The Primary Reason Democrats Were Defeated in Last Election

[kentuck]

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. 2, 5, 6, & 7

[kentuck]

2. I have thought about this...

and I believe a lot of voters were very fearful after eight years of George W Bush. Many of them were very concerned about the national debt and the huge deficits. In my opinion, that was the primary motivation behind the creation of the Tea Party movement.

It sent them over the edge when Barack Obama and the Democrats attempted to pass healthcare reform and cap and trade, which was over and above an already dangerous deficit level, in their opinions. They were forced to choose between the devil they knew (Republicans) and the big spenders (Democrats) that they thought were destroying this country with more spending.

I believe this is the understated reason so many Democrats lost, even moreso than the high unemployment. Deficits do matter to the majority of voters.

[nyc 4 Biden]

3. 1 & 7. eom

[harun]

6. Yep.

[XemaSab]

4. I voted for all of the above

but I think that the democrats failed to articulate a vision, and failed to aggressively court voters. (Pandering =/= courting.)

[Tesha]

14. I bundled that under "incompetence". (NT)

[stray cat]

5. they got fewer votes from people who voted?

[Nancy Waterman]

7. Republican bullies control of the message

The GOP Lie and Demagogue Machine is very effective.

[CitizenLeft]

8. I'll go with this one + unemployment

The media pundits rarely questioned the voracity of most of the GOP lies, and just repeated them daily as if they had merit. CNN's "keeping them honest" bullshit was always biased, with an eye on making sure that everything was "balanced." Bullshit. The lies and manipulation was never balanced, and was NEVER "equal on both sides." There are nights I wanted to bust my TV hearing Anderson Cooper spout that bullshit as if it was actually truth.

Pisses me off enough to use "bullshit" 3 times in this post.

Make that 4x.

[anAustralianobserver]

15. Yes, including state-of-the-art hypnotic NLP TV-radio propaganda

NLP as in Neuro-linguistic Programming eg perceptual frame control and segueing, reptilian-brain triggering, embedded language patterns. A good example is tweety's interview with Michelle Bachmann on election night where he calls her out on it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkwTgf2pUdA

Also Bill O'Reilly's recent interview on Bill Maher, and what Rush L does every day in his first segment.

[sally cat]

9. Donations to the US Chamber of Commerce.

[AndrewP]

10. #5

This made the rest of the reasons easier for Republicant's to push.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

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[FrenchieCat]

12. Unlimited corporate donations and a manipulating media......

[Dinger]

16. Same Here (nt)

[gkhouston]

17. That, plus #5. I think with 5 alone, we could have squeaked it out, but all the

money did us in. It's no accident that people like Feingold and Grayson lost; they were targeted.

[Hippo_Tron]

20. Grayson made himself a target

He didn't just walk out onto the House floor one day and decide to call the Republican plan "Get sick and die" without thinking about the consequences first. He knew it would raise his profile, he knew that progressives would love it (and would donate to him for it), and he knew that the right put him at the top of their target list. Obviously his gambit didn't keep him in the House but maybe he would've lost by more had he not done it.

[Occam Bandage]

13. #5, and something similar to #7.

Democratic timidity and economic stagnation combined with the anti-Obama professional left to create a sense of Democratic voter apathy. If we had turnout figures like '08 or '06, we'd be looking at a much different situation.

[laugle]

18. What happened to

'bad economy?' That's a big 'other!'

[Hippo_Tron]

19. Citizens United

It's a lot easier to shape perceptions when you can outspend your opponents 5 to 1.

[FailureToCommunicate]

21. Money talks. BIG MONEY STEAMROLLS. Citizens United is the end of

democracy as we knew it...

[quakerboy]

22. 2,5,6,7,9

9: lack of leadership, lack of coherent vision, lack of expressing a strong message of any sort to the voter. And finally a lack of giving young voters any reason they find valid to show up and vote.

[old mark]

23. 1,5, 6 & 7 - The Democrats fucked up nearly everything they touched

and what they got right, they never bothered to sell to the voters.

Yes, I have SEEN various lists of Obama's many accomplishments...I have seen them HERE, but never on the MSM of for that matter anywhere else. If they felt they did something really good, why didn't they announce it, and keep selling it for the last 2 years instead of mentioning it in passing a week before the election?

Mr. Obama's administration is the most inept bunch of fucking clowns I have ever seen in office, and I have little doubt they will lose the rest of Congress and the White House to the GOP in '12.

I believe the collapse of the USA is just beginning.

mark

[Lord Magus]

24. You never saw it on the MSM becuase the MSM doesn't want it seen.

They want people to think that Obama and the Dems haven't accomplished anything.

[BlueIris]

25. I'll take racism for $200, Alex.

Before the vote, I actually thought that hostility toward Obama/Democrats about the economy was the reason. Now, I think people were more motivated by racial prejudice than economic concerns.

[boppers]

26. 9. (Other) Lack of direct honesty about their views.

The electorate can respect a person who is a clear, and consistent, fuckwad, as long as they are a clear and consistent fuckwad.

Lose the clarity, or consistency, and people don't know who they're voting for.

[craigmatic]

27. It was because they didn't have a unifying message and didn't stick together and defend their

policies.

[Lilyeye]

28. All of the above