Democrats sift through the debris

Democrats on Wednesday morning began sorting through the wreckage of disastrous midterm elections in which losses eclipsed even their worst fears.

The scale of the defeats, taken together, was breathtaking: a Senate majority lost, over a dozen House seats swept away, and Democrats ousted from governors’ mansions across the country.

The drubbing is sure to spark a round of soul-searching as Democrats ponder whether President Obama is to blame — or whether something deeper has gone wrong in the party that could threaten its chances of retaining the White House in 2016.

“This is where the administration has to take a real honest look at its decision-making and its management. Between the Veterans Administration, the health care website…it was a lot of things for the last two years that kept feeding this concern that Democrats aren’t able to manage this government,” said one Democratic strategist who requested anonymity to speak freely.

Finger-pointing had begun between Senate Democrats and the White House even before every race had been decided. The blame game is sure to get worse in the coming days.

“The president’s approval rating is barely 40 percent,” David Krone, chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told Washington Post reporters. “What else more is there to say? ... He wasn’t going to play well in North Carolina or Iowa or New Hampshire. I’m sorry. It doesn’t mean that the message was bad, but sometimes the messenger isn’t good.”

Democratic losses were staggering in the Senate. The hopes of party strategists that ominous final polls might have been overstating the Republican advantage proved hollow.

If anything, the reverse proved true: In Iowa, Republican Joni Ernst defeated Rep. Bruce Braley (D) by almost nine percentage points; in Colorado, incumbent Sen. Mark Udall (D) went down to Rep. Cory Gardner (R) by about five points. Even North Carolina, the battleground state about which Democratic strategists were most confident, fell: Sen. Kay Hagan (D) lost out to the GOP’s Thom Tillis there by about 50,000 votes.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s (D) achievement in holding off former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown (R) in New Hampshire was the only significant bright spot for the party. In the House, longtime incumbents such as Reps. John Barrow (D-Ga.) and Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) were swept away by the GOP wave.

Losses in governors’ races — which the White House had touted last week as a better barometer of a successful evening — were even more shocking. Republicans prevailed in states that are normally considered solid blue, including Maryland, Massachusetts and Illinois.

According to national exit poll data, most voters said they were frustrated with Washington gridlock and with the performance of both parties. But President Obama’s approval ratings were particularly dismal.

Fifty-five percent of voters said they disapproved of his job performance; 42 percent strongly disapproved. When asked to describe their feelings toward the Obama administration, 60 percent said they were “angry” or “dissatisfied” versus just 40 percent who declared themselves “enthusiastic” or “satisfied.”

However, 78 percent also said they disapproved of the job Congress was doing, and 60 percent characterized themselves as “angry” or “dissatisfied” with GOP leadership.

“People point to the president's unpopularity in these states, and that was an issue, but in many cases the congressional Republican and Tea Party brand was equal or worse,” said Democratic strategist Doug Thornell.

“But, give them credit, Republicans were able to outperform their brand by running smart races and they had an incredibly simple message.”

Much like in 2010, the midterm electorate tilted toward Republicans — 37 percent of voters self-identified as conservative, 40 percent said they were moderate and only 23 percent described themselves as liberal.

When all those dynamics were fed into the mix, the results were grim for Democrats.

“I won’t sugarcoat it — we always knew tonight would be a challenging night, and it was for Democrats at every level,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) said in a statement.

Israel rationalized House losses, arguing that “an avalanche of outside spending” had moved seats the GOP’s way at the end of the campaign. But other Democrats suggested that the party’s message had missed the mark — and that the White House bore at least some responsibility for that failure.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), a frequent critic of both the Obama administration and the Senate leadership of outgoing majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), said that the president’s policies, specifically on energy, had taken a toll.

“It doesn't make sense that we have to fight so hard against our own government and our own administration and our president to try to find a balance,” Manchin told MSNBC Tuesday night.

Ultimately, Democrats feel a number of races started to slip away from them in the final days. The pattern was apparent even in Virginia, where Sen. Mark Warner (D) — considered safe by just about everyone — remained locked in a too-close-to-call race against Republican Ed Gillespie as dawn broke on Wednesday.

“You can't only count on a ground game,” said Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, who is also a columnist for The Hill. Mellman described the political environment as “toxic” for his party, and asserted that this was something for which Obama could not be held solely responsible.

Ultimately, Democrats feel they had just too much to overcome, including a rapidly shifting news cycle that veered away from their preferred topic of economic fairness, and unexpected crises ranging from the resurgence of Islamic militancy in the Middle East to the Ebola outbreak.

“Over the course of the last year, Democrats’ message on the economy, fighting for the middle class and Republican dysfunction either hasn’t broken through or [has] been drowned out by outside events,” said Thornell.

“Republicans have been effective in pushing out a pretty simple message that the president has been a failure. It doesn’t help party enthusiasm when you have a small but vocal group of Congressional Democrats running away from him.”

Reid spokesman Adam Jentleson may have put it simplest when he touted the Democrats’ victory in New Hampshire.

