

Nichols: I think Elizabeth Warren is in many ways the perfect expression of a lot of what we’re talking about here. She is somebody who has a populist bent that is appealing, that is attractive. Populism is an interesting game when you speak lets tax the rich when you talk about going aggressively after the powerful that can sometimes scare folks they can go wow that maybe sounds a little too much. Elizabeth Warren sends these very progressive messages but she does so in a way that is a little bit scholarly has a bit of sense of humor and i think it comes off very very well. My sense is that Warren may be the precise right player for Democrats to put forward in that race with Scott Brown. But there is a reason why people across the country are excited by her ultimately if Elizabeth Warren wins the 2012 race in Massachusetts I believe that she will very quickly be someone that people on the left begin to talk about as a presidential candidate. I know that we don’t like the idea that presidential politics is permanent its always in play but the minute the 2012 pres election is done whether Barack Obama is re-elected or whether a Republican wins. In 2016 Democrats are going to have to have a new candidate they will have to come up with someone new. Obama can’t run for reelection in 2016, Biden is not going to run for president and so as a result there is an open field there and i think one of the reasons there is so much excitement about Elizabeth Warren is that she seems to be far more progressive far more populist and looks to be an attractive potentially electable candidate. So that Massachusetts race is going to become a top line paramount contest key race nationallly bc it wont just be about 2012 and a Massachusetts senate seat. It may well be the future of the Democratic party.

Kolhatkar: Well, John Nichols, in terms of Elizabeth Warren’s appeal, she certainly has some strong support among progressives among liberals and very likely among the mainstream if they get to know more about her but to Republican to conservative and the extreme right she seems to be exactly the sort of Obama like candidate that they would oppose with all their might. Or does she have the potential to win over at least the moderate conservative?

Nichols: Well, she has potential. But, she’s not going to win over conservatives. Look, we have such clearly drawn ideological lines in this country much more clearly drawn than in the past and so . . .

Kolhatkar: So it is Obama’s mistake to even try to win over the Republicans? Has that been his downfall?

Nichols: Completely undoable. Its not going to happen. The politics are different. But, what Elizabeth Warren can do is two things. Number one is the potential to excite the base that is what politics is really about, making sure you maximize the turnout of your base voters. And two, I think she has the unique ability to speak to white working class women and frankly to working class women who come out of Hispanic and even African American backgrounds and say to them I understand your security concerns I understand that some of you are swing voters and that you do stray away from the Democratic party because you are worried about a host of issues beyond just core economics but her ability to talk to them and say look, some of these economic issues, if we can stabilize that a lot of other concerns you have will be eased that’s a message that needs to be delivered and frankly if you look at polling data and election results one of the biggest problems that Democrats have had in recent years is that working class women who were for a long period the real base of the Democratic party have strayed away from that Democratic line if Elizabeth Warren can bring them back she has tremendous political potency for the party. So its not about attracting conservatives across the line, its more about bringing people who were Democratic voters back into the fold and energizing the base. If Elizabeth Warren can do that she is a very powerful political commodity for the Democratic party.

Kolhatkar: Well John Nichols its always a pleasure to have you on.

Nichols: The best place to read my writings is on thenation.com

Special thanks to Bipasha Shom for transcribing this interview.