This is the first post in the digital companion series to Jen Psaki’s “The Blueprint,” a new podcast examining where Democrats stand after big losses in 2024 and how they can win again. New episodes come out on Mondays. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Below is an adapted excerpt from the Feb. 10 episode featuring Maryland Gov. Wes Moore.
Following November’s election, there’s been a lot of talk about Democrats and messaging. Analysts and pundits are quick to say the Democratic Party has a messaging problem, but the truth is, it’s a lot more complicated than that.
When I first decided to run for governor of Maryland, I had people telling me, “Listen, you’re new to this. I know you haven’t run for office before but you shouldn’t say the word poverty. It’s not a good word. People don’t like it. They don’t want to hear it and they don’t want to be reminded of it.”
As a politician, you can’t show voters you only care about them every two or four years.
I dismissed that idea right from the jump. Fighting poverty is a core reason I got involved in politics. I couldn’t believe that a country like ours allowed this level of child poverty, that children could have their entire lives decided for them before they had a say. That’s not something I’ll stay quiet about. I won’t change who I am or the things that I fight for.
As a politician, you can’t show voters you only care about them every two or four years. I’m personally exhausted by the conversation that comes up every election season about the Democratic Party and Black men in which some Democrats speak only to issues like incarceration. That’s not the correct approach. We need to have a dialogue, long before election season, about issues like wages and wealth creation. When you bring people into the conversation, you should be talking about them like they’re an asset and not a deficit.
Part of the reason some Democrats have struggled with messaging is because voters don’t believe them. Strong messaging comes from having a core grasp of — and a strong belief in — what it is you’re trying to do. In Maryland, my administration has invested in education. We’ve raised the minimum wage. We’ve invested in child care. We’ve provided recent high school graduates with a pathway to service. I signed one of the largest mass pardons in our country’s history for misdemeanor cannabis convictions. These weren’t just intellectual exercises that I went through with. Those policies are personal for me. I think about my friends and my family. I think about my mother, who didn’t have a job with reliable hours and benefits until I was 14 years old. For anyone who wants to get involved in politics, you have to be very clear about why you’re doing this in the first place. You need to believe in what you are saying, because if you don’t, if you’re just willing to say whatever people tell you to, then you will very quickly find yourself just being a vessel. And no one wants that type of person sitting in any position of real authority or power.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore
Wes Moore is the 63rd governor of Maryland.
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