I stated this in another diary a couple of days ago:
The message and communication is the Democrats fault.
The GOP could possibly win on NOTHING. Doing NOTHING. We have Democrats running from their own damn record and that is atrocious ENOUGH!! Running from Fin Reg, HIR, Lilly Ledbetter, running away like dogs with their tails between their legs.
What message does that create!!
The Obama White House better get its act together for part two if they plan on winning in 2012 and it better start with COMMUNICATING with the public.
People don't know shit unless it is pounded in their heads. And we all KNOW BETTER because we worked 2 years straight making sure folks knew the deal on Barack Obama.
Instead of running behind the GOP with olive branches and constantly getting spat upon, it has BEEN TIME that this White House say fuck em. And I am serious about that.
If the public is clueless about the accomplishments of the White House, Dems whose fault is that? Hell, the Democrats sat back and let the GOP demonize health care, HEALTH CARE of all things and that lying shit stuck with the public like glue to paper. The communication better get cleaned up and some firings need to come from that White House because the next day meme if the GOP wins huge is, "The Republicans won by doing nothing and the Democrats lost by running away from what they did."
And that is how it will play out.
Running away from what you did. That is what happened here.
The reality is this; the White House and the President don’t like the campaign mode, while trying to govern. Understood, but the fact and reality is that we live in a media age that you must do both. You can not sit in the White House; laugh off the GOP and their weak message in your mind, without RESPONSE. That is what happened last summer with the health care bill. The Democratic response was so weak it was laughable. They really thought the GOP would not go after health care and they were wrong. As WRONG as the GOP and the faux astroturf Tea Party components were, what they said started to stick and the public started to believe it. In this day and age, if you do not respond the lies will start to stick. The Republicans message on health care was so strong that by the time the bill was made into law, many Americans did not understand what they were getting thus constantly suspect to it. While we were supposed to have a huge media blitz on the health care law, it just went out with a whimper. And when President Obama was on The Daily Show, this exchange said it all.
When Obama said his administration has done things people don't know about, Stewart said: "What have you done that we don't know about? Are you planning a surprise party for us?"
Sorry, President Obama that is not good enough. If the Democrats did so much and they did, why is the public clueless on this? This is a serious communication flaw and it must change going forward. It is the responsibility of voters to know the issues and this is the rational way of thinking. But, guess what? It does not happen that way. For example, in some of the polling many voters believed the stimulus package was part of the bailout; this is a serious problem since the TARP (bailout fund) was setup under the Bush Administration and just continued to be administered by the Obama Administration. Voters also believed that they did not get tax breaks, especially the middle class. This is a monumental failure of the Democratic Leaders and the White House for not communicating the obvious to the voter. President Obama can be frustrated but the losses tonight is due primarily to lack of communication to the public. We are paying a price for doing good things but leadership failed to make sure the public knew it.
Next, who ever kept the President’s strategic calendar should be shown the door. Ever since Barack Obama became President he has always played catch up to just about everything. That has to change. I liked that the President was out on the stump tirelessly this past month, but for me, it felt too late. There was never a cohesive message from the White House to the Democratic Leadership in congress on how anything was going to be sold to the American public. Which is why we get snafu’s like Robert Gibbs going on Meet the Press stating we will probably lose the House of Representatives. Does the White House understand conflicting messaging? If you want your voters to vote for you, we need some damn optimism here? Talk about shooting the messenger.
Next, who are the Democrats? I have to ask this because in blackwaterdog’s diary she has a Rachel Maddow video montage up on what the Democrats did in the last 21 months. This is great, but it is LATE!!! (and the Democrats should have been pumping this for months) The Democrats and leadership in D.C. ran away from their record. These people ran away from the legislative victories they won. These same people continue to fall into the GOP framing, thus ran away from everything they did and ran away from the President. If you can not stand up for what you did, run on your record, be not afraid, what do you expect from us? People gave the Democrats a mandate and in response they gave the public back tepid legislation. Whether you agree or not, look at the votes tonight. Something happened and it is not because people are fired up for Republicans. They hate them worse than Democrats, but they are angry at the Democrats for not doing what many voted for. If the Democratic Party can not stand together as a whole, people are going to continue to not stand with them. Right now we have an electorate that does not like either party and believe there is no difference between the two, which is a major problem.
