A majority of a 20% voter turn out isn’t a mandate.
The Democrats had help from a corporate media that diminished their accomplishments and a Dem leadership wanting to be in opposition for 2016 gave us Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Thank you DNC - you stink!
Pathetic troll. The Dems who ran away from Obama are the ones who never met a Rethug they didn’t want to like them. They lost for it, now run away little troll.
I do too. This is a nightmare. In time we’ll both find a way to get over this, though it’s hard to even think about that now.
For me, the peace I require will only be achieved by disconnecting from all this and becoming absorbed into my own work. This will be my last comment here for some time. I probably won’t even be visiting TPM for a while. The ticker-tape parades and the McConnell victory lap–I want no part of that and don’t care to see it. We know what we’re in for these next two years. No sense in getting worked up about it on a daily basis when there’s so little we can do about it.
To all my friends here, thanks for your witticisms, your jokes, your rants, and the pleasure of your like-minded company. If you choose to tear each other to shreds over what the Democratic party could’ve/would’ve/should’ve done differently, just keep an eye on the long game, and remember that the things that bind you are stronger and more important than the differences that separate you. I’m not really interested in being part of that discussion at this time, as I sense it’s about to become unpleasant.
See you all on the flipside.
I’ll give you Coakley and Braley but Ernst was a bigger joke. Crist however was not a joke. He was a good candidate. I can’t believe he lost to that Thief, Scott. It just goes to show you the masses are clueless and destroying our country by voting for 1% against themselves. What happened to all those voters who were suppose to come out to vote? Really, what happened?
Don’t stay away too long. We need your thoughtful comments.
We need better democrats. And/or actual ones.
I think the question is. is it the American people who are mad at the Democrats or just a smallish subset who actually bothered to vote? I don’t know at this point, but that’s something I’d like to learn from TPM and other media in the coming days. What percentage of eligible voters turned out and what did they look like demographically? How did this electorate compare to those in 2012 and 2010?
I’m hoping that tonights’s depressing outcome is just the result of the conservative base turning out big and an apathetic middle staying home. If the electorate turns out to be pretty broad-based and representative, then we’re in trouble.
I suspect the big news over the coming months may be about how many of these races were rigged by Republicans via voter suppression laws.
Oh, bullshit.
Chickenshit Democrats caved in to the FOX narrative and decided to run away from a Democratic president whose approval-ratings are twenty points higher than Congressional Republicans and whose actual legislative accomplishments are damn-near legendary.
Dumbest fuckin’ move since running Dukakis in 1988…
You say that like you think Republicans or the media care about the truth.
Check out this fact, Panda: Congressional Republicans get to spend the next two years claiming a “mandate” to make complete fools of themselves; and all the Koch propaganda won’t be able to cover for two more years of Tea Party bullshit.
Hang in there. George Washington didn’t win every battle, but he won the Revolutionary War; and modern political history is playing out the same way for the Democrats…
“Because liberals and conservatives are wired differently they’ll allow it to happen.”
Took me most of a lifetime to learn this. That’s why one cannot persuade self-identified conservatives with facts.
I vote we make the term “voter suppression laws” part of the general vocabulary.
Seems the President is a black man, and a Democrat. The stain…
I’m not particularly worried about winning over these so called conservatives. Like many others I don’t think there’s anything actually conservative about them. I do want to understand the people that either stayed home or voted for GOP but aren’t right wingers.
I feel empathy for the people of Kansas who will suffer for Brownback being re-elected but we will be able to build a narrative there. We know his experiment is going to fail, we just have to figure out how to use it effectively for messaging.
The outcome of the 2014 mid-term is proof-positive of what happens when too many nutless Democrats go up against too many soulless Republicans.
The Supreme Court legalizes unlimited amounts of anonymous money to influence our campaigns, and Democrats argue the morality of the decision while Republicans exploit it to flood the airwaves with bullshit.
There’s a Democratic president whose poll-numbers are TWENTY points higher than those for Congressional Republicans and have been so for more than two years, yet Democrats buy into the bogus narrative that the president is “sinking” in the polls, and run away from him - alienating his core-supporters in the process.
Democrats run away from major legislative accomplishments, and then sit around whining and scratching their heads about why the public supposedly “hates” programs that are, in reality, quite popular - even among Republican voters.
No two questions about it: the Democratic Party fucked up, big-time, and the only saving grace for 2016 Democratic presidential candidates is the fact that the GOP has a batshit-crazy bunch of kooks to run for president…
Take unprecedented and unlimited amounts of anonymous “Dark Money” influencing our electoral process and couple it with the existence of a pro-GOP propaganda source calling itself FOX “news”, and it’s easy to understand why those Americans you speak of have been bamboozled into believing Democrats are worthy of scorn.
The BEST thing you can do is not lose hope…
This is what happens when PROGRESSIVES don’t have the backs of Democrats. FWIW, the teabaggers ALWAYS ALWAYS back their candidates no matter what, and PROGRESSIVES spent the entire election trashing Democrats. I thank the loud progressive voices for losing this election, pat yourselves on the backs!!!
You’re welcome, Tom: http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2010/02/24/millennials-confident-connected-open-to-change/
It does not have to do with them being popular. It has to do with turn out in these elections. By all accounts the electorate really skewed older but consistently voting seniors. Most of them are very conservative, the fox crowd.
Add on top of that many of the people who vote in these off years skew conservative and you end up where we are. Will have to deal with this situation for another few years, beforea presidential election likely flips the senate back. The governorships hurt more and were less expected.
The thing to understand is that the GOP will never go extinct in the system that we have. The general republic sort of system leaves them to much fertile ground, even if it does notrepresent the majority of the population.