Every silver lining has a cloud-- Maloney celebrated his narrow win by voting for Keystone XL yesterdayHere at DWT we did our Democratic Party silver-lining post on Thursday-- a celebration at the long overdue political demise of clueless Ohio Blue Dog type, Chris Redfern.
Now it's the Beltway Democrats' turn for an autopsy. Early indications are that they are in such a state of denial that the whole exercise will probably prove as pointless as the one the GOP did after they had their asses kicked by the electorate in 2012.
A Member of Congress, a strong, active, unambiguous progressive who sailed to victory Tuesday, called me complaining about Pelosi's tele-caucus meeting the other day. The Democrats, Pelosi said, did badly in the election because-- wait for it-- turnout was bad. It was bad... something like only 36.6% of registered voters went to the polls. But that in itself doesn't explain why the Democrats did poorly, nor why Republicans did well.
Many of the Democrats who lost their seats-- or nearly lost their seats-- Tuesday had nothing to offer voters, which helps explain why voters stayed away. DCCC Chair Steve Israel had a purposeful "mystery meat" strategy for his collection of lousy candidates-- almost all of whom lost. That excuse for a strategy calls for candidates to say nothing controversial that might make someone (like a Republican) not want to vote for them.
by Gaius Publius There will be much analysis of the 2014 election (including here), but I want to add a few preliminary notes of my own.1. DC insiders and corporatists have increased their hold over the House and the Senate. It took a joint, bipartisan effort, but the effort paid off on election day.
New Jersey voters are sending an African-American woman to Congress-- for the first timeYesterday, Limbaugh said that Republicans were elected "to stop the Democrats. Republicans were not elected to govern." Democrats, on the other hand, are elected to govern.
With a very few exceptions, it was congressmen from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- the Wall Street whores who fight alongside the Republicans against working families-- who got the short end of the stick Tuesday. Strong progressives in both Houses tended to win.
As we mentioned yesterday, election day was bad for the Republican wing of the Democratic Party.
