Election Hangover Dump
1) The Apology – I apologize to Cassandra. There is no “vote withholding” scheme that could be as effective as the DNC’s own strategy to turn voters off and drive them away from the polls.
2) Observation i – I hope President Obama enjoys the next two years. He has earned all of the abuse the GOP is fixing to heap on him.
3)Observation ii – I’ve been laboring under the delusion that the Democratic Party is broken and in need of fixing. What a fucking idiot I turned out to be. It is working great for the people who own it. I don’t know how to explain Matt Denn though.
4) Question – How does Mitch Crane continue to work his ass off for a Party that holds his efforts in utter contempt? With now support in the form a coherent national brand, I really don’t see how Crane sticks with it.
I will have an epic rant coming. Drafting it now. What it will not be, however, is some of this defeatist crap. It will be angry and it will give people I have no power over orders. But it makes me feel good. Jason, I get you are disillusioned, disappointed, whatever. So what are you going to do about it? Just sit here and shit on everything and everyone else. Or are we going to see a return to the blogger you used to be, a fighter, a man who took off shit and had people sign it as a petition.
Don’t like the Democratic message, well then let’s craft one ourselves and then pound them over the heads with it. Let’s start here and now.
What is your Democratic message?
“So what are you going to do about it? Just sit here and shit on everything and everyone else.”
I don’t know. A guy in anther thread said this is no big deal. We lost in a couple of swing states and red states. I guess we just has to move more to the center to win those swing county? Water down the messaging a little more
Look for legislation coddling corporations and the rich, dressed up with titles like Social Security Restoraton Act or Protection for American Mothers and Jobs Act.
The question now is: Will Obama be a rock against the coming wave of crackpot economic legislation, or will he return to his earlier Captain Compromise ways?
Will Democrats provide the votes for the 2/3 majority to override presidential vetoes?
I think what bothers me the most is that the Demwimps will not pay the Republican senate back in kind.
Do you think you’ll see Harry Reid (for some reason, still the leader) Fillibustering a repeal of the ACA? hell no. They will be far too afraid of the Repubs saying things like “they are standing in the way of democracy”
This is gonna be a shit 2 years, and there is really nothing we can do about it other than remind people that THIS is the government the country wanted and deserves. Taking bets now on how long it will take impeachment proceedings to start.
“Will Democrats provide the votes for the 2/3 majority to override presidential vetoes?”
…. hadnt even thought about that…. but why the hell not? the out-come of this election OBVIOUSLY means most Americans want Rand Paul as president…. Not that progressive voters were disgusted with their “choice”… no, not that at all.
Will Obama return to his earlier Captain Compromise ways?
There is no reason to think that Obama will do anything other than compromise.
Will Democrats provide the votes for the 2/3 majority to override presidential vetoes?
Well Chris Coons and John Carney just got swept back into office on a “we work with Republicans” message – so what do you think?
Don’t like the Democratic message, well then let’s craft one ourselves and then pound them over the heads with it.
That has always been a weakness. We all know left of center politics when we see it, but pick ten DL contributors or commenters and you will get at least ten different vociferous ideas of what that looks like, followed immediately by a pie fight.
Ben ^like^
Look for Carper to ‘reach across the aisle’ to pass an $8.50 minimum wage bill.
A huge majority of non-voters lean Democratic. Why are they non-voters? Must be because I dropped out of PDD.
And my rant is now up.
I agree with DD. Change takes work. Sometimes being a liberal/progressive has a lot in common with an abused spouse. It’s really hard to fight back when your hardest hits are coming from the people closest to you.
I haven’t written a single blog post about the election until today. I. Just. Couldn’t. Deal. With. The. Defeatism. We are are own worst enemy, and that has to stop.
It was funny listening to random pundits on NPR this morning saying that nothing will really change, because Republicans don’t have 60 votes in the Senate. Nothing like starting the day with a good hollow laugh.
Ben wrote:
Why should he bother? If such a thing was passed, President Obama would veto it anyway.
