Well said.

The GOPers fight for all the wrong reasons, but they fight.

You read my mind.

You might want to spend more time worrying about the Democrats. Aren't they the ones you want to get elected?

Rachel will read this word for word tonight. She loves stuff like this.

Does this mean bipartisanship is dead?

Josh TPM is saying Obama has thrown in the towel.

Precisely. Republican's fight. They fight hard. They take setbacks as a challenge and keep fighting. Say what you will about right-wing religious nuts, they play the ground game well. They spent years (going back to the 70s) building up canidates from school boards to local elections. They were PATIENT they were ruthless and they FOUGHT.

Until progressives display the same ability they will continue to lose when in counts and the Democratic party will continue to be run by the likes of Reid et al.

I have said many times. I believe in the polices the Democratic party stands for. I just don't believe in the ability of Democrats to implement those policies.

First of all, this "analysis" is short sighted: if you see a trend over time, it should be more than the past ten years or so.

Second, over that time frame, your examples undermine your point: apparently Republicans ignore setbacks, take additional wrong-headed actions... and then lose again. So... isn't the lesson for Dems "don't do that."

But I think the point here is many of us just don't take the long view. Over time, Democrats have made gains by slowly, and steadily, building support and listening to voters. The Republicans have lost ground, over time, not doing that. In the long view, you can take a loss and move on. With a short view, though, I think those Republican choices are apparent: do something... or you may lose again. And of course, by that logic... you will.

And..the Republicans are very good at making up their own reality. That said, it still doesn't mean the Democrats don't need to get their sh*t together.

It's 2010 and we're still searching for a stiff spine among the Dems! The voters give them a majority in both the house and the senate, and they're still acting like the minority.

This has to be the most embarrassing display of political cowardice and incompetence I've ever had the misfortune to witness. Of course, I still think the MA voters should be ashamed of themselves for honoring Kennedy's death by destroying his legacy.

America has two choices:

Allow the ideological, Dick-Cheney, go-f*@#-yourself, bully party to starve the government to death and create the worst depression the country has ever faced

OR

Let the paranoid, weak-kneed, gutless party run the country while taking their marching orders from the aforementioned bully party.

Could the next earthquake hit D.C., please? We need to start over with a clean slate.

Midterms are going to suck. Dems don't deserve to lead any more than Repubs do.

It is so disheartening.

You forgot to add that in the 2010 special election, it was clear that the primary reason for losing the election was an inept candidate and campaign and Obama's approval rating is 60%. But that doesn't stop the media and dems from blaming it on Obama's agenda.

Cliff's Notes: Republicans are sure of their own moral goodness and see election losses as the public failing to get in line with what needs to be done. Democrats are unsure of anything except that life is really scary, so election losses are one more chance to act like Republicans and hope people forget that they can vote for the real thing.

Is it me, or is there a difference between the way the two parties handle setbacks?

Republicans hit the mattresses while Dems hide under the bed.

Democrat leaders are pussies. Democrat voters prefer opposition.

@weboy on January 20, 2010 at 2:33 PM

In a vacuum where the only thing that matters is accumulation of seats over time, you're right. The Republicans lost a lot of seats from 1994 to 2008.

But meanwhile, during that time they managed to push forward huge pieces of their agenda: sizable tax cuts for the wealthy and for corporations, a war against Iraq the neocons had been trying to make reality, legitimization of the police state and of torture in public opinion.

Unless you think the Dems can just keep winning seats until they have even more crushing majorities and then get something done, you really have to consider the object of the game. Of course for Democrats the object is apparently to get re-elected rather than to accomplish anything, so in that sense you're correct that they're mostly successful. Up to 2008.

You might want to spend more time worrying about the Democrats. Aren't they the ones you want to get elected?

So, you don't understand the point of the article, then?

Republicans handle setbacks by refusing to acknowledge they exist, by broadcasting an alternate narrative as if it were reality and by breathlessly (and loudly) welcoming every development as "good news for Republicans". Everybody else - except, apparently, the readers of this blog - is too stupid to sidestep getting shafted over and over until their asshole is as big as the mouth of a paper cup.

