Big review set by Democrats after election losses

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By KEN THOMAS

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats are planning an extensive review of what went wrong in the 2014 and 2010 elections, hoping to find ways to translate success in presidential campaigns into future midterm contests.

A party committee will conduct a "top-to-bottom assessment" of the Democrats' performance in recent midterm elections and try to determine why they have struggled to turn out its core voters in nonpresidential elections.

"It's apparent that there are increasingly two separate electorates: a midterm electorate and a presidential electorate. We win one and we don't seem to be able to win the other," said Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who leads the Democratic National Committee, in an interview Saturday. "That is a fundamental dynamic that we have to change."

Democrats suffered heavy losses in last week's elections, ceding Senate control to the Republicans and surrendering more seats in the already GOP-majority House as Republicans ran against an unpopular President Barack Obama.

FULL story at link.



FILE - In this Aug. 26, 2014 file photo, Democratic National Committee Chairwoman, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla. speaks to the news media in Weston, Fla. Democrats plan to conduct an extensive review of what went wrong in the 2014 and 2010 elections, seeking to find ways to translate success in presidential campaigns into future midterm contests. Wasserman Schultz said Saturday the party will be forming a committee in the coming weeks to conduct a "top-to-bottom assessment" of the party's performance in recent midterm elections. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20141108/us--democrats-f36fd41e50.html

[Lochloosa]

1. How about running as a fucking Democrat next time

[dflprincess]

19. Exactly

Though I'm sure at the end of the "review" the conclusion will be "we must move right".

[RufusTFirefly]

24. We need to raise even more money from Wall Street and large corporate donors

[Android3.14]

2. Bullshit.

The party must evolve. It's time for the leaders, all the way to the Oval Office, to get their senile cowardly ineffectual asses out of their chairs and let someone else show us the way.

[Chemisse]

3. Good! I really blame the Democratic Party's lack of a positive message for all this.

There were many great things that could be said about Obama and the last six years. Nobody said them during the election season, and nobody says them between elections.

For example, I saw a tiny blurb somewhere recently about hospitals saving money due to Obamacare. And that's it. Dems should have been shouting this from the rooftops!!! And that is but a minute example of the many accomplishments and improvements over the past 6 years.

[silvershadow]

4. Here is my review:

Fire DWS. Bring back Dr. Dean. Continue the progressive agenda that won us big in 08 and 12. Marginalize the third way. And organize.

[Plucketeer]

15. Thanks for saving me keystrokes

From the White House on down..... we need to stop running GOP LITE folks! I'm STILL in disbelief that the president kept on SO MANY of Bush's henchmen when Bush went away. WTF??? Dipshit Debbie has to be the FIRST to hand in her resignation. Surely she can find a job with the GOP.

[blkmusclmachine]

28. The only practical explanation is that this is what the DEMS are being PAID to do...LOSE!

And keep going to the Right.

The kabuki charade is over...

2 Parties owned by the 1%

[mazzarro]

29. +100% - I absolutely share that sentiment too!

This is all window dressing, for all I care! The Third Way/DLC folks have death-grip on the Democratic Party and they are not going to give that up anytime soon judging by all the money they are getting from their masters.

[INdemo]

5. Ask US DNC

First of all fire Debbie Schultz and stop running Republicans.

[PSPS]

6. Note: "I'm just like the other guy, just less racist" doesn't motivate voters to vote.

Actually, I'm sure they realize this and this "postmortem" is merely more theater just like the GOP's "postmortem" was two years ago. Meanwhile, while fulfilling the media's need for a story arc to plausibly fill their propaganda machine, they all continue their real work of deindustrializaing and selling off what's left of the country, safe in the knowledge that they have their own millions of dollars in "campaign contributions" to keep them secure.

[OldRedneck]

7. Here's my plan

1. Fire Schultz.
2. Bring back Howard Dean and the 50-state campaign.
3. Require every Democratic Party official to attend a seminar on FDR and LBJ.
4. Purge the Blue Dogs.
5. ACT LIKE DEMOCRATS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[yurbud]

17. Remember how all the DLCers shit on Dean for the 50-state strategy?

and firing him was one of Obama's first orders of business, so Democrats didn't risk getting a supermajority, which would give them no excuse to agree with the Republicans.

[KoKo]

20. His campaign and the "Meet Ups" gave us in the 50 States a way

for the first time to Hook Up with diverse people over politics and political causes that we hadn't had before. American isn't that cohesive Small Town Atmosphere it was long ago. Many of us move for jobs and live in circumstances where we have little in common with our neighbors or friends or even at work these days.

Dean Meet Ups and those Videos/Phone Call In's got us energized to go outside our neighborhoods to meet others where we had a common cause....Dem Politics was really getting into shape with this new approach.

We Progressives both Dean and Kucinich Activists got together and started to build a Progressive Dem Party in our State.......and we did great... We couldn't get our State to go for Kerry but for Obama in 2008 we were the only Southern State to go for Obama in 2008. By 2012....our Progressive Group was starting to fall apart. No input from the DNC and Howard Dean was long gone. The Housing Crash and Unemployment had taken hold and our thriving State fell on hard times. There wasn't any action here from DNC and from our State Dems (John Edwards Scandal hurt us) and some other local scandals nothing to do with Progressives.

So...here we are with 2014 MidTerms...losing our only Dem Senator and with a Repub House and Senate and Governor.

