It’s Wednesday morning, you’re a Democrat and you’re waking up after a terrible night. You’re hung over and you can’t quite remember what happened. You’re pretty sure you lost the House of Representatives and – who knows? – perhaps even the Senate as well. You have a vague recollection of Harry Reid being sent back to Searchlight, Nevada. It might have been a hallucination but didn’t you lose another Kennedy seat in New England too?
You reach for your remote control to check out what the pundits are saying but can’t find it. Perhaps someone threw it at the television set when Illinois went red (or was it Wisconsin?). Never mind, you don’t need to listen to the excuses because they’re all been aired beforehand. Here’s an idiot’s guide as to why the Democrats lost (with apologies to James Carville):
1. It’s the stupid, stupid
Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now – and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time – is because we’re hard-wired not to always think clearly when we’re scared. And the country is scared, and they have good reason to be.
It’s absurd. We’ve lost our minds. We’re in a period of know-nothingism in the country, where truth and science and facts don’t weigh in. It’s all short-order, lowest common denominator, cheap-seat politics.
Anyway, it’s been scientifically proven:
Research suggests that liberals and conservatives have different personality traits… liberals are more intellectually curious and tolerant of ambiguity…
2. It’s the nuts and wusses, stupid. Democrats ran away from Obama’s stellar record.
I do think Democrats thinking that they can, you know, hold the Democratic label at arm’s length, I do think that’s nuts. You put the label after your name, be proud of it.
We’re a bunch of wusses. We’re running from the things that we’ve done, running from the things we believe instead of saying, ‘Here’s what we stand for. If we’re going to lose, let’s go down fighting for the things we believe in’.
3. We’re just so focussed on good policy, stupid. Democrats just did the right thing instead of worrying about grubby politics.
Given how much stuff was coming at us, we probably spent much more time trying to get the policy right than trying to get the politics right. There is probably a perverse pride in my administration — and I take responsibility for this; this was blowing from the top — that we were going to do the right thing, even if short-term it was unpopular.
We’re going to write a bill that sets reasonable goals over a reasonable time frame that’d benefit both our environment and our economy. We’re going to write a bill that can pass the Senate. My caucus is ready to get to work, but we need the cooperation of brave Republicans. It’s my hope they will join us in putting good policy over bad politics.
4. It’s the history, stupid. The president’s party always loses in the mid-terms (move along, nothing to see here).
Oh, of course we’ll lose some seats in the Senate and in the House. That’s what history tells us.
History ordains Democratic losses — in all but four midterms since the Civil War, the party controlling the White House has lost House seats…First, significant losses were the baseline for this year. Forget the stimulus. Forget healthcare. Forget global warming and partisanship (bi- or otherwise). Normal midterm effects and Democratic exposure, let alone the economy, all but guaranteed substantial losses and a House in play. Anyone expecting small losses this year was out of touch with both historical precedent and economic reality.
5. You’re impatient, stupid. Change has not come fast enough and Obama was much too moderate.
And I know for so many people, change has not come fast enough. Believe me, it hasn’t come fast enough for Barack, either.
A few commentators will point out, with much more justice, that Mr. Obama never made a full-throated case for progressive policies, that he consistently stepped on his own message, that he was so worried about making bankers nervous that he ended up ceding populist anger to the right.
6. It’s the message, not the product, stupid. Democrats have great policies but a poor message.
I think this administration has done a great job… We just did a lousy job communicating it. We let the Republicans, to their credit, out-spin us a year-and-a-half ago, and we’re paying the price.
The Democrats are very bad at selling their own product. The Republicans are geniuses at it. And I’ve said it before, a bad product well apologized for is superior in this country to a good product.
7. It’s Rove and those dastardly foreigners, stupid. Karl Rove and shadowy outside groups funded by foreign money swamped the Democrats with cash, corrupting our democracy.
Karl Rove, Ed Gillespie: They’re Bush Cronies. The US Chamber of Commerce: They’re Shills for Big Business. And they’re stealing our democracy. Spending millions from secret donors to elect Republicans to do their bidding in Congress. It appears they’re even taking secret foreign money to influence our elections.
Now Karl Rove and the chamber have spent about $10 million in secret money, in secret money where you don’t know where it’s coming from, what country and what amounts, to try and take President Obama’s senate seat. It’s pretty simple. Mark Kirk helped George Bush and Karl Rove wreck this economy, and now Karl Rove is repaying the favour to Congressman Kirk.
(don’t mention the fact that the Democrats spent more money)
8. It’s the racism, stupid.
It is the notion that President Barack Obama is not a real natural born American, that he is some other kind of person, that abounds in Tea Party ranks and draws this movement into a pit of no return.
And then there are probably some aspects of the Tea Party that are a little darker, that have to do with anti-immigrant sentiment or are troubled by what I represent as the president.
9. It’s the media’s fault (especially Fox), stupid.
Television seems to exclusively gravitate toward the conflict and whatever is bad, rather than really focusing on the kinds of things that are good and make a difference.
I think under the circumstances that I just described, he’s done an extraordinary job,” Carter said. “He’s got some good things done. They’ve been totally twisted around by some of the irresponsible news media to project him as a person that he’s not and as we all know.
10. It’s stupid Bush, stupid.
They don’t have a single idea that’s different from George Bush’s ideas–not one…We got here after 10 years of an economic agenda in Washington that was pretty straight forward. You cut taxes for millionaires, you cut rules for special interests, and you cut working folks loose to fend for themselves. That was the philosophy of the last administration and their friends in Congress.
President George W. Bush and House Republicans drove our economy into a ditch and tried to run away from the accident. President Obama and congressional Democrats have been focused repairing the damage to our economy. Elections are about choices and this year’s Midterms will be a choice between continuing the economic progress and independent leadership that House Democrats are delivering for their districts versus Republicans who are eager to turn back the clock to the same failed Bush-Cheney policies that brought our economy to the brink of collapse.
Author: Toby Harnden-Reprinted without permission from The Telegraph–
LOL –
Nice!
Keep up the good work!
Thank goodness, I was afraid I wouldn’t get enough political commentary this week. Please, do continue in this vein – because your readers care *so much* about your political opinions.
All in good fun LK. Will be back to my regular a-political non-partisan self tomorrow.
For goodness sakes, this is a “special program!” Don’t you read the liner notes?
It’s election day in this country, get in or opt out, hippy!
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LOL. Tolerant of “ambiguity?”
I would search hard to find much else of which they are “tolerant.”
Good post, Sheds.
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(laughter) some of the most mind rackingly dumb conversations I’ve ever had have occurred with people who label themselves students of neuroscience. And the worst offenders aren’t even the experts; they’re the fucking pre-med students who have asperations to go into neuroscience.
If you want to have idiotic conjectures thrown at you for four hours with little to no proof or supportive understanding of statistics and how empiricism works, by all means, sit down with some. But bring some Tylenol.