On another note: not to excuse Massachusetts voters, who I still think are as thick as a Vermont pine stump, but I saw a novel viewpoint in a comment on WaPo that I haven't noticed anywhere else. It suggested Mass voters were disillusioned with Coakley (as much as for any other reason) by the thought that as a Democratic incumbent, they'd be stuck with her for 20 years. By way of contrast, Cosmoboy can be kicked to the curb almost before his chair gets warm.

It's still not great reasoning, but at least it's something I can understand.

@Mark: FWIW, I've seen that a few places. If it contains even a scintilla of truth, it suggests that the process is so ossified that people are more concerned with breaking up the ossification than with policy.

(I lived in MA for 10 years and believe that statement to contain more than a scintilla of truth.)

Public perceptions that Democrats don't have what it takes to defend the country are not based on false impressions of how Democrats fight actual wars. They are based on accurate impressions of how Democrats govern.

There is a good sized chunk of the Democratic caucus (I'm looking at you, Evan Bayh!) which has built political cowardice into a guiding philosophy -- for Democrats only. With a little help from the David Broders of the world, of course.

You might want to spend more time worrying about the Democrats. Aren't they the ones you want to get elected?

So, you don't understand the point of the article, then?

I got it but could care less. My point is screaming republicans bad isn't going to get more Dems elected.

I hate to say it; but based on the first year 'Obambi' was an appropriate moniker. Time for Barack to stop pontificating and triangulating and start leading the populist progressive change he campaigned on.

May already be too late. If he turns further to the right he will already be a lame duck after this Fall's elections - if he isn't one already...

I am having a 'fuck the democrat party' day today!

Taking health care as an example:
- The only truly rational thing to do from a cost savings and health improvement perspective is a single payer system
- 70% of the public wants a public option
- The dumbocraps do not even put single payer on the table
- The dumbocraps remove the public option which has overwhelming support from the public
- Progressives who protest are told to STFU
- The dumbocraps turn 'health care reform' into another corporate welfare fiasco

Taking the election in Massachusetts yesterday:
- The dumbocrap candidate runs an awful, uninspiring campaign
- The dumbocrap candidate runs as a DINO/DLC/rethug-lite
- The dumbocrap candidate loses
- The rethugs declare it a mandate that Obama has been rejected
- The dumbocraps declare it a mandate that Obama has been rejected
- The democrats who have been elected in the last year's special elections have done so by mostly running as democrats and NOT as DLC/DINO/rethug-lites

The dumbocrap party is firmly in the control of the DLC/DINO/rethug-lites who are just as corporately owned as the rethugs. Too many of them are of the Evan Bayh type who are only really good at lining their own pockets. This fall, I will vote for whichever rethug is on the ballot against Bayh! Fuck Bayh! Fuck the dumbocrap party.

For real change in 2012: Support Feingold & Sanders - possibly the only progressives in the U.S. Senate.

I got it but could care less. My point is screaming republicans bad isn't going to get more Dems elected.

Ok, so you didn't understand the article. Because that was absolutely not the point.

If the Democrats give up now, they will deserve the shellacking they are going to get in November. The Republicans will run primarily on the issue that Democrats are ineffective and can never get anything done anyway. I abhor everything the Republicans stand for, but at least they do stand.

This is probably a fair point to point out that with electoral reform (such as instant runoff voting) at least many of us disenchanted with the Democrats would be free to vote our consciences in a general election. We might vote someone with a spine 1st, the spineless Democrat 2nd, and never vote for the lunatic Republican. Even if the spineless Dem won, our 1st choice vote would express our feelings quite clearly.

In the present system, the only way to improve things is primary challengers -- which means you have to convince centrists that the better candidates can win general elections. Then if the spineless Dem wins the primary, you have to either vote for them or stay home and help the lunatic Republican win.

"I am a member of no organized political party; I am a Democrat." * Will Rogers said this in 1935, + it rings just as true today.

-Z

Shorter Benen: Republicans act with arrogant disregard for voter sentiment regardless of election results, until it leads to utter disaster; Democrats should do the same.

Nothing conveys weakness like running for the hills at the first sign of trouble.

Word.

@David in Nashville and weboy:

Don't you think there's some middle ground between running your party off the ideological cliff and not having any core values worth standing up for in the face of adversity?

