{"id":14086,"date":"2014-11-09T00:06:36","date_gmt":"2014-11-09T08:06:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=14086"},"modified":"2014-11-09T00:06:36","modified_gmt":"2014-11-09T08:06:36","slug":"ready-aim-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/11\/09\/ready-aim-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Ready! Aim!! Fire!!!"},"content":{"rendered":"

As election day approached, I felt a growing sense of unease.  I caught my self thinking about race after race that the Democratic candidates was running their campaigns all wrong.  It became clear that they were apologizing for being Democrats.   The could not have adopted a more self-defeating strategy.<\/font><\/p>\n

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\"1109DemsShootFoot\"<\/a>We don’t have all the data in yet to know exactly why the Dems were demolished well beyond even the GOP’s best hopes. But we can make some preliminary judgments. IMO, the biggest reason overall is that Democratic candidates played not to lose, went fetal, following their usual pattern, helped by Obama’s own example. The GOP played to win, went for the jugular, and the American people like candidates who go for the jugular. The Dems ran from their reeling president, ran from their own party history, and tried their best to sound like Republicans with a smiley face. The American people don’t like weak imitations. They chose the real thing.<\/p>\n

Three key moments or decisions stick out of me. The first, seeing Joe Manchin on TV early in the day calling out Obama’s supposed anti-coal policies (which don’t exist. Natural gas is killing coal. Not the EPA<\/strong>) — and he’s a Democrat. First of all, Obama has governed as a conservative on all but a few social issues — which is itself another cause of this tsumani. His EPA is handcuffed by trade secrets laws and an administration afraid to upset business interests. There is no war on coal, no war on fossil fuels, no war on business. Obama, in reality, ranks as one of the most business-friendly presidents we’ve ever had. But the Republicans have quite successfully painted our weak-willed, very conservative president as a wild-eyed, dictatorial leftist<\/strong>, and many Dems in office echo this frame. Manchin did on election day and prior to it.<\/p>\n

Second: Grimes in Kentucky. When are the Dems ever going to learn? It doesn’t work to run from your own party. It never works. Refusing to say you even voted for the president of your own party just tells voters you can’t be trusted and that you’re embarrassed to be in the party you’ve chosen. And they rightfully say, if you’re embarrassed about it, why run as a Dem? And why should I vote for you? Americans are going to choose even lunatics who stand by their parties over thoughtful, nice people who cower in the corner when confronted about their choices<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Third: Obama chose not to ruffle any feathers before the election and held back on his executive decisions regarding immigration<\/strong>. A fatal\/fetal decision. Obama, time and time again, has chosen the path of attempted reconciliation with his enemies, even though there is no hope for this, ever, and it keeps kicking the Dems in the teeth. When are the Dems going to learn that in our political climate, the party that obsesses about "looking reasonable" is going to lose out to the one that goes for the jugular. People are pissed off. They don’t want Miss Manners in charge. They want Patton\u2026 [emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Inserted from <Daily Kos<\/a>><\/p>\n

I not just a progressive.  I\u2019m damn proud to be one!  You won\u2019t catch me apologizing for what I think.  If I thought there were better political views for America that mine, I would have those views, not these.  Admittedly, the Democrats came into the election at a bad time with a bad map, but because of the frequency and heartlessness, with which Republicans abuse the power they do have, Democrats have never had a better opportunity to unseat them.  What they had to do is offer a clear alternative from a position of moral strength.  Instead it was Ready!  Aim!!  Fire!!!<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As election day approached, I felt a growing sense of unease.  I caught my self thinking about race after race that the Democratic candidates was running their campaigns all wrong.  It became clear that they were apologizing for being Democrats.   The could not have adopted a more self-defeating strategy. We don’t have all the data […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14086\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}