I would rather see every Senate Republican put their name on an ACA repeal, which they haven’t had to do so far. 2016 will be here before you know it and it will be good ammunition.
My point on the other post was not that we need to “compromise,” rather that it was simply a bad set of seats up for Democrats in a bad year. No need to sulk. Now, messaging and packaging need some work, no doubt. But as someone said on a different post, reality is that we are a divided country; there will always be a backwards, conservative ideology present that we must contend with. And there will always be a “middle” that votes when it feels like it and votes for the most attractive candidate. Sad that we have to appeal to it, but the bottom line is the sky isn’t falling. Let the Republicans show their ass for two years. Not gonna hurt Democrats in 2016.
The results are not fully in yet, but in the state of New Mexico legislature, house of representatives, the republicans may have eked out enough wins to gain a majority for the first time in 60 years. People are getting tired of socialism. It just does not work for the general population. It helps all the people who hold government jobs, but everyone else sucks hind tit. People are starting to wise up to this fact.
We are so far from socialism your invocation of it would be funny if it weren’t sad.
Defeatism is voting for Coons, Carney and the Third Way gang. The are addicted to corporate cash, and like any addict, they will always put their own needs first.
I see no reason to work for the election of people like that. At this point the only way people will get the message is to allow Republicans to run the country back into the ground.
Rusty, I’d like to see people give up all the aspects of their lives that have socialistic ideas behind them and then see how they get along with out them. My bet is they won’t like it very much.
I see this midterm as the periodic “anti-establishment” election. Dems happened to be the establishment this time. In 2 years, the pendulum swings the other way.
Answer is: time for a new Dean. With an eye on retaking the House/ Senate in 2018.
Denn could be close, just change out an “a” for an “n”. Remember how once a lowly Insurance Commissioner became the first public official to endorse offshore wind because it made such great sense?
Kavips, that was actually Markell, not Denn. The lovelfest for Denn never ceases to amaze me. I see no evidence at all that he will not be a Markell, Carper, Carney or Coons when the time comes for him to sit in an office where his actions and allegiances are tested.
@ElSom: Look for Carper to ‘reach across the aisle’ to pass an $8.50 minimum wage bill.
That would be so Carper. In fact that would be the archetype of a Carper vote.
from Will Bunch: “Just like the GOP re-branding after its 1964 Goldwater debacle, last night’s ass-whuppin’ of the Democrats is not just a crisis but an opportunity…for a party makeover. Voters showed again and again, in local votes and in exit polls, that they agree with the stated policies of today’s Democrats from a higher minimum wage to curbing fracking, but they have no faith in the actual Democrats who were running to stand firm. In Attytood, I write: “It’s not a matter of moving further to the left, not really. It’s just a question of standing up for the forward-looking and mostly progressive platform bullet points that you already have. Because the problem, Democrats, is not with what you believe, but that people don’t believe that YOU believe in what you say you believe. In fact, they flat out don’t believe you, not right now.”
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/attytood/The-Democrats-Goldwater-moment.html
And one more for good measure from Steve Simels:
As I’ve said on numerous occasions, Obama is just a symptom. The disease is the Dem party establishment………They ran on the Rahm Emanuel electoral strategy! Because it worked so WELL in 2010 , I guess! Incompetent Morons. Truman knew 60 years ago what the DLC Blue dog Sellout douchebags forgot: ” Give a voter a choice between a real republican and a fake one and they’ll choose the real one EVERY time!”……..Howard Dean, for instance, who, in a reality-based community, would hardly be viewed a wild-eyed lefty, and who was dead right in his 50 state strategy, which Rahm Emanuel actively opposed
Nancy – thanks for those. Gotta say it again for everyone who thinks I’m being a crybaby “purist.”
Linda – Denn may well disappoint, but he hasn’t yet and if you’ve ever spoken to him you’d have your evidence that he is worth the risk.
Oh, I’ve spoken to him, Jason330. And I disagree.