Howard Dean Puts the Finger on Why So Many Democrat Seats Were Lost

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I was pretty disappointed when the election returns trickled in on Tuesday night.  But, you know, I kinda expected it.  I was looking for publicity in the media from Democrats seeking re-election, and very few of them were to be found.  (Unfortunately, I only get media coverage on the Internet, because I don’t have TV, or I might have been even more upset.)

Well, the point Howard Dean makes is that Democrats running for re-election were too chicken to stand behind Obama.  They thought it would get them more votes to show that they were independent of Obama than to appear to march in lock-step with the Democrat political line.  I was seeing hints of this situation in various opinion pieces and blogs, but it didn’t really connect until Dean pointed it out.

Howard Dean was the Chair of the Democrat National Committee in two years when they got massively good results.  But, he says, he had a terrible time in getting Washington Democrats to stay on message.  His words.  What’s happening here?

Washington Democrats are watching too much Fox News.  They believe the onslaught of disinformation and lies that Fox puts out.  Unfortunately, Congressmen and State Representatives who watch Fox News uncritically absolutely deserve the beating they get.  “Consider the Source” has never been more apt than when talking about Republican propaganda.

Another frightening source of demoralization are “surveys” that seem to show that the population is drifting to the Right.  This may or may not be true, but it is the job of the President to drift with the population, not that of Congressmen or State representatives, who are elected for 2 years.  A Congressman or State Representative, with the much smaller group of people who elected him or her to office, must (1) continue to believe that the political and economic needs of his constituents continue as they were when he or she was first elected, unless proven otherwise, and (2) resist thoughts of trying to attract a larger constituency by waffling.  It is almost impossible to get further to the center of the political spectrum than President Obama.  We can only stay to the left of that line.  But our Washington Democrats tried to be clever, and moved to the Right of Obama, and fell off the platform altogether.

Well, we know it is impossible to find people willing to run for election on the Democratic ticket these days.  People like Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren and Nancy Pelosi run for office out of, I believe, their drive to offer ideological leadership to the Democrat party, and a sense of responsibility.  Others run for office as a means to make a living, and people in that category do not have the courage to stick to their philosophical guns for fear of losing their seats.

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