First Read: Why are Democrats panicking?

[liberalpragmatist]

I agree with this 100%.

If we told you that Democrats were favored to lose about eight Senate seats (six of which are in states Obama carried in '08), lose some 30 to 40 in the House, and see their top domestic issue -- health care -- stalled in Congress, you’d guess that President Obama’s approval rating was, what, 35%? Maybe 40%? But as any close follower of American politics knows, Obama’s approval is at or near 50% (even at 53% in the always-volatile Gallup daily track). Yet Democrats, including what we saw and heard from Evan Bayh yesterday, are behaving like Obama is at 35%. This is particularly ironic when we’re just a year-plus removed from a president whose approval was 25% to 30%. There is no doubt that this is a TOUGH political environment for Democrats, but are they making it tougher by running for the hills when things might not be as bad for them as was the GOP’s situation from 2006-2008? And what does it say about the Democrats and their ability to govern when they’re acting like this when their president is at 50%? Republicans rallied around their president in '04, when he was hovering around 50%.

> http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/02/16/2202825.aspx

This is exactly right. Congressional Democrats (except Pelosi and most of the House leadership) keep making a tough cycle worse for them by acting like headless chickens.

The only thing I would add to this is that it's somewhat rich for the pundits at FirstRead to be saying this, since the pundits and spinmeisters are themselves driving the narrative of "Dems in freefall," which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But Democratic offieholders need to show more backbone too, and getting skittish because of what the TV talk show hosts say is insane.

[rockymountaindem]

1. They are afraid of their own shadows

Some of them, like Bayh, deserve to lose and/or leave government. The shame is that they are dragging the good ones, and us, down with them.

[tularetom]

2. They need to turn off their TV's and stop listening to the liberal media

All you ever hear on the cable "news" channels is "the Democrats are panicking". It's repeated daily, many times, on every show. After they hear it enough times they start believing it.

In spite of actual facts to the contrary (republican retirements are larger than democrats in both the house and the senate) they'd rather believe the bullshit they hear from TV pundits than the facts they could observe for themselves.

[Pirate Smile]

10. That is exactly what Obama told the Senate Dems a week or two ago.

[Tippy]

3. Put the blame where it belongs...The DLC

Their main goal from the beginning was to put an end to the Drmocratic Party as we knew it...It was a power thing...Thus we have BlueDogs like Bayh....Some rich old farts wanted to take over the country. From the old farts running the Republican Party. You know how everyone talks about the Chicago style politics...what you don't hear about is the Republican party doing the same thing...Republicans = Union Busters

[Jennicut]

4. Cowards. Spineless.

[Lorien]

16. More like corrupt and paid for

but now without their "cover", so it shows.

[Teaser]

23. no need to pick and choose

they can be cowardly and corrupt.

[DFW]

5. I am not panicking

I would, however, say remember 1994, and say let's try REALLY hard not to repeat that scenario. We are forewarned, and have
time to turn things around. We also have time to blow it completely, but I think that so far, it's ours to blow.

Still, that's what I thought about the Massachusetts Senate seat, too.....................

[Arkana]

14. It WAS ours to blow.

And Martha Coakley DID blow it.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

6. Obama top-line approval is irrelevant

People like Obama. And that's great if your name is Barack Obama.

But the public does not approve of Obama on the Economy, on Jobs, on Healthcare or the Deficit, and those are the things the public says are the most important problems.

If people like Obama overall while thinking he's not doing a good job on our important problems then they will not rally to people (Dems) as people who will support Obama's program because the public doesn't like the program.

But they like Obama himself.

Should Dems be scared? Yeah, probably so. (Unless they happen to be as likable as Obama, and few are.)

[Proud Liberal Dem]

7. Is that really true?

I thought that polls are still giving Obama and Dems an edge over the Repubs on most (all?) issues?

[Jennicut]

8. While Obama has lower ratings then before on issues like the economy and health care

the Rethugs don't fare much better or are worse. People are angry at Congress and Dems are in the majority. So the majority will lose more seats. Such is the way of the two party system. Also, the conservadems not rallying around certain ideas and basically being wishy washy did not help at all.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

12. Right

When things are rotten, it doesn't really matter to most people who is really to blame or who got us into the mess. They just kick out whoever they can at the ballot box. The idea of people voting to put more of the same people who caused most of the mess back in power is, as Spock might say, "highly illogical" and mystifying to people like us but it could very well happen nonetheless. Our party needs to do a better job highlighting the Republican (and when warranted) Blue Dog Dem obstructionism more and make the argument against (re-)electing more "obstructors" to Congress if people really want things done.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

9. I'm referring to approval

The OP talks about approval ratings. Obama's approval ratings on handling of those issues is negative.