I grant that Benen didn't explicitly make the point about a middle ground, but I would have thought it's pretty obvious.

Dems always exude the stench of shame. They are ashamed of what the party traditionally stood for, ashamed of not being hawkish enough, too soft on crime/terrorists/or any current booga-booga. Nothing repels like the odor of shame. It stirs up basic anxieties people have of powerlessness and childhood humiliation. Voters will ALWAYS flee a candidate or party that is shame-bound, even if the alternate is clearly unfit. Until Demons stop apologizing for living, they will lose.

Correction above: "Dems" not "Demons"!

The republicans have the momentum for the simple reason that their message is government sucks.

The democrats, who come across as cajoneless wonks, don't seem to get that their ineffectual leadership actually reinforces the republican mantra of less government.

As a result, Massafuckuallchoosits.

The way forward?

There is none.

You can't win a mandate from the people and blow it in less than a year and still believe in changing anything.

The solution?

Work outside the system. Grassroots. Help your neighbor. The political process is poisoned beyond redemption.

Why on earth should elections cost so much anyway?

Demoncrats. Repugnacans. Both fictionless representatives of anybody except special interests.

Re: the Coakley loss, I think two things can be said:

1) She was a *miserable* candidate. More accurately, she ran a miserable campaign. After the primary, she seemingly went into hiding, acting as if the race was hers to lose. Meanwhile, Brown went out and promoted his own name + an anti-DC message, and that resonated. In short, it was the Dem's race to lose, + she lost it.

2) The national party didn't seem to realize the danger until it was far too late. The DNCC's role should have been to enter MA + begin promoting their candidate heavily the moment the primary ended. Instead, they also sat on their duffs along w/Coakley, waiting until literally the last week to send in the President to make a campaign stop. Now, not only have they lost what should have been a safely Democratic seat, they made both the party and their President look weak. A veritable Republican trifecta.

-Z

New bumper sticker:

DON'T BLAME ME, I'M FROM MASSAJESUSFUCKINGCHRIST!

While Benen is right on the facts and election outcomes I don't think that is truly what is happening.

The difference is that the GOP works for corporate interests, thus whether they have a majority or not they can push through their political agenda BECAUSE those same corporate interests own Democrats who have to vote with the corporate agenda or risk not being elected.

Only the public & politically naive thinks that by changing the majority political party they can create change. NOPE...they have to generate an entirely different financial environment of who will be funded to get elected based on a non-corporate agenda.

Otherwise, no matter what party has the 'partisian majority' ...corporate wins.

Dems are not running for the hills...corporate interests have them by the balls!

Josh TPM is saying Obama has thrown in the towel.

Josh didn't say that at all.

Elephants had been used as war "machines" since, like, forever. Donkeys had been nothing but the beasts of burden for about the same amount of time. Plus, elephants have very thick skins; only the sharpest of goads can prod them enough to react. Donkeys, OTOH, can get all crazed by a fly bite.

In conclusion: while our philosophy is right, we have picked the wrong mascot to represent us. And then proceeded to live up to the image.

You inspired me to mail Nancy P!
Madam Speaker
Please play ping-pong and then use Budget Reconciliation.

We are one roll call vote away in the chamber you so ably lead from a game changing event in American life. Please get this done by the State of the Union. I await with baited breath the images of you, Madam Speaker, and Vice-President Biden sitting behind President Obama as he delivers a speech that will go down in American history with FDR’s “Four Freedoms” and JFK’s “ask what you can do for your country.”

I can scarcely imagine the pride you will feel when you bang that meeting to order.

The Democrats are still the party of George McClellan.

Joyzeeboy; I hope you didn't actually say, "with baited breath". It's "bated", as in withheld or held back. Breath that smells like bait is just,...well, you know.

But your ghostwritten speech was otherwise inspiring.

Well said.

Karen, in a coment upthread, nailed it. The Democrats reek of shame.

Or, as I would put it, the Democrats are a bunch of pathetic pussies and that is why they keep getting their asses handed to them. Until they can focus on some core principles --AND NOT BE ASHAMED OF DOING SO -- they will keep on losing. Pathetic.