Obama blames Massachusetts Senate loss on middle-class economic pain

[liberal N proud]

By Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 21, 2010

President Obama on Wednesday blamed the Democrats' stunning loss of their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate on his administration's failure to give voice to the economic frustrations of the middle class, a disconnect that White House aides vowed to quickly address as they continue to work to advance the president's agenda.

Obama said the relentless pursuit of his domestic policies -- and a failure to adequately explain their virtues -- had left Americans with a "feeling of remoteness and detachment" from the flurry of government actions in Washington.

"We were so busy just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises that were in front of us that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are and why we have to make sure those institutions are matching up with those values," he told ABC's George Stephanopoulos.

The admission came as the president's top aides sought to come to terms with political disaster in the aftermath of the GOP's Senate victory in Massachusetts. The surprise outcome -- Republican Scott Brown took the seat of the late Democrat Edward M. Kennedy in the heavily Democratic state -- prompted crowing among GOP leaders and finger-pointing and recrimination among the president's allies.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/20/AR2010012001935.html?wpisrc=newsletter

[Craftsman]

1. It's the economy stupid cuts both ways.

[midnight]

2. President you could be on to something. Bankers taking hundreds of

millions a dollars in pay and then asking the tax payer to bail them out is over the top. Then banks refusing to adjust mortgages to keep people in their homes is over the top. Time to reverse this.

[nosmokes]

3. the buck stops w/ him. he makes change and passes it along...

how many trips to mass for coakley was that obama made?

[tango-tee]

4. " A feeling of remoteness and detachment"...

Well, no fucking shit, Sherlock, in your relentless pursuit of whatever. Give me some more of nothing. But I keep on hoping, fool that I am.

[Joe Chi Minh]

29. It echoes his policy vaccum re the public's most desperate needs with the wryest irony.

'Pursuit of whatever', 'more of nothing'; almost onomatopaeic!

[tango-tee]

30. Hey... we're on the same side of the Atlantic!

Looked up "onomatopaeic" and - therefore - a big, heartfelt hrrmff.

:toast:

[Joe Chi Minh]

31. Why, thank you, Tango.

[DisgustedInMN]

5. Are you joking, Barack?

"We were so busy just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises that were in front of us..."

Is that why jobs are STILL disappearing instead of becoming available?

Is that why millions of Americans are facing bankruptcy and foreclosure on their homes?

Do you think we aren't well aware of what you have ACTUALLY "been busy doing?"

Do you think we didn't notice the TRILLION$ your team from Goldman Sachs handed over to the very same banksters that crashed our economy and are now FUCKING us with exorbitant interest rates and fee, IF you can get credit at all?

Fuck, fuck, fuck...

Get out of the bubble Barack, you're headed for early lame duckness. (Is that a word?)

[VMI Dem]

6. His weak ass leadership was not a factor.

[dkf]

7. Well duh.

Curse MA if you will. Obama finally got the message.

[last1standing]

8. I don't think he has.

It sounds to me like he's saying that he's been doing a great job, now he just needs to advertise it better. What's he going to do, hire twice as many shills to post bullshit on DU?

[Donnachaidh]

10. ......

:spray: :rofl: :yourock:

[Beacool]

25. Yep, isn't he the "I give myself a solid B+" guy?

:7

[quantass]

9. Enough babble Mr. Prez...Lets see Action, THIS TIME for the People not your Wallstreet Buddies. nt

[Vinca]

12. Exactly. I wonder how the downtrodden middle class might have felt

if they had gotten checks to pay down their credit card debt and mortgages instead of the mountain of cash going to the banks. The money would have gotten to the banks in the end and citizens might have caught a break.

[Bitwit1234]

11. And why....don't the democrats

hold press conference after press conference. And lay out the plans they have for TRYING to pull us out of this mess. Why don't they tell the names of the republicans senators and representatives actively blocking and obstructing all the passage of bills, appointments of members to committees and the judi cary. The Democrats don't have the guts to get up in front of the public and tell the truth about what the republicans are doing. But you can bet your butt the republicans are enjoying the heck out of misleading the public into believing the Democrats are at fault.

Who knows that the stimulus is working. Who knows that we are getting that money back with interest. Nobody -- because the republicans are so busy trying to convince the public it was a bust. But not one darn Democrat is explaining to the public THAT IT IS WORKING. AND GIVING THEM PROOF.

[Faryn Balyncd]

13. 82% of Obama voters who voted for Brown WANT A PUBLIC OPTION (10% of vote):

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7521534&mesg_id=7521534



These voters who switched (more than twice the margin of loss), wouldn't have anything to do with your 100% u-turn on the essential ingredient of a Public Option for all, your campaign OPPOSITION to mandates, and your promise of no middle class tax hikes, specifically your opposition to John McCain's proposal to tax healthcare benefits, now would it, Mr. President?

