Jed Lewison asks a simple question:

[H]ow [did] the GOP managed to capture 30% of the votes of the 37% of people who listed their top priority as increasing spending to create jobs.

Simple answer - politics is stupid. Then again, President Obama and the Democratic Congress were not promising to increase spending to create jobs. The President himself said it was time for the government to tighten its belt. So the stupidity was all around us.

Perhaps someone might figure this out by now, but people vote based on how they are doing, especially economically. The Democrats did not deliver adequate results regarding the economy. That's why they lost. As Atrios wrote:

The policy failure was about the economy and the foreclosure crisis, and the politics was the failure to recognize how deeply this mattered. No matter what people say in polls, nobody cares about the deficit or "spending," they care about whether they have any money. [. . .] I don't know how politicians lacked the self-preservation skills to recognize that if they failed to deliver on the economy they would fail, but that's what happened.

Indeed. Speaking for me only

I like this piece from The Democratic Strategist on making the debate about "What Dems Should Do" a constructive one. But I take issue with this portion:

While various elements of both the centrist and progressive wings of the party may sincerely believe that in the long run a smaller but more ideologically united party would ultimately be preferable, the present moment categorically demands a basic level of Democratic unity from every element of the coalition.

(Emphasis supplied.) This is silly. No one wants a SMALLER party. Everyone wants a larger party that adheres to the views they espouse. Ed Kilgore, one of the authors of this piece, wrote a terrific piece last December regarding the very real substantive differences on health care policy in the Democratic Party. The group whose view prevailed love that Affordable Health Care Act. The rest of us think the "reform" part of the bill is a bad joke (we like Medicaid expansion of course.) What both groups want is for MORE people to agree with them. I say let the debate go forward, with respect of course. But more importantly, with honesty. The Third Way is not an honest organization. And I won't stop saying that until The Third Way stops being dishonest. The virtue of folks like Ed Kilgore, Stan Greenberg, Ruy Texeira and William Galston (the folks behind TDS) is their ability to argue their views with respect and integrity. I don't agree with them that much on the politics, but I will defend their way of handling the debate. They are models to us all.

Speaking for me only

Short answer - nothing by Dems in the next 2 years. Getting ready for 2012, by Dems and progressives alike, should be the plan. Markos says:

What has happened has happened. I'm less interested in talking about the ways the administration screwed up, than in what they're going to do about it in preparation of 2012. First thing's first -- stop bashing the base, or the professional left, or whatever liberal boogeymen pisses them off. Fact is, people who fall in those disaffected categories -- the young, blacks, Latinos -- don't read blogs, or watch Keith Olbermann, or read Firedoglake. But they are losing their jobs and their homes, and they see Wall Street get all manners of bailouts without any of it trickling down to them. That has killed us. Make their lives better, or (since nothing will happen with Boehner in the House) at least fight to make their lives better.

This isn't about throwing a bone to the base to make them happy, it's about doing the right thing for America -- fight for jobs, fight for opportunity, fight for equality under the law. Democrats believe that government can make people's lives better, so embrace and fight for that belief. If Democrats are in it to protect Goldman Sachs, they might as well flip to the other team.

(Emphasis supplied.) The next two years can't produce anything worthwhile in terms of policy (unless Obama decides to use the HAMP money for a HOLC.) Markos is right. Progress won't happen in the next two years. But avoiding exacerbating the problem is an attainable goal. And setting up the fight for what to do after 2012 is a must. The truth is Obama and the Dems probably won't do anything right in the next 2 years or 10, imo. But we can hope they do. In the meantime, progressives need to fight to shape the Dem Party. To me, that means fighting to get candidates who will fight for the right thing in 2012. Don't expect anything on policy in the next 2 years.

Speaking for me only

Kevin Drum writes:

Lots of Democrats, including me, have been pointing out that structural factors alone predicted a 45-seat loss in the House this year. In other words, the bulk of the expected Democratic losses weren't due to healthcare reform or Obama's remoteness or liberal overreach or anything like that. It was baked into the cake all along. But the model I wrote about, which comes from Douglas Hibbs, only predicted a 45-seat loss, and it looks like Dems are likely to lose at least 60 seats. That means Democrats underperformed the Hibbs model by 15 seats or so, which is a record for them. [. . .] It really does look like there's a fair amount of scope to place a lot of the blame for tonight's Democratic debacle on both tactical and policy missteps.

