If you were to send a note to Central Casting and ask for a liberal American political operative, you’d probably get someone like Robby Mook sent back up. Open necked white shirt; sensible glasses; a haircut that’s part 1960s Astronaut, part Williamsburg barista; an air of pragmatism married to moral fervour that would have served a 19th century lay preacher well. Basically, Sam Seaborn from The West Wing, minus Rob Lowe.

We sit down in the Cambridge Union before he addressed a crowd in the chamber last week, and our conversation revolves around three topics: What happened in American politics over the past couple of years? What’s happening now? Finally, what’s going to happen?

In terms of 2016, Mook points at the problems of history – “We forget the historical challenge [The Clinton Campaign] was facing. Campaigns and politics in the US follow some pretty predictable cycles; we’re going into a midterm election now, the incumbent President’s party tends to lose a lot of seats... the only candidate to win a third term for their party since Truman was George HW Bush.”

He elaborates on the “structural reasons” behind the phenomenon, saying “your party’s base gets used to the way things are, it’s hard to imagine the other party in charge, and other parts of the electorate were hungry for a different direction.” So Clinton was perhaps fighting an uphill battle against historical forces; however, this isn’t the sole reason for failure. “There was stuff going on that we’re starting to learn about, and there were some special circumstances that we did know about; things like the hacking, the FBI’s intervention – I know the FBI’s intervention was tremendously damaging.”

To hear Mook speak so far, it sounds like the Clinton Campaign lost due to circumstances outside its control. But there’s a third element to his critique of 2016. The campaign “struggled to push away all these different stories and narratives about Hillary, and talk about who she was, and what she wanted to do, and why that was going to be really good for people. There were so many negative stories out there – this email thing, which in retrospect seems almost ridiculous, and we couldn’t push past that.”

With this, the analysis becomes one in which the campaign, already buffeted by history and circumstance, proved unable to get its message across, to achieve the “cut-through” beloved of political analysts.

We discuss this later in the interview, particularly the idea that Clinton was only running because it was “her turn” (my phrase, not Mook’s). Mook is phlegmatic: “one of Hillary’s strengths was that in a really uncertain, partisan environment, she had a real track record of working with both parties to pass tough legislation. She just had raw experience.” He adds that the Republican Party then took “that deep experience and demonstrated ability”, and could say “well, if you’ve been around a long time there must be something wrong, because things have only gotten worse!”

“We need to make sure that our presidential primary is an opportunity for our candidates to make the case we had trouble making in 2016.”

“And I think that sometimes, there was a bit of a false equivalency created, where she could argue things that she had done and how they had made people’s lives better, and someone could say things which weren’t really true or assign her responsibility for things she wasn’t really responsible for, and those things would be treated as two equally valid points of view.”

Turning to the present state of affairs, Mook is cautiously optimistic. “Trump has a fanbase in place. It’s probably about 30-40% of the Electorate. What’ll be interesting to see in the Midterm Elections will be to see how much that has ossified as a loyal base of support, and how much is there for [Democrats] to try to win over. I think this is also a test of us as a party – can we achieve better turnout?”

He adds that he feels the election “is potentially a huge opportunity for us to bring in a variety of new leaders to our party; we’re just not going to elect dozens of new members of the House of Representatives and a few new Senators, we’re probably going to elect five to ten new governors – probably more like six or seven new – and these are all people who could be potential leaders moving forward.” There it is, the concept which dangles over any discussion of the Democratic Party: the future. With the 2020 election just over two years away, and the nomination race about to kick off, the Democrats need to set out their stall for potential leaders.

“We need to make sure that our presidential primary is an opportunity for our candidates to make the case we had trouble making in 2016. That that candidate is going to fight for the vast majority of Americans, and do things which’ll make their lives a lot better, versus Donald Trump, who has spent the past two years really just fighting for himself – fighting for his ego, fighting to line his pockets.”

Mook says that “some people hear that as ‘he’s kicking butt and taking names in DC, and breaking down old establishment structures that were holding people back.’ And that’s what he wants you to think.” Draining the swamp, if you will. But beneath this bullish exterior, there’s a catch to Trump’s rhetoric – “what he’s really doing is making himself and people like him more powerful. It’s really bad, what he’s doing, and it’s a lot harder than some people think to prove that point and help a Democrat break through with a positive story.” 2020 is going to be a tricky campaign, and it’s not helped by Trump’s own resources – “he’s going to use everything he has – his tremendous power to control the media narrative, to make everyone think the Democrats are fighting for someone else and not for them.”

In 2016, the Democrats lost because they were unable to get their message across, and because of circumstances outside their control. In 2020, there is likely to be more awareness of outside circumstances, and the party will be fighting to regain, rather than retain, power. To listen to Mook, the message is clear: the party needs to communicate, it needs to mount a slick campaign that gets its message of bettering the lives of all Americans, rather than a privileged few, across to voters, and it needs to get a good candidate. If it can manage that, then there’s a lot to play for.

This Midterm year, we talked about why the Democrats lost in 2016, and their future as an opposition party. In 2022, we may be talking about why they won in 2020, and their future as a party of government. We can hope, and we shall see. But whatever happens, it’s clear that Robby Mook will continue to work at the centre of Democratic politics, and continue to articulate his analysis of the party’s past successes and failures, its present condition, and its future potential. As well he should.