[Clio the Leo]

15. And it's gonna be FUN watching Scott Brown get them one....

:eyes:

[Faryn Balyncd]

22. "In an election between Scott Brown and the public option, the public option would have won."

http://act.boldprogressives.org/cms/sign/mapollresults


You are right, that Brown won't get them the public option they favor, but Brown will vote against the mandate and the current HC "reform" that they oppose.

Both the 2008 Obama voters who voted for Brown in 2010, and the 2008 Obama voters who stayed home in 2010, by overwhelming margins favored a public option "like Medicare", and opposed mandated private insurance and the current bill.

[GOTV]

23. He won't and no one expects him to. It's not that complicated ....

... Coakley wouldn't have gotten one either. So you can choose your Senator without regard to the PO which is dead as long as it's more important that Lieberman is happy than it is to fix health care.

[emsimon33]

33. Not if Obama is deaf, dumb, and blind

He's in the bubble of Rahm and the Conserva-dems. And was Kaine ever a lame-ass choice. We have won no elections have we since he took over?

[bigwillq]

14. Duh!

It's not rocket science.
That's one of the reasons, anyway, I think.

[HughBeaumont]

16. Question:

How does he make obstructionist corporate America start hiring again?

The elite never wanted him in office. They all want him to fail. Short of straight-up admitting it, I truly believe they're sabotaging American progress in the hopes they'll be able to convince Joe and Jane Sixer to vote for yet another Republican fascist sock-puppet in 2012 to widen the divide between them and us even further. It's all part of the bone-tossing to make this whole sham seem "fair".

If we're supposed to be in a recovery, then why are corporations and small businesses still scared to hire? It's painfully obvious this HC"R" thing is a corporate-favoring pile of lameness that likely doesn't affect their profits one way or another. So what's the problem?

We've had ZERO net new jobs in ten YEARS. I'm failing to see how that's Obama's fault and not a private sector/corporate America problem.

[Captain Hilts]

17. Taxing their health plans will help this?

[zulchzulu]

18. I blame the Massachusetts Senate loss on an incredibly horrible candidate and campaign

30 percent drops and taking vacations in the middle of a campaign are two major reasons why there was a Massachusetts Senate loss.

Had there been a decent campaign, all this would have been spun completely differently.

[HughMoran]

19. "and a failure to adequately explain their virtues"

DING! DING! DING!!

Sell your agenda! Marketing is important in politics. People do NOT understand the healthcare bill and Faux is taking advantage of people's ignorance.

[GOTV]

20. I think he's "Spoken" to us plenty

I'd prefer not to hear from him until he has something better to say than we needed to compromise this principle or drop that goal to get Lieberman on board.

[TexasObserver]

21. The buck stops ... THERE!

His concessions to GOP powers and interests have alienated a lot of voters, some of them voters who voted for CHANGE in 2008. They're pissed at the lack of leadership by congress and the administration. The country judged him on his effort the first six months, but the last six months, they judge him on his failure to come through on things promised.

I hope the president will stop laying off blame on things other than the lack of leadership by his administration and his party's congressional leaders. He has time to turn this around, but not if he continues to ignore the good advice he has gotten from the party's warriors such as Howard Dean.

"Yes, we can!" was a great campaign slogan.

"No, we can't, because the industry lobbyists won't agree to it" isn't much of a campaign slogan.

He needs to study FDR and LBJ, and see if he can figure out why and how they did great things, then apply those lessons to his current quagmire.

[Beacool]

24. For someone who ran such an effective campaign, he's tone deaf.

It's about jobs, or the lack of them, it's not about miscommunication or the MA Senate!!!

Geez.....

:eyes:

[Bluenorthwest]

26. It is as if he has amnesia

Does he not remember that less than a year ago, he was doing internet question sessions, town halls, meeting people, the works? All of their outreach to voters stopped dead because he did not want to answer the questions asked. Now he wonders why he can not get his message out? He stopped delivering it.
The President is new to having spokespeople speaking for him. He may not see how bad Gibbs is in that role, which is terrible. Gibbs will serve Gibbs rather than speak clearly for the President, any chance he gets. Just to put this very clearly, I have had others who speak for me in my biz for 30 years. No, it is not anything like the Presidency, but Gibbs is not the President, and his job is not unique in the world. If he were my rep, he'd have been fired after a couple of months. Once Gibbs hit his stride, it all became about Gibbs, the wee dramas of that press room, and his need to show that he has status. I'm sure he is skilled in other ways, but his personality is simply not suited to submerging his needs to those of the person he is representing. All policy aside, he is a poor choice for that role, and delivers every last thing as if it were his own, and not to be questioned. He seems to resent being questioned, when that is the main part of his job.
You can be giving away ice cream, but if the guy you send to hand out the cones is a jerk, you will accomplish nothing but a loss of ice cream.

[QC]

27. This is encouraging. n/t

[treestar]

28. Obama does take responsibility

Though he sort of covers over with how hard they are working to get stuff done.

He'd be great at job interviews.

[ibegurpard]

32. He's right

It's not about swinging right vs. swinging left.
It's about advocating for the PEOPLE.
Now...let us see what he does about it.