AP Photo POLITICS What Elephants and Panda Bears Can Teach Democrats About 2018 Midterm elections are a nightmare for the Democratic Party. But they can change that by embracing a lesson learned by zoos and conservationists long ago.

Marc Levitt is a veteran of four Democratic presidential campaigns, most recently as a senior aide to Bernie Sanders.

Every now and then before campaign rallies, Barack Obama would dance a faux jig, wave his hands and muse to those of us within earshot that he, the dancing bear, was ready to bound the stage.

Joking aside, he inadvertently captured a truth about politics: Our most gifted leaders exert an animal magnetism that fuels their campaigns. Today, that truth could help address Democrats’ chronic midterm election slump and divert anti-Trump energy from street protests and congressional town halls into party building.


Conservationists have employed this insight for years. Just as Obama’s personal presence powered his campaign, what are known as charismatic megafauna—large, publicly beloved species like polar bears or elephants—anchor prominent conservation efforts. Human brains are hard-wired to respond favorably to these creatures. They correspondingly command the lion’s share, so to speak, of fundraising and attention. Their familiarity, attractiveness and anthropomorphic features engender adoration that other species—think spiders or plants—can’t match. Doubt it? Just look at all the wistful coverage this week of the Washington National Zoo’s panda, Bao Bao, and her flight to China.

Voter reactions to our political heroes follow this pattern unfailingly. Therein lies opportunity. With protests and town hall uprisings making big news, Democrats should seize this moment to create a midterm rally operation that leverages the power of our party’s charismatic figures. Start the program early, and deploy Bernie, Barack and others to congressional districts to harness the dividends that usually only accrue to presidential efforts. I know the rally strategy can work because I saw its power firsthand as an aide to Sanders’ campaign.

Extending our analogy, proponents say that focusing conservation campaigns on charismatic megafauna can benefit entire ecosystems. Because charismatic megafauna frequently occupy the top spot in the food chain, conservation efforts centered around them trickle down to other systemically important species. Few care about the lowly rosy wolfsnail, for instance. But endangered gray wolves are another matter.

Midterm elections generally lack the anchoring effect of a charismatic megafauna. Presidents are often too preoccupied with governing to hit the trail. More to the point, they aren’t running for office. Unpopular presidents’ help might even be unwelcome. And the opposing party rarely has a champion of its own.

This void is calamitous for Democrats. For decades, midterm turnout has lagged presidential cycle turnout by about 30 percent. Those losses disproportionately hurt Democrats, who depend on young and minority voters with inconsistent turnout patterns. These voters don’t show up for mostly mundane and potentially reversible reasons. They may not know an election is happening. They may not feel knowledgeable enough. Or they may not care.

Enter the charismatic megafauna. With some organizational groundwork, Democrats can unleash their talents to approximate the excitement and media environment of presidential cycles.

It’s hard to overstate the strategic centrality of campaign events and their potential to enliven sleepy midterms. Obviously events are conduits for a candidate's message. They’re also sources of money and manpower. Registration for Bernie’s well-attended rallies helped build the campaign’s massive email list. Every new email address brought a potential volunteer or donor.

In my experience producing Bernie’s events, rallies were reliably cost-effective investments. Every day of the campaign, I reviewed local TV coverage of his appearances along with the dollar value of the airtime. Purchasing the same amount of television exposure via campaign commercials was invariably more expensive, often much more so. Add to that the fundraising, manpower yield, Web impressions and print coverage and you’ve identified rallies as a strategic asset of presidential campaigns in the internet age. After all, it worked for Donald Trump.

Research corroborates these observations. In 2006, political scientist Daron Shaw randomized Rick Perry’s gubernatorial campaign schedule. Shaw found that Perry’s visits juiced donations and volunteer engagement wherever he visited. Positive local media coverage spiked. The resulting upswings in Perry’s poll numbers outlasted the evanescent effects of paid television advertising.

Democrats can recreate these effects at modest cost. What would this rally program look like? You’d need schedulers and a staff to build events. You’d need a small, centralized press and digital operation to draw maximum media and fundraising yield. You’d need a field staff to engage and deploy volunteers.

Based on campaign budgets I’ve written, a robust version of this operation—one that hits every competitive congressional district and statewide election more than once—could be sustained for 1 to 2 percent of what Democrats spent on TV ads alone in the 2014 cycle. A rally operation might even pay for itself in contributions and revive party organs’ moribund small-dollar fundraising.

Critics may note that state and congressional elections often focus on local concerns. Yet the recent outrage at congressional town halls all over the country bore a distinctly national, anti-Trump tinge, a trend that could easily carry into 2018. Also, a well-organized operation would allow the megafauna to address local issues at each stop.

Local candidates would of course appear alongside their better-known patrons, drawing ecosystem benefits in dollars and person-hours. And perhaps best of all, in an era of sold-out television and digital ad space, rallies would allow Democrats to, in essence, buy time on the country’s most valuable, trusted media real estate: local TV news.

Some may wonder if Bernie or Barack could attract large rallies in odd months with no active campaign themselves. We can’t know until we try. But it’s hard to imagine Barack behind the lectern without an eager audience.

Others might wonder why Obama would participate at all, given his well-articulated desire to pull back from politics. To that I’d make three arguments. One, his legacy in part depends on electing a Congress that will protect his achievements. Two, solving the Democrats’ midterms crisis is an intellectual puzzle that ought to appeal to his analytical mind. Three, this is an opportunity to recover party vitality and reach that dimmed during his presidency—why wouldn’t he want to put some points on the board?

This all comes as candidates for DNC chair are pushing to reanimate the Democratic Party with a 50-state strategy. Party elders, braced by a reasonable fear that less restrained iterations of resistance could turn off persuadable voters, are hoping to fashion a sustainable electoral movement out of the irrepressible but unfocused resistance to Trump.

Rallies are a strategic, sensible step. They’re an opportunity to discipline the anti-Trump message to protect vulnerable incumbents and expand the electoral playing field. And long after Barack and Michelle, or even LeBron or Springsteen, leave town, echoes of their visits would promote local candidates, activate low propensity voters and engage party stalwarts.

With a small investment, Democrats can bring the verve of an urban protest movement to every swing congressional district in the country, find and unify Trump’s opponents and nurture the ecosystem we all depend on. It’s time to heed the lesson of the dancing bear.