“The fact that we got our butts kicked up and down the block only makes it *more* hilarious that Scott Brown lost,” he tweeted.

Yesterday was not so much a wholesale embrace of the GOP as it was a complete and total repudiation of Barack Obama and the gang of criminals he brought to Washington in 2008.

In the last 2 decades, it became clear to me that we were losing that struggle as those major institutions gained ground among the growing class of those either employed by or dependent upon the expanding welfare state. My way of emotionally coping with that was to tell myself that if the majority did, indeed, lust after a socialist welfare state, well then, let’s bring it on and let them have it good and hard. Rub their noses in it. Shove it down their throats!!

At the same time, I continued to tell myself that there were still enough honest-to-God adults out there who, once they had a taste of a totalitarian command state regime, they would reject it. I refused to consider that so many citizens (and I use the term loosely) would come to love and embrace the thing enough to sustain it and prolong the economic and personal agony history teaches always attends such despotic systems.
Yesterday, I THINK we began to come to our senses!

I’d analogize what happened yesterday to what an otherwise healthy human body does when faced with an existential threat. Just as our bodies are complex organisms, nations are complex organisms. Faced with ISIS, ebola, the invasion across the southern border and Obama’s criminal neglect of those threats, and on and on and on we STILL have the resolve and character to rally and turn back the threats and deal with the SOURCE of the threats.

All that said, we’re not out of the woods yet.
Now it’s up to the Pubbies to set out a serious and freedom oriented AGENDA and be RESOLUTE in repairing the damage this renegade regime has done over the last 6 years!

Obama and Valarie Jarrett are NOT going to go gently into that good night. As an egomaniacal malignant narcissist, this guy will dig in his heels. Just as a wild animal is most dangerous when cornered, Obama is now in a corner from which there is little chance escape. Ted Cruz was asked last night by if the Pubbies would take up the matter of Obama’s “lawlessness” and he stated rather emphatically that they would.
I’ll be watching to make sure that happens! I’m sure Darrel Issa and Trey Gowdy are licking their chops. I’m doubling my popcorn order for THAT show!

The only event that would please me more than what happened yesterday would be the sight of Barack Obama leaving the White House in manacles and leg irons with Eric Holder right behind him. If he and Eric are smart, they’ll spend today booking air travel to some non extradition country. I’m sure Lois Lerner would like to go along!
And speaking of air travel, tell these new Pubbies to take the keys to Air Force One away from Obama. It’s time to halt his endless taxpayer funded world apology tour!

Now comes the hard work of keeping all these new folks honest in the toxic and corrosive atmosphere of Washington, D.C. . it’s up to these same voters to watch all these new folks like the proverbial hawk and keep them within Mr. Jefferson’s “chains of the Constitution.” When you see them beginning what is the inevitable drift into the D.C. Swamp, CALL AND LET THEM KNOW WE’RE NOT GOING BACK TO “BUSINESS AS USUAL”. The Capitol switchboard is 202-224-3121! Write it down.
You should call just to hear the world’s worst “Music on Hold”.

The massive wins by in the statehouses MAY mean that at least SOME voters believe the 10th Amendment will be the most important tool to roll back the growth of fedzilla and return the states to the status of “LABORATORIES OF FREEDOM” the Founders intended them to be.

In that vein, the new national Pubbies need to start taking apart the federal bureaucracy, starting with the Department of Education, the EPA, the IRS and on and on.

Not to be the skunk at the picnic, but there IS some not so good news: The good guys won this one but the tight margins in many of these races mean that there are STILL large pockets of diehard Democrats who STILL DON’T GET IT!!
If you know any of those folks, spend some time attempting to acquaint them with our history, the ideas of the Founders, our tradition of freedom, the Constitution and why those things are important! There will be another election in 2 years and – unless we somehow reach them – many of these folks will be cocked and locked for payback!

And while he’s a huge improvement over the clearly deranged Harry Reid, I’m very worried about Mitch McConnell’s comments that he would crush the Tea Party.

However, 78 percent also said they disapproved of the job Congress was doing, and 60 percent characterized themselves as “angry” or “dissatisfied” with GOP leadership.

This is the money quote for me--CNN is trying to spin this as puzzling, since they are confused as to why it should be that if people believe this they would vote republican. It's simple -- The senate is controlled by democrats, and they are part of Congress! Obviously, if they were mad at the GOP they would have thrown out the House of Reps instead of the senate . . .

On top of that, people are mad at the GOP leadership because they aren't opposing Obama enough, not because they are obstructing Obama, otherwise it would have been the same result as above. . .

The only conclusion you can come to is that media really believe their own spin and are desperate to believe that this GOP wipe out is somehow good for the Dems in the long run.

Look for lots more pouty faced media people when it dawns in them that regardless of what they are saying now, Obama is faced with a clear choice of compromise or obstruction, my bet is he goes full bore obstruction/destruction and that would lead to an even bigger rout in 2016, unless the Dems force him to compromise or resign to save their hides. Alternatively, if he refuses to save them Dems may start publicly pushing for impeachment to stave off losses, and the GOP will just stand there letting them all twist in the wind . . .

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