Next, misreading the public anger on the bailouts and the economy. Massive fail on the White House part. Whoever was or is in charge of knowing how folks feel on the ground, MISREAD the American Public. First off, the health care debacle should have been wrapped up last year, not this year. It took too long and people did not like the sausage making along with deals and double dealing. That health care bill should have been rammed through with reconciliation in 2009 (which eventually after over a year it was), but instead we watched the White House running after Republican votes. (which they NEVER GOT) After all this, I hope the White House understands that the GOP had a plan and said so the day after the 2008 election. The plan, “They were not going to vote on anything for Barack Obama.” Too much time was wasted playing footsie with the Republicans. While all this was going on, jobs losses in this country continued to mount, the unemployment rate continued to rise, wages continued stagnate or were cut, many were getting hours cut from their jobs, homes were still being foreclosed on at record rate, and the bad list of things for the average American is endless. Many saw Wall Street and the Banks getting bailed out, but no help for anyone living on Main Street. The economy was always going to be the single issue for many Americans and the perception is that the Democrats dropped the ball. And they did. Like everything else, communication is key. This economy should have been wrapped around the heads of the same Republicans who put us in the position we are in, but the White House and Democrats did a piss poor ass job on this, as well. People don’t care about the stimulus package saving hundreds of jobs, unless it is their own. People wanted to know what the administration and Democrats would do about job creation in this country. People are still waiting to see if this administration will do something about the foreclosure rate in this country. See, people care about what is happening to them now, what they see in front of them now, how they are making it now. Kitchen table issues were not center from this administration and the Democrats are taking a hit on something that was left by the Republicans. Can someone explain to me how we fucked this message up so badly?
Lastly, Barack Obama hired many D.C. insiders, conventional wisdom types. These individuals were supposed to be the smartest and brightest out there, well from me they get an “F”. The economic team either misread much or was always going to let the Wall Street and the Banks get away with much. I believe the latter is correct. Hiring Rahm Emanuel was a bombastic mistake. He fractured the Democratic Caucus more than help and it is his precious Blue Dogs that are going down the most, tonight. Mr. Emanuel calling part of the Democratic base, “fucking retards”, does not help anything. Especially, when many of these people got the vote out, gave massive money and like the Blue Dogs have a right to voice an opposite view. It fractured the base, again look at the numbers when this is all said and done. This needs to be fixed; it should have been fixed a long time ago, but was not. Now, Mr. Emanuel is trying to be Mayor of Chicago. Good luck with that one. In the end, the conventional wisdom types did a poor job. Poor job in strategy, messaging, communication, and marketing, practically everything. Now they are looking at themselves and I really hope they are LOOKING FOR A NEW JOB.
For all the good that the Democrats did, they just could not get it together. Out of all of this, I will miss Speaker Pelosi. Nancy Pelosi stood and walked lock step with President Obama and always GOT THE VOTES. She will be MISSED. Personally, I think bolder leadership is needed in the Senate, one of the most fucked up chambers in government that we the people have had to witness.
Yes, the Republicans won tonight on absolutely doing NOTHING and we lost by running away from what we did. In the end, it is, what it is. Pitiful.
p.s. On a personal note, I deal with reality, facts not fantasy. Everything that has happened to the Democrats is on the Democrats. They made these decisions and have to deal with the decisions they made. Who the Democratic Party wants to be is critical going forward. If they plan on bringing back that DLC noise, per kos’s diary, well they will loose millions in support. Trying to emulate a Republican will not bring you votes at the ballot box, not when the voter has a choice to vote for a real Republican. And if we have not figured THAT OUT by now, we need to continue to lose. Finally, Ed Schultz said tonight on MSNBC, "...the public option will come back to sting a lot of people..."
Looking at these results, that statement may be right.
Cross-posted @ Daily Kos
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