[yurbud]

25. 2004 should have been a wake up call about the Democratic Party

Howard Dean was no far lefty, but neither was he pre-approved by the financial elite to be the Democratic Party front runner, which scared the shit out of the establishment.

Instead we got John Kerry, an insider who fit the right wing caricature of what a Democrat is.

[jaysunb]

8. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz should resign 3 days ago.n/t

[Warren DeMontague]

11. Yep

Nice going, Debbie.

[bucolic_frolic]

9. Flawed Premise #1 Will Cloud Their Feeble Minds Probably Permanently

'increasingly two separate electorates: a midterm electorate and a presidential electorate.'

No, there are two separate MESSAGES: Hope and Change vs. Republican-Lite

The presidential years are led by promise, vision, eloquence, issues for ordinary people

All other times they are corporate Democrats.

[on point]

42. A solid nail this one. Spot on !!!! ^^^^^ 1000+

[hopemountain]

12. how about not sending letters to spanish first or surname voters

asking for money? they had the gall to print the appeals on president obama's letterhead right after he announced breaking his promise on immigration reform. this was wrong on so many levels. i'm sure if he had reviewed the letter he would have had the sensitivity to not allow such an appeal - considering.

[jtuck004]

13. Go talk to the people you represent instead of each other. Would be more enlightening, I think.

The Lobby is open 9 to 5, and the drive through is open till 6.

[LiberalElite]

14. as long as she's in charge forget it nt

[Historic NY]

16. Hey Debbie invite me I come from 60+ yrs of grass root Democratic politics...

[craigmatic]

18. They should've had Obama out more even if he was unpopular. A positive message would've helped too

gas prices are down and the economy is improving. That was the message.I'll tell you one more secret- Hillary isn't that popular around the country if she couldn't help swing any election that were close.

[nlkennedy]

21. The D is for default..

The future democratic party agenda will hopefully be to bring the successes of the west coast onto the national scene.

Look who's got recreational cannabis. Mostly west coast states.

Run on optimism again. Get the youth interested in something they can understand.

[Wolf Frankula]

22. Start Sounding, Acting and Behaving Like Democrats.

NO MORE REPUBLICANS LITE! NO MORE BIPARTISAN CONSENSUS CRAP! NO MORE DEMOCRATS GETTING ELECTED AS DEMOCRATS AND GOVERNING AS REPUBLICANS! Shoot all the Get Along Gang. Let's put on the war paint, get out the elephant guns and go Gooper hunting!

Wolf

[Lochloosa]

23. Word!

[blkmusclmachine]

27. They ARE acting like Democrats

(that are being paid by the 1%).

Open your eyes, the (bi-partisan) evidence is clear.

[blkmusclmachine]

26. Smoke and mirrors.

[NBachers]

30. You know, looking at DWS gives me the same repulsive feeling as when I look at Sarah Palin

[DFW]

31. Three words:

Bring Back Howard

[woo me with science]

32. All theater. They are the ones who depressed the vote.

We misunderstand our politicians when we assume their goal is winning.

That was the old system, democracy.

In oligarchy, the goal is using the two parties you own in whichever way best furthers the corporate agenda of the oligarchy.

DCCC email campaign: "Accept defeat"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025736826

[quadrature]

33. the 2016 Democratic platform has been released. here it is....

1) Bush sucks
2) the Koch brothers are bad

[packman]

34. So the people who screwed it up

are going to analyze how they screwed it up. Sounds objective to me. I expect they'll be a lot of, "he did it, No, he did it, No, he didn't do it"

I imagine it will go something like this:

[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]

Hell, they should just let DU send them a list of recommendations.

[6000eliot]

35. Remember when the Republicans did this after their 2012 loss?

Well, they completely ignored the "lessons" they learned and still won.

[dicksmc3]

36. Get rid of Wasserman Schultz and Steve Israel

I posted last week that the dems need new leadership to take over the campaigns and the efforts to bring people out to vote in the mid-terms. Schultz and Israel don't cut it!! I certainly would think that a hard-nosed congressman like Alan Grayson and a Progressive Senator like Sherrod Brown would be a good duo to help dems get elected once again. Grayson certainly could counter all the Fix news people like Crybaby Wallace and the others who lie so much they should be called RUGS!!! Howard Dean and his 50 state initiative should be used again. I think we definitely need more than one candidate. Hillary is losing her charm and perhaps her likability is over rated. She's waiting too long to declare her aspirations for Commander-in-chief. Perhaps Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders, even though he's an independent, would give us more life in the coming campaign. One thing for sure, the country did vote for PROGRESSIVE IDEAS and the dems need to pick up on that theme. So, let's get the e-mails and twitters and facebooks out to the dems who actually ran good campaigns and follow through with others in our party that will do the same. But, it all starts with good leadership. Something we don't have right now..

[johnfunk]

37. Israel is out - we need a 50 state strategy supported heading DCCC

That is all.

[Cal33]

38. It would be nice if their final recommendation will be that 95% of them should resign, and they

would see to it that real Progressive Democrats would take their places first

[NHDEMFORLIFE]

39. It'd be even better if they just got the hell out NOW!

Of course, they'll all need staff reports to decide which door will slam them in the ass as they exit!

[4dsc]

40. Its the centrist who are to blame

so this amounts of letting the fox investigation the chicken koop.

[on point]

41. All about marketing the con. Nothing about changing the substance and being in touch.