Fineman lists the Dems to blame

[GOTV]

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2010/01/19/the-democrats-who-deserve-blame-for-their-loss-in-massachusetts.aspx

1. Martha Coakley. Wooden, oblivious, haughty, inept, and ill prepared. She won the nomination because she was a woman and not part of the Washington scene or the party establishment. But she didn't realize she needed a plan to be an outsider, and an empathetic one.

2. Barack Obama. No, this wasn't a referendum on him or his presidency. Nor is it a flat-out rejection of the health-care bill per se. People still like him and wish him well. But his twin decision to put all his chips on health care and to let Congress take the lead made him seem unfocused on what people really care about, which is the economy and jobs.

3. Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, Jim Messina, and Patrick Gaspard (the White House political brain trust). This crew wants to blame the Coakley campaign and her consultants and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and—who knows?—maybe the Boston Celtics. But national politics today is a centralized operation, and it is centered in this White House. They should have made sure that the Coakley campaign was up to speed and had a real message. It was also their advice and counsel that led Obama to put the fate of his health-care bill in the hands of the hapless and ineffectual Sen. Max Baucus. The result: there's still no bill.

more at the link

[Captain Hilts]

1. It hurts to agree with that tool, Fineman. But high cost areas are afraid of the cadillac tax.nt

[BP2]

2. Sorry - most Progressives have been quite unimpressed with the "White House political brain trust."

[monmouth]

3. Tim Kaine hold no responsibility. I put most of this on his shoulders..n/t

[GOTV]

4. Yeah, he didn't make this list nt

[Gidney N Cloyd]

6. I guess he's such an ineffectual ZERO he can't even make the list.

[freddie mertz]

9. Kaine is a blank. Hired as a tool by the WH gang listed in no. 3.

The political team in the WH have really screwed this up.

Overconfident, passive, lame.

[otohara]

11. Howard Dean Would Have Been ALL OVER This Race

on the tube, in MA, on radio.

Kaine was virtually invisible - no where to be found.

Fire him.

[Kingofalldems]

5. I saw a trial she was involved in on Court TV

She lost and was very unimpressive. Haughty was an apt description. I do hope Rahm is asked to leave though.

[ProgressOnTheMove]

7. The President can't help but be al those things people projected on him now, zero can get done, whoa

I think there are some that still don't know how catastrophic last night was. No DADT, NO jobs bill, no environmental policy maybe a little EPA regulation at best, no employee free choice act, no chance of single payer for a generation, and added bonus assured perpetual war. That vote last night sure showed them Democrats or did it, nah it didn't it will show us really. Sure he'll be every negative thing people wanted him to be now he'll have no choice. I'm the optimistic guy, but at this point in time I see no way out unless an absolute miracle happens. We had to give them a chance we had to let a lot of things go, becuase what's next isn't even worth considering it's going to get real dark. I don't blame Coakley, she was complacent for good reason surely no voter could be that unaware what we stood to lose, who knew. It's not Gore's fault in 2000 or Kerry's in 2004 or Caokley in 2010. There's only one group to blame for some reason, no matter all we've seen we didn't know what was at stake.

[Bitwit1234]

8. You know what it comes down to

and I think a lot of people agree. LACK OF POLITICAL EXPERIENCE. The white house with all its advisor's don't know the first thing about really truly running THE COUNTRY.

The reason Obama won is because of his rallies and his speech making. If he had to stand up and debate each and every single thing at those rallies, and not have all the glamor behind him, he might not have won the nomination. I think in all sincerity Hillary would have been sure that Coakley's campaign was politically correct and I think Coakley would have won.

Rahm is to self-centered to let anybody but him do anything important and he is screwing Obama to Hades and back. If Obama had the GUTS to RELEGATE RAM to a back seat and get someone to advise that knows the heck what he is doing, who gets the base and the rest of the democrats fired up they way Obama's PR group did, we might get something done.

THE WORST THING THEY DID IS PUT KAINE IN CHARGE AND KICKED DEAN OUT.

[GoCubsGo]

10. Why is nobody blaming the MA state Democratic party?

Doing something about Coakley's shitty campaigning never should have gotten beyond them and into the levels where the national party needed to do something about it.

[ieoeja]

12. #1 would be the DLC Senators who ruined healthcare reform.

#2 would be Lieberman.

90% of Senate Democrats favored real healthcare reform that would have thrilled the American public. But 90% doesn't give us enough votes.

[PDittie]

13. Harry Reid is missing from that list.