http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-..._b_778419.htmlAfter Tuesday's drubbing, Democrats will search for the hidden message of the election. But the message isn't hidden: The decisive blocs of voters that switched from Democrats in 2008 to Republicans in 2010 were angry and disillusioned -- with the economy, with a political system they see as helping banks and CEOs, not ordinary working families, and with both parties, Republicans (exit-poll favorability rating: 41 percent) as well as Democrats (43 percent). They want action to rebalance the economy so it produces jobs and gains for the middle class, not just Wall Street. Unfortunately, they're not going to get it.
That's because these voters have just handed Congress back to a party least likely to heed their call: the party that spent the last two years saying no to Wall Street reform, to an economic recovery package that included major tax cuts, to expanded health insurance and medical cost control, and to extension of the 2001 tax cuts for the middle class; the party that shamelessly courted lobbyists and corporate donors while claiming they were only against reform because it represented a "bailout" of these very same interests.
In exit polls, voters were asked who they blamed for the state of the economy. In order, they blamed banks, then the Bush administration, and only then the current administration. Yet those who blamed banks gave their votes by a wide margin to the GOP. Their votes have made Speaker-to-be John Boehner the second most powerful person in Washington only months after he staged an open rally for bank lobbyists, urging them to block Democrats and their "punk staffers." The rally worked: Wall Street swung toward the Republicans, joining health insurers, big business groups, energy companies, and the rest of the GOP's new money trust.
Midterm election losses are a virtual inevitability for the party of the president. A terrible economy makes them more certain -- and larger. The only thing that would have saved Democrats from big losses this time around was a huge organizational and fundraising edge. Thanks to the Tea Party and billions in outside campaign spending that favored the GOP, the edge was Republicans'.
If there is a hidden message in the election, it's one that we, in our recent book, Winner-Take-All Politics, call the "dirty little secret" of political science: most voters pay little attention to what happens in Washington and have only the vaguest sense of what is happening there. Most are completely unaware of how the filibuster has been used relentlessly to block action on the economy, and a majority mistakenly believes that the astonishingly unpopular TARP legislation passed under Obama, when in fact in was signed by George W. Bush.
We are taught to believe that voters call the shots. And they often do. Yet the vote is a blunt, heavy weapon -- one that voters barraged with negative ads and misleading messages, without strong guidance from grassroots organizations, often wield with little awareness of or regard for the collateral damage that will result. In this case, the damage is likely to be the crippling of goals and policies that most Americans continue to support.
One salient example sums up the whole: Republicans' big gains came with older voters -- in part because they were frightened by GOP attacks on the health care bill. Yet Republican budget blueprints -- from Paul Ryan's "Roadmap for America's Future" to the GOP "Pledge to America" -- mean even bigger cuts in Medicare and the revival of the GOP's mothballed plans for partial privatization of Social Security and Medicare. Ask older Americans whether they would like to trash their cherished programs in return for massive new tax cuts for the richest of the rich, and the answer will be a resounding no. Only on election day, a strong majority of older Americans, in effect, said yes.
In John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, perhaps the most memorable line was uttered by an angry farmer about to lose his home (sound familiar?). Enraged and despairing but unable to pinpoint blame for his terrible loss, he asks, "Who can we shoot?" That's what voters were asking in 2010, and most had no clearer idea than the farmer of where responsibility for their plight lay.
The 2010 election was the political equivalent of the perfect crime: The GOP vigorously took on all reforms designed to rebalance the economy for the long term, tying Washington up in contorted knots, then were rewarded at the polls by voters dissatisfied with an ugly D.C. culture unable to produce economic renewal.
This article is bull . Liberal voters didn't show for this election because the Democrats did to take the nation back from the banks and were even worse on health care. Since the Democrats don't exploit the church, they're not going to have anywhere near the same level of blind loyalty from their voters.
We're giving the keys back to the folks who crashed the car because the folks we gave the keys to after the other folks crashed the car, crashed the car and so on and so forth..........
Moral to the story, we only let two folks drive and they're both blind as a ing bat.
I agree that most progressives feel this way. I don't think its the case for independents though. They're just pissed.
Also Obama motivated the out of the GOP base.
voters said anyone but the dems
The losses would have been much more negligible if the Democrats had gotten their message out better, maybe some was their fault....but the M$M shared equal blame by not asking tea party candidates the hard questions, like what they would cut if they were in power before they were in power....now, there won't be any (serious) cuts because neither party will touch SS or Medicare...
What message?
Democrats were running away from their message.
Actually, turnout of Republicans and Democrats were about the same as in 2008. It was independents that shifted from Democrat to Republican.
They don't like Obamacare.
It's the Obamacare, stupid.
You won the House....bfd....
to you that may mean mandate....to sane people that means STFU
What ever analogy you wish to use, remember, the car crashed in 2007. Democrats won the majority in 2006.
The House, The Majority of Governorships, The Majority of State Legislatures, , even some of the Democrats who won in the Senate (or are up for re-election in 2012) may vote with Republicans the next two years just so they won't get thrown out on their asses.
I honestly think Democrats have learned one thing. Obama is in it for himself and he will throw you under the bus to get his agenda passed. Well, they're thinking, "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice...well, you just can't fool me again."
Face it. Obama is screwed. He has been emasculated, neutered, ineffectuated.
Call it what you will.
We won.
What did you win? the Dems still control the Executive branch and the most powerful house on the hill....you tea baggers had your chance and you blew it...go rejoice winning state houses in Tim-buc-two....cause that's all you got..
Money is appropriated in the House. The Executive and Senate can sit and spin.
State houses do the redistricting starting in the Spring.
Democrats are so screwed.
Oh, and I almost forgot. Because of the shift in Governorships, California and New York will be sitting at the Kiddie Table at future Governor's Conferences.
Seriously? Perry has been TX Governor longer than Hugo Chavez has been in power, and he's twice as corrupt....that's a joke, right?
Whatever gets you through this, Nbadan. Chin up.
Ever hear of a Presidential Executive Order....you should, Dubya used them all the time...
Keep telling yourself, Obama can do this all himself, Obama can do this all himself, Obama can do this all himself. Be sure and click your Ruby slippers together though, or it may not work.
Executive power is still limited. President Bush used them as a statement to say the congress cannot dictate executive function. You simply cannot do anything with that power.
funny thing is, this never would have happened even despite the economy if the Dems hadn't crammed their agenda down everyones throat like they didn't give a damn.
That is something Obama should have learned from Clinton. That dude wouldn't take a without looking at a poll to see if it would be popular.
Obama will do what he needs too.....one thing is certain though, more new tea baggers Senators means more powerful Democrats Senators to appropriate the money that has already been delegated....meaning tea-bagger districts better get ready for some lean, lean times...
That's it, make yourself feel better.
Hey dan - are you dizzy with all that spinning?
politics is a zero-sum game for us as we get to cheer our team on from the bleachers. hopefully, that's not the case for our elected representatives.
So true..
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
