Progressives will say that of the 78 House members in the Congressional Progressive Caucus, only three lost on Tuesday. What they won't mention is those three losers were the only progressive caucus members from competitive districts. (That actually overstates the case, because Rep. Phil Hare's Illinois district is not competitive, and he lost it anyway.)
The liberals won't mention that even progressive stars with heavily Democratic districts came within a few thousand votes of losing: Dennis Kucinich (53 percent of the vote), Raul Grijalva (49.4 percent), Maurice Hinchey (52.4 percent), Peter DeFazio (53.6 percent), Loretta Sanchez (52 percent).
They won't mention that progressive nominees lost in every single competitive open-seat House race.
Why did Democrats lose? Maybe it's because the voters, even if they are willing to elect Democrats at times, reject progressive policies. Maybe it's because only 20 percent of Americans identify themselves as liberals, while twice as many identify as conservatives.
But a discussion like that requires more introspection than most progressives seem able to muster right now. It can't be that -- it has to be a "messaging problem!" It has to be that evil corporations bought the election! It has to be Karl Rove! Rahm Emanuel! Halliburton! Fox News!
Some people call this "epistemic closure."
And that's why Pelosi, who has made possible the largest Republican House majority since 1946, will not only continue to lead her party, but will receive no serious challenge for the top position.
Just think: The 2012 cycle is already here, and Republicans won't have to make a single new political ad.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/11/2010 00:00 ||
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A week past the midterms, the good news gets better, so far as the GOP is concerned.
" President B.O. (so far) doesn't get it. His presser was gruesome. He is being called isolated, inept and incompetent. Staffers are dishing, backers are kvetching, and even the glossies have turned...
" Speaker of the House Nancy San Fran Nan Pelosi, D-Calif., is back! Pelosi, who led her caucus into calamitous losses, is not going quietly, but wants the chance to repeat the experience...
" Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is back, too! Republicans get to keep him, with his charm, charisma, and leaderly qualities ... and keep intact the leadership team that just did so well in the midterm election.
" The Tea Party worked out, on balance, and at least in contrast to what might have been. It did not, as predicted, embarrass its allies. ... True, it coughed up a couple of clunkers, but these were mercifully vetoed by voters before they could became large-scale, ongoing embarrassments.
" The Democrats still have control of the Senate, but by six seats instead of 19 or 20, which is where their problems begin. ... In 2012, 13 Democrats, from the wave election of 2006 and purple states that went red just a week ago, will be up for election and they will be very afraid.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/11/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
- Sun Tzu
Donks should just keep repeating that it was just the failure to communicate, not the policies through to 2012 and that the Tea Party movement was just an astroturf product of RNC.
#2
Procopius, the Repubs could benefit from the same advice - the Tea Party candidates just advanced in the primaries because the sanctioned candidates failed to communicate their message etc.
#4
I hope the Tea Party activists got the messages:
1) you can't convert a state from Blue to Red in one swell foop. Delaware wasn't going to go for O'Donnell. NEVER. Castle was a RINO, but I'd rather have him 50% of the time than Coons 2% of the time.
Moral: states progress from Blue to Purple to Red to Maroon. Put up the right candidate for the right situation. You can go maroon in Utah, but you can't go deep red in Delaware. Or, apparently, in Nevada.
2) Untested candidates can be a disaster. Joe Miller was untested. Sharron Angle was untested. Ken Buck was untested. Meg Whitman was untested. Put them in the spotlight and they fell apart. Marco Rubio, in contrast, had been thoroughly tested and vetted. He was ready to step up and it showed.
Moral: a Senate race is not the time to trot out a rookie. Go with a candidate who has put in the requisite time in the minor leagues and can step up to the big show.
3) Organization matters. Professional organization matters more in a nail-biter election. The tea party brought new energy and volunteers. The Democrats brought tested poll and election workers. Guess who won just about every race that was within 1% on election night? The Pubs have never been good at this and that's why they lose all the close ones.
Moral: there is no substitute for having experienced pros in charge for the GOTV, poll-watching and election night surveillance. If the Tea Party wants to make lasting change, get good at this, because the regular Pubs sure won't.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/11/2010 11:52 Comments ||
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#5
Good points Steve, but often obscured by the Tea Party failures in the big races are a LOT of successes in the lower tiers - your minor leagues - from which future big leaguers should develop.
