Heck of a job, Scott Brownie...David Axelrod: "As a practitioner in politics, my hat's off to him"

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Obama advisor: President would have done more to save Teddy's seat if asked earlier

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/local/politics/2010/01/obama_advisor_no_postmortem_on.html

President Barack Obama's top political advisor, David Axelrod, said today that if the White House had been asked earlier, more could have been done for embattled Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley in Massachusetts.

Axelrod, in a question and answer session with reporters, said it was too soon for "post-mortems" on the special election to fill the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's seat. And for the record, he said that he still expected Coakley to win.

But it didn't take much reading between the lines to see that the president and his team are preparing to back-pedal as swiftly as humanly possible to distance Obama from a disastrous result tonight.

The Obama strategist volunteered praise for the Massachusetts Senate campaign run by the Republican, Scott Brown, and seemed to find nothing good to point to in the Democratic effort. He said he didn't want to "delve deeply into post-mortems on the day people are voting."

Axelrod appeared to reject the criticism that he and his team had been taken by surprise and should have done more to head off a Democratic collapse. He said it was "not exactly a revelation to us" that voters are angry and anxious after a year in which millions of Americans have lost their jobs and millions more see no evidence in their lives that the economy is recovering.

Axelrod also said that there were "local issues at play" in Massachusetts and that the Republican had run "a very clever campaign."

"As a practitioner in politics, my hat's off to him," Axelrod said.

He was asked whether Obama should have done more than make an eleventh-hour effort to head off a defeat that would be calamatous for his agenda.

"The White House did everything we were asked to do," he said. "I think if we had been asked earlier, we would have responded earlier."

[joeybee12]

1. And so Axelrod begins to try and blame others...

...he makes me sick.

[HereSince1628]

6. Don't be too hard on Axelrod, he's doing his job

as a spinmeister.

[Habibi]

2. Given how important this race is

why on earth would they wait to be asked?

[rudy23]

8. Why on earth would today's Dem party want to make gains in 2010?

They might have to raise the artificial vote-ceiling to 70 votes!

All that acting is getting tiring. Better to lose seats in 2010, blame your corporatism on the Repukes, then use the fear of said Repukes to boost fundraising dollars. All while maximizing corporate donations, b/c they know Dems are in the bag with no ideals or supermajority getting in the way.

[Dhalgren]

11. That makes more sense than just about any of the apologetics

I've heard, so far...

[rudy23]

15. I wish it didn't.

Sad, isn't it? But looking at it this way, it all starts to make perfect sense.

[BrklynLiberal]

3. WTF????????????????

if asked earlier !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??????????????????????????????


Oh yes..there would have been more assistance sent to New Orleans after Katrina if the folks there had only asked earlier....

What a crock!!!

[golddigger]

4. Just goes to show you

how freakin clueless they really are.

edited for typo

[leftstreet]

5. So he admits the truth - 'not exactly a revelation to us'

Axelrod appeared to reject the criticism that he and his team had been taken by surprise and should have done more to head off a Democratic collapse. He said it was "not exactly a revelation to us" that voters are angry and anxious after a year in which millions of Americans have lost their jobs and millions more see no evidence in their lives that the economy is recovering.

LOL

[timeforpeace]

7. Uh oh.

[Dhalgren]

9. "And the sign said you have to have a membership card

to get inside!"

I know! Let's ask Bush to do something for disaster relief like he is the best one we can think of for the job! Sounds like a winner!

:rofl:

[progressoid]

10. Oh c'mon, give them a break.

Doncha know that once you win the presidential election, everything else just falls into place. :eyes:

[kirby]

12. I thought Obama was the LEADER of the Dems n/t

[AspenRose]

14. Well, in Virginia

Deeds made it a point to run as hard and fast away from Obama as he could....until it was too late.

Obama "being a leader" didn't matter in that specific case.

I don't know enough about the specifics of the Coakley campaign...whether she ran from Obama or if the WH just didn't bother to help until it was too late.

[wisteria]

13. Axelrod could have waited to make any statments on the race. No one has lost anything yet.

And then to congratulate Brown? It looks like we are admitting defeat. What an ass.