I think that the model Drum relied upon is flawed in that our economic statistics understate the level of misery in the country. I could point to tactical and strategic political errors that exacerbated the result a bit, but I really think almost all of the result is due to the economy. That means to me, "policy missteps." Governing well is the best way to win elections. The Obama Administration and the Democratic Congress simply were not good enough on economic policy. The "bums" were thrown out. Of course the old bums were reinstalled. And catastrophe is what we can expect. But that's how elections work. You throw out the bums you have, even if it means bringing back the old bums.

Speaking for me only

In a fairly banal and not as bad as I expected Op-Ed, Evan Bayh pleases the Beltway with this line:

[Dems]were too deferential to our most zealous supporters. During election season, Congress sought to placate those on the extreme left and motivate the base — but that meant that our final efforts before the election focused on trying to allow gays in the military, change our immigration system and repeal the George W. Bush-era tax cuts. These are legitimate issues but unlikely to resonate with moderate swing voters in a season of economic discontent.

(Emphasis supplied.) There are two interesting points about this passage. First Bayh is arguing that motivating your base during election season is bad politics. Instead persuading "moderate swing voters" is the way to go. I think that's wrong, but it is an argument. Second, Bayh seems to not see a connection between governing performance and electoral results. He thinks it is all about appearances. That is just plain stupid. And of course, with regard to "placating those on the extreme left," Paul Krugman says it best:

So, we’re already getting the expected punditry: Obama needs to end his leftist policies, which consist of … well, there weren’t any, but he should stop them anyway.

Anyway, Evan Bayh is running for President in 2016. Hillary Clinton can stop him though.

Speaking for me only

A historic loss for the Democrats last night creates opportunities for progressives around the country. Now more than ever, the primary process should give progressive candidates chances to capture Democratic nominations around the country.

While the Beltway and The Third Way will argue that Democrats need to run moderate Republicans as their candidates in the next election, the reality is the Beltway and The Third Way can no longer get a single person elected in a Democratic (or Republican, for that matter) primary.The era of the smoke filled room is over.

Progressives can be the change they are looking for. But they need to start now. And they need to focus on Dem primaries for House seats.

As Rahm Emanuel said, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. Progressives should not waste this one.

Speaking for me only

Though I won't do my official prediction until this afternoon, let's assume for the moment that the GOP sweeps the House and just misses on the Senate, as Matt Yglesias does here. I agree with Yglesias that the interesting upshot of this will be the irrelevance of "moderates" and Democrats in the Congress. Yglesias writes:

[E]gomaniacal senate moderates will be frustrated to discover that the legislative process now consists primarily of negotiations between Barack Obama and the House GOP.

Why? Because unlike the progressives in the House, the hard line GOP House members will not compromise (even if Boehner wants them too.) The test President Obama will face is immense. In many ways, bigger than the test faced by President Clinton in 1995. Gingrich was raring for a fight, but he had the control. Once Gingrich was broken, Clinton could make deals. Breaking Boehner won't lead to the same result. The crazies are in charge of the GOP asylum. Of course 1995 ended in government shutdowns. Does Obama have the stomach for that type of fight? How does that type of fight end? We live in interesting times.

Speaking for me only

Via Atrios, Dean Baker on Applebees' David Brooks:

[Brooks:]"the public's real anxiety is about values, not economics: the gnawing sense that Americans have become debt-addicted and self-indulgent."

This is really priceless. There are more than 25 million people unemployed, underemployed or who have given up looking for work altogether, but they are not concerned about economics. They are worried about values.

Sadly, this attitude is not limited to conservatives like Brooks. Too many "elite" progressive pundits also have this world view. They argue that since President Obama shares "progressive values" (set aside the question if that is actually true), progressives are crazy for not being enthused about Obama and the Dems. In the world of elites, the little people should be happy when THEY are happy. Life does not work that way.