1. Wisconsin, until the election, was pretty darn blue. Didn't happen everywhere, but it does happen.
2. Again from Wisconsin, Johnson was not a tested candidate. In Nevada Angle was -- she had run and won several campaigns before running for Senate.
3. Buck had a very professional campaign. I know, because I've met many of them. Solid people who in some cases have run Republican campaigns for decades. The NRC and NRSC -- the "professionals" -- are getting and deserve a great deal of blame for not doing better in Senate races. Things like completely neglecting the 72 hour GOTV ground game made a difference.
4. "Electable", moderate, establishment candidates like Fiorina also lost.
5. "Electable", moderate, establishment candidates like Dan Coats are already talking about helping out the Dems (in Coats' case, by "reforming" the filibuster). Guess what a Mike Castle would be doing right now. We don't need that kind of help, thank you very much.
#7
Guess who won just about every race that was within 1% on election night? The Pubs have never been good at this and that's why they lose all the close ones.
Yes, I do agree we've never stuffed the ballto box as well as they do.
Of course, I find it morally repugnant they go into group homes and load them on the buses.
[Emirates 24/7] The symbolism, trade deals and fine words of Barack B.O. Obama's courtship of India should be Pakistain's wake-up call to fix its economy and eradicate Islamist militancy to ward off isolation, analysts say.
The US president declared India a world power, the India-US alliance "one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century" and unveiled deals worth $10 billion designed to create 50,000 American jobs in an ailing economy.
Going further than any US president before, he backed India's quest for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, although with no immediate prospect of reform and likely strong Chinese opposition, it was a largely symbolic move.
Just weeks after Pakistain's latest round of "strategic dialogue" with the US in a bid to overcome mistrust, the warm embrace between Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stood in stark contrast.
"Paks have to be more realistic on understanding India's growing international role," political analyst Hasan Askari told AFP.
"India is investing in the United States while our economy is in bad shape. There is no Pak investment in the West, very little in the Middle East. We ask for money from the United States, while India does not."
Indian deals will funnel $10 billion into the US economy, while under a US Congress bill American taxpayers fork out $1.5 billion a year for development in Pakistain with promises of another $2 billion in military assistance.
While Obama's visit reflects the shift in power to emerging nations since the financial crisis, Pakistain is a client state with a Taliban and Al-Qaeda presence plotting to kill US soldiers and fanning the war in Afghanistan.
Pakistain, whose status as a nuclear power still alarms the West, has been stifled by decades of military rule, recession and Islamisation.
Its security forces are fighting a Taliban insurgency in the northwest. Bomb attacks have killed thousands nationwide and its tribal belt is considered an Al-Qaeda headquarters subject to a covert US drone war.
Writing in The News daily, public policy consultant Mosharraf Zaidi said the only lesson to draw from Obama's visit was "the deals being made".
"While we drown in the inanities of this country's infinite and perpetual search for identity, we are deepening our current bankruptcy, and ensuring a future of mostly begging for handouts."
With Obama visiting Indonesia, APEC in Japan and the G20 in South Korea, Zaidi said: "The reason he is not visiting Pakistain is obvious. Pakistain does not belong on that list of countries and that is not India's fault".
Analysts say Islamabad should soften its foreign policy, dominated by the anti-Indian military, to avoid isolation as the United States looks to end the war against the Afghan Taliban which Pakistain helped to create.
"In today's world, defeat can be described in one way only: international isolation... Pakistain must learn to be more objective about the crisis it is facing internally," wrote The Express Tribune in an editorial.
"Pakistain can sort out this crisis through self-correction."
Posted by: Fred ||
11/11/2010 00:00 ||
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[11125 views]
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#1
Pakistain is a failed state. Get over it. Continuing on your current path will lead to an inevitable losing nuke exchange with India, once the Whacko Islamists complete their ascension
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/11/2010 9:24 Comments ||
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#2
Even Winston Churchill commented on Islamic countries being backward.How can they take over the world when most of their countries are skint/not business minded.Take away the Oil and Tourism in Dubai what are they left with?
#3
"While we drown in the inanities of this country's infinite and perpetual search for identity, we are deepening our current bankruptcy, and ensuring a future of mostly begging for handouts."
Too True!
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Washington Examiner] 
A week past the midterms, the good news gets better, so far as the GOP is concerned.
