Democrats and Democratic leaders caused this defeat

[Vietnameravet]

You want to blame someone for last nights debacle you can start with the highly paid professional politicians and their equally highly paid and cowardly advisers

A few short years ago it was confidently predicted on this site that the Republican party was finished. Dinosaurs. Now they control both houses. Why?

Remember when Bush was "selected" to be president and how little Gore fought? Remember how everyone predicted Bush would "move the middle?" Why he just had to!

Notice the appeasing tone Democrats, including Obama, have struck over years. How did that work out?

How many times have I heard on TV or the radio or read in the newspapers about Democrats refusing to campaign with Obama? It's the final act in a long show of pathetic pandering.

Ask yourself, who would vote for someone who says. " I am a Democrat and I helped elect President Obama but I will not say if I voted for him and I don't want to be seen with him either." That sends a message to voters that the Republicans are eager to repeat.

A large reason for Obama's unpopularity is that for the past six years Democrats have been to busy trying to "reach across the isle' to those that openly stated they want Obama to fail and their main goal was to prevent him from getting a second term and they would make Obamacare his Waterloo. They never put up much of a defense and there was no offense that I could see. Now and then the President or some Democrat would make a speech or take a stand only to be accused of being divisive??!!

Even after that first debate with Romney there were plenty of those that thought the President did just fine..dont want to show an angry black man as that might incite the right wing base! Luckily that bit of nonsense was discarded but unfortunately surrender and appeasement have been the order of the day among Democrats for far too long.

If Republicans are down five points in the polls they think. "If we can gain a few points we can win" And they fight. Democrats think, "We better soften our stand and move toward the right to appease the voters. Otherwise we will lose. Don't want to be called ' Radical Leftist' because we want clean water!"

Just look at the health care debate in which Democrats continually moved to appease those that clearly said they had no intention of cooperating and all to what? Now they say we never worked with them!

Howard Dean was right in saying Democrats need backbone.

And this article says it better than i ever could..

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/11/05/1342159/-Team-Obama-sowed-the-roots-of-its-own-demise

This is a fine article written by a professional writer and not an amateur like me and I strongly urge everyone to read it.

It's those high paid professional establishment politicians that have caused this and if we have any sense we will take a lesson from the TEA party and demand change within the Democratic party just as they have demanded change within the Republicans. Only when they fear us like the Republicans fear the TEA party will they stop taking us for granted and start fighting for what we believe in instead of taking us for granted and then wondering why the base doesnt show up on election day.

Meanwhile if you still dont think we have done anything wrong remember, Mitch McConnell is now Senate Majority Leader and John Boehner is head of the House. How long before we clean house in the DNC?

[still_one]

1. everything you say it accurate, however, it still comes down to the people

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

2. Here's where this writer is naive and wrong...

Quote: A large reason for Obama's unpopularity is that for the past six years Democrats have been to busy trying to "reach across the isle' to those that openly stated they want Obama to fail and their main goal was to prevent him from getting a second term and they would make Obamacare his Waterloo. They never put up much of a defense and there was no offense that I could see. Now and then the President or some Democrat would make a speech or take a stand only to be accused of being divisive??!!

Response: The problem is two-fold...

1. With Americans - the age-old double standard: Democrats are expected to govern while Republicans are expected to play politics. Because Americans expect Democrats to govern, they often are forced to be bipartisan. Not only that--the Democratic Party is ideologically diverse. Sorry. It's not purely liberal. For as much as you like to put Howard Dean on a pedestal, the 50 State Strategy gave us liberal, moderate, and conservative Democrats! The Democratic president has to work with ALL people, not just Republicans who promised to obstruct him; he also has to deal with the fact that conservative and sometimes moderate Democrats side with Republicans. And there have been examples of this happening during Obama's tenure.

2. With the media and control over the message - Do Democrats have a messaging problem. Yes, but it's not all their fault. One, because the party is diverse and there are too many competing issues and concerns, it is very difficult for the party to speak with ONE voice. Two, the corporate media is entrenched. The media simply does not cover Democrats when they ARE on message and when they DO give speeches and town halls. There has been virtually no coverage of Obama's campaigning for other Democrats. No coverage of Democrats' weekly addresses. No coverage at all on the Democrats. But the media has spent months--even the last 6 years parroting Republican talking points and narratives. Any time a Democrat does speak up, he/she is accused of partisanship. As Chuck Todd told all of us--it's not his responsibility to correct the record. That is 100% clear that that's how the majority of the corporate media sees things.

[frazzled]

3. "reach across the isle"?

How do they get there--by boat?

Look, the Republicans won because, for a change, they managed to get their candidates to "moderate" (this has been stated overtly). Gosh, in my state, billionaire Bruce Rauner won by pretending he even supports raising the minimum wage--despite the fact that he specifically opposed it just months earlier.

Right now, or at least as soon as they get over their giddiness, "professional writers" at Free Republic will be slamming their new senators for being too centrist and accommodating.

I'm done with this analysis game.