Speaking for me only

Will Republican control of th House (and maybe the Senate) lead to catastrophe? Paul Krugman says yes:

[The] era of partial cooperation in the 1990s came only after Republicans had tried all-out confrontation, actually shutting down the federal government in an effort to force President Bill Clinton to give in to their demands for big cuts in Medicare. [. . . T]he lesson current Republicans seem to have drawn from 1995 isn’t that they were too confrontational, it’s that they weren’t confrontational enough.

Will President Obama show the same resolve? It's an open question I think. This is crucial for, as Krugman points out, the policy challenges, especially on the economy, are much more daunting now:

As a Centrist, it disturbs me that right wing organizations like The Third Way are trying to misappropriate my label. In a memo to Congress (why does Third Way write memos to Congress? To be able to leak it to The New York Times), The Third Way writes:

Both politically and substantively, liberals need moderates. By rejecting the big-tent coalition that brought them power in the first place, the only things Democrats will accomplish are permanent minority status and the frustration of their legislative priorities. Here are three reasons liberals need moderates:

1. Liberal members need the votes of moderate colleagues to make legislative progress.
2. Liberal members need moderate voters to win and keep their seats.
3. Liberals need moderates — from both parties — to forge good policy.

The first two "reasons" are about labels and ridiculous. "Moderate" is a meaningless term (Pssst, so is my preferred term "centrist.") Here is an idea - how about we start calling progressives moderates. Then we'll win! And in fact, that is precisely what I have argued for for years:

It's 3rd and long for the Democrats and some are already planning the 4th down play, punt:

With the enemy at the gates, and facing heavy casualties, Democrats in Congress are preparing to do what any beleaguered army does: head for the hills and leave booby-traps behind. The bigger the margin Republicans pile up next Tuesday, the less likely it is that the Democrats will be able to - or want to - do much when Congress reconvenes for a lame-duck session on November 15.

[. . .] Come January, the new Tea Party-infused GOP then would have to quickly confront the real-world consequences of its tax-cutting, budget-cutting, debt-reducing, anti-government rhetoric. "Some of our liberals are arguing that we have to do what we can in the lame-duck if it's going to be our last chance, but that is unrealistic if the numbers next week are bad," a top Democratic aide told me. "If we lose big, we'll punt. We'll have to."

Sounds like a Steny Hoyer aide to me. And I think he's right. Nothing worth doing will come out of the lame duck Congress and anything good that is done will redound to the credit of a GOP Congress. I think a mostly do nothing lame duck session (other than extending unemployment benefits) sounds like the right approach. Of course they can't say that publically. And I think a lot of hearings on the foreclosure crisis would be smart too. But no legislation, other than extending unemployment benefits.

Speaking for me only

Obama and the Dems are polling badly, and people wonder why. It's the economy, stupid. Consider this:

In a follow-up interview, one poll respondent, Judy Berg, an independent from Morton Grove, Ill., said she voted for Mr. Obama in 2008 because she was “looking for a change,” adding, “the change that ensued was not the change I was looking for but something totally out of left field.” This year, Ms. Berg, a registered nurse, expressed a preference for Republicans because “I’m pro-life and I’m also looking at the immigration issues and the tax issues.” She added, “I like the Republican agenda on these issues better than the Democratic agenda.”

(Emphasis added.) If Ms. Berg voted for Obama and Dems because of the issues of choice, immigration and taxes, then she would never vote for a Republican. There is a clear difference between the parties on these issues and always has been. If you are anti-choice, anti-immigrant and anti-taxes on the wealthy, then you should vote for Republicans every time. How did Ms. Berg come to vote for Obama and the Dems? It was the economy I surmise. There is nothing Obama and the Dems could say to this person that could persuade her on the issues. Only one thing could - good governance and economic performance. The "issues" for Ms. Berg clearly are not important - how the economy is doing is. Most American "swing voters" are like this. Most "swing voters" don't care about issues. Most Americans "swing voters" almost exclusively care about how they are doing personally. More . . .