Posted 11:26 AM by Robert

Still In The Denial Phase

Excerpts of Senate Democrats addressing the election results and what is to be done, from an article in today's Roll Call:

"It is not so much changing the message," said Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.). "It is just that people in America haven't been hearing what we argue all the time."

"The conservative establishment in this country really has a lock on the airwaves," said Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), the assistant Democratic floor leader.

"I don't have any inside info on what is going to happen...," [Hillary] Clinton said.

A top Democratic aide said Democrats lost out in this year's election because Republicans successfully co-opted portions of their domestic agenda while at the same time seizing control of the national security debate over issues such as creating a Department of Homeland Security. "Republicans did a masterful job of blurring the differences on key Democratic initiatives such as education, health care and the war on terrorism," the aide said.

So the Senate Democrats think their party lost the last election because: (1) The Republicans coopted the Democrats' agenda and, then, through the conservative establishment's "lock on the airwaves," presented that "coopted agenda" to a guileless voting public while (2) The people in America just weren't hearing what the Democrats "argue all the time" because the Democrats - lacking media support and sympathy - just couldn't get their genuine agenda out. And even though the differences between Republican and Democratic initiatives were all blurred up, the voters consistently chose the Republican version over and over again.

And, of course, Hillary Clinton, who with her husband runs the DNC through Terry McAuliffe, doesn't "have any inside info on what is going to happen."

Sad. Really sad.