Ironically, he does well on foreign policy and terrorism. (That must piss Cheney off)

You are correct that in "who would do a better job with" polling Dems have an edge over pugs on most (but not all) issues.

[quiller4]

20. Not true if you look at internals on many polls. In the OR WA and Col. polls

Obama had good approval numbers on economy and jobs--poor on healthcare.

[still_one]

11. Because on the whole they know they have missed a tremendous opportunity

If they wanted HCR they could do it through reconciliation, it won't happen

Financial reform will be a joke. It is being reported on Bloomberg that the Volcker plan will have problem getting through Congress, and it isn't just the republicans will provide the resistance

The loss in Massachusetts was an amazing case of incompetence and mismanagement, and the people who oversaw that, still have their jobs

A year has gone by and the president is still talking bipartisanship

The Democrats better pull their head out of their ass and smell the coffee

[dgibby]

13. Forget Obama's poll numbers.

It's the Congressional poll numbers that are the problem:

http://www.pollingreport.com/CongJob.htm

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/congressional_job_approval-903.html


Since Dems control both Houses, it stands to reason that they will be the targets of voters' disapproval in Nov. unless they are able to accomplish something significant before then.







.

[Lorien]

15. The status quo is upset; they managed not to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in 2008

and now they're in power. Their constituents are DEMANDING change and they're running out of excuses as to why they're unable to give it to us (because of promises made to the wealthy elite). It's not that they're all cowards; they just haven't figured out how to serve two masters without the cover of being the underdogs. The only thing to do is to retire, retreat or do whatever possible to erode their majority so that they can once again throw up their hands and say "nothing we can do. The repugs won't allow it" while sweeping in the campaign cash and making backroom deals that will lead to lucrative future lobbying positions. It's pretty transparent, actually.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

17. They and the M$M are also acting as if it's somehow unusual for the party in power

at the time of off-year elections to lose seats. It is indeed conventional wisdom that the party of the president in power will lose congressional seats in midterm elections. So why the panick? Why give in to the M$M's claims of armageddon for the Democrats? Why buy in to the Republican narrative, a narrative that is flawed?

I don't get this at all...

[ProgressOnTheMove]

18. Pres. Obma gave the perfect advice for his party members to turn off the TV at least till November..

and get on with the agenda. Well as best they can anyway given obstruction. It's wiser some do resign and give the seat a fighting chance than to go down with a sinking ship.

[AlinPA]

19. They know they missed their chance to govern and are facing republicans with billions

in corporate money after the SCOTUS ruling. They don't have the time to raise the kind of money needed to compete. The Blue-Dog conservative "Democrats" see the tea baggers active in the red states and know they will be beaten.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

21. It would seem that the Dems are "running for the hills" after the Massachusett's loss

just like President Obama warned them NOT to do during his SOTU. I hope that those whom are wavering and/or "running scared" because of the Virginia and New Jersey GUBERNATORIAL races, as well as Scott Brown's win in the Massachusett Senate Race (which IMHO was an "aberration" NOT part of a trend) need to STOP paying so much attention and giving so much credence to the idiot pundits and Republican hacks (and the "liberal media" in general) and focus back in on doing what needs to be done for the country and its citizens- and be willing to steamroll Republicans every time they purposely obstruct the legislative process- which, as far as I'm concerned, is them simply choosing to abdicate their job responsibilities.

[NHDEMFORLIFE]

22. Bingo

I've been thinking the exact same thing for awhile, trying to figure out if I'm crazy or if the rest of the world is.
The Martha Coakley debacle brought all of the hand-wringing and wailing out into the wide open spaces, at least by those who utterly fail to grasp one important fact: Martha Coakley ran a horrendous campaign. The nitwit who now soils Sen. Kennedy's old digs tapped into voter frustration early on and flooded the airwaves with ads. Coakley spent the first four weeks of a six-week general election campaign apparently doing nothing but deciding what vintage champagne she'd enjoy at her victory party.
To extrapolate what happened in Massachusetts into what may/will happen nationwide in November is shallow thinking. For as weak as the Coakley campaign was, she still got 47 percent of the vote. And Sen. Nitwit will be turned out of office in 2012 after two innocuous years as a back bencher.
If the Democratic leadership at both ends of Pennsylvania Ave. would simply do what they were sent to do, November will take care of itself.
Of course, no one is better than we Democrats at forming and executing circular firing squads.