I listened to Michael Steele try to hit these talking points last night on Hardball. It was astonishing -- he kept saying (verbatim, as near as I can remember), "if the Democrats had their act together, we'd have health care reform by now."

I don't really believe in the notion of divine retribution, but there's got to be some serious karma coming down on his head for that little bit of disingenuos-ness.

You would think by this rift in the Republican party, that they don't actually vote unanimously on every bill. Olympia Snowe really has muddied the waters, hasn't she?

NY-23 as a numerical omen

Check out this David Plouffe clip from MTP:
"a very motivated core of about 23% of the country"

So Repugs are "emboldened" by their losses and Dems are supposed to quake in their shoes over their wins? Amazing.

Bob McDonnell wouldn't allow Sarah Palin to mention him by name in her robocalls. So Virginians got an impassioned plea to "vote our (ie her) values" the night before the election.

Sarah may have been the kiss of death in NY-23. McDonnell pegged her correctly.

The extreme in the present days busy busy noise makery , the untouchable by any length extention , seems to be the vast middle American majority .
Itz a wide generation conspiracy

Of course if the Dems had their act together, we would have HCR by now.

It's probably the only truthful thing Steele has said in 8 years.

If Dems do nothing in Congress, have nothing to run on, the GOP split will mean nothing.

They'll win just by being the other guy.

We need to pass some bills that help people and we've got about six months to do it in.

No matter how divided the right wing may be that's the least of their problems. Right now the Chambers of Congress and the insurance lobby are running NON-STOP campaign ads here in Denver against Betsy Markey (D) (Colo-04). "Tell Betsey Markey to vote no on health care."

And the Chambers of Commerce are running ads attacking "tax increases" that will "stiffle business."

All this, one YEAR from the election. The right-wing HAS got it together right now. Our side is wadling around like a duck stunned by hitting it on the head.

And don't kid yourself that Democrats aren't going to waffle and waiver in the face of this kind of sustained attack. They know that if they stand strong for a tax increase on business they'll get hammered by the business lobby.

That is exactly what's wrong with the political system. You can't fix anything without stepping on the toes of entrenched corporate interests -- and if you do they spend tens of millions of $ in campaign ads to defeat you.

The lesson politicians learn is NOT to do anything that will piss these people off because they have LARGE checkbooks.

I'm amazed that they can run these kind of campaigns when there's not even an election for an entire year!

You realize that today's "Democrats" are to the right of Richard Nixon?

Imagine trying to get the EPA off the ground in today's political climate.

More better Dems, please.

Howie wrote:

Of course if the Dems had their act together, we would have HCR by now.

Absolutely true. I was just amazed to hear that argument being made by Michael Steele, insinuating that he and the RNC is just are disappointed as the rest of us.

My nephew has a saying, when someone gets caught doing something not just bad, but really, egregiously, unnecessarily, comically bad, that they're "on the Hell Express." If there's an equivalent to the Hell Express for political spin, I think Michael Steele just bought his ticket.

You've gotta give Steele this much -- he promised he'd be "off the hook," and he has certainly delivered on that.

I'm with Howie.

If the Democrats in congress can't accomplish anything, then why they hell are they taking up space there. Just because the Republicans are having problems that may keep them out of power does not relieve the Democrats from having to accomplish anything. Winning elections shouldn't be the goal. Winning elections so you can do some good for the country is the goal.

Obama may have made a few misteps, but it is Congress's inability to accomplish any of his adjenda (short of throwing money at banks and failed companies) that is going to sink his presidency.

If they keep it up, we may be headed for our own Party split.

The Republicans are fracturing, as shown in NY23 (and Hexagram 23!) but the media whores like Dana Milbank keep jerking off Republican pricks about: a VA Governor's race where a Repub won in a purple, conservative-leaning state that often falls to the opposition party; and the loss in NJ of a Goldman-sacks guy who was seen as corrupt and not "very liberal". Then the MSM mostly buried the Republican loss of NY23 and another Dem pickup in the House. (And there were some minor pickups like Charlotte NC Mayor.)

There are two things to keep mind here I think:

1. The democrats remain as capable of corruption as the repubicans and will become more corrupt the more power they gain. No amount of republican stupidity will necessarily make the democrats pass better legislation. This is not an argument in favor of republicans, just the nature of our political system.

2. I agree that the republican slide toward the "wingnuts" will marginalize them further, on the assumption that the economy continues to improve and their are no serious terror attacks against the American mainland. However, in the event of a serious economic downturn, very much a possibility, or a serious terrorist attack, the electorate will flee from incumbents and likely embrace those offering simple forceful solutions: the Far Right, currently.

The fact that one of the major political parties is behaving insanely is not a good thing. Always remember that the number of people listening to conservative talk radio and watching Fox News dwarfs the number of people reading this blog or watching Rachel Maddow. It is necessary to find some way to engage these people in a real conversation, or there will always be a political time bomb ready to explode at the next disaster.

All the points you've made about the Democrats being blithering idiots are true...but they were true yesterday and they'll be true tomorrow. I'm not any more or less worried about the Democrats than I was a month before this piddlin' ass little election.
If I were the GOP, however, I'd be furiously tugging on the door handle and trying to jump out of the car as El Rushbo and Sarah Barracuda drive it off the cliff.

I think this is fairly stupid. It's pretty clear that these "legislative" divisions are just cover for ideological divisions. The people who want to go it slow don't merely think thats the best way to obtain liberal goals, they actually want to prevent liberal goals from being obtained.

Blanche Lincon isn't just "disagreeing" with us legislatively, she actually doesn't want any serious healthcare reforms.

I sure hope the teabaggers are succuessful. A big part of the Democrats' success in Virginia over the past five years or so was the growth of a fanatical anti-tax wing of the state Republican party that primaried Republicans who voted for any tax increase (even if it was part of a package that decreased other taxes.) The Republican ticket that was successful on Tuesday explicitly ran as moderates, hiding their strong social-conservative backgrounds and past actions. If the teabaggers prevent other Republicans from doing the same, it will be good news for us.