Yes, Obama DID have some major achievements...so why didn't THE WHITE HOUSE get that message out?

[Ken Burch]

Why weren't there ads starting August 1st or so REMINDING people of what had been accomplished and discrediting the RW lies?

The prez and his staff have to man(and woman) up on that one.

In fact, not getting ANY message out this fall until two weeks before the vote probably did us more damage than anything else our party had control over.

[livetohike]

1. Also, where were the surrogates? Such a lack of people

out there on the MSM talking up the accomplishments.

[sandnsea]

3. The surrogates were bashing them too n/t

[tridim]

5. Actually I remember lots of surrogates on the news talking about accomplishments.

But I only watch MSNBC.

We can't do it 24/7 because we don't have our own network. The GOP has Faux and talk radio, they can do PR 24/7. The whole network is surrogates.

Even so, they were still there on Rachel and KO almost every day, doing the best they could.

[livetohike]

12. I flip over to CNN once in a while and never watch Fox (of course)

Forget daytime MSNBC - but we needed people out there from morning to night and I only really saw positive people on Keith and Rachel :shrug:.

[sandnsea]

2. Same reason Gore and Kerry didn't

I don't know how many times we have to play this out before it sinks in.

And by the way, the Blue Dogs who trashed the President's agenda and ran away from it are just as responsible. It's no wonder they lost, why the hell would anybody vote for them when all they said was how bad DC is.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

4. I don't for the life of me understand that. See the commercial below. It was brilliant

"campaign brilliant". I only saw this on the web. Shorter versions of these or similar personal stories like these should have flooded the airwaves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09hMdHF-PsU

[Mimosa]

6. It's almost as if the prez is surrounded by people who undermine him?

I swear, never has there been worse PR for a president. It's almost as if planned.

[scheming daemons]

7. Every time some of us tried to list his achievements, we got nothing but derision... FROM LIBERALS!

...

[Ken Burch]

15. I'm not talking about DU(and liberal/progressive disappointment was legitimate)

I'm talking about out among the public.

[MannyGoldstein]

8. This was about Change

There were some legislative victories, but nothing spectacular. No return of Glass-Steagall, no fundamental health care reform.

Most importantly, the average American feels no better off than they did on 1/20/2008. Not only are their lives more difficult, but Hope has flown out the window.

Working Americans are deeply unhappy.

[SunsetDreams]

9. Where do messages get aired?

[Ken Burch]

11. The DNC could have afforded tv ads listing the Obama accomplishments

and attacking the GOP lies.

[SunsetDreams]

14. Maybe they were kind of busy throwing money at the races for Midterms

Obama wasn't running, but I do see your point though.

[Ken Burch]

16. Getting the message out about what WAS done would have helped in the midterms.

This needs to be the last time our party runs a "lesser evil" campaign while the 'pugs run a "big values" campaign.

It NEVER works for us.

We need to defend OUR big values with the same passion they defend their with. Our big values are not terminally unpopular.

[SunsetDreams]

17. I also think the responsiblity lies with campaigns

of those that were running. They could have ran those ads, equally as well.

[veganlush]

10. it was a conscious decision

...to avoid such ads because it would "nationalize" the election. They felt that since people who may hate the congress usually like their own congressperson, it would be better to keep the politics local, an let them associate their own rep. with local issues and not national issues.

[Ken Burch]

13. Well, I hope the message gets through

that that will NEVER be the right decision again.

[veganlush]

22. indeed.agreed.

[HughMoran]

18. Blue Dogs were sacrificed for HCR

& it was worth it IMO.

They were lost the minute they cast that vote.

[LawnLover]

19. Because they were drowned out by the Republican lie machine and

thought people in this country would recognize the wackos for what they are.

Apparently they overestimated the American public.

[boppers]

20. Obama didn't lose his seat.

What are the accomplishments of those who did lose their seats? I honestly don't know.

[kestrel91316]

21. Because the Republican operatives inside the WH kept the focus

elsewhere? I do wonder sometimes if some of Obama's crew aren't in the enemy camp, deep undercover.

[veganlush]

23. that's the frustrating part

..most people don't know that the Obama tax cuts were the biggest tax cuts in history, for example. The stimulus total of 814 billion included over two hundred billion in tax cuts. So when the repugnants say that the stimulus failed, what are they saying about the effect of the largest tax cuts in history? And what would that acknowledgment mean for the ten year old bush tax cuts (smaller than Obama's tax cut)that obviously were an utter failure. The single biggest failing of the Democrats and the administration were that they weren't screaming these and other facts from the rooftops every time they opened their mouths.

[chowder66]

24. I heard the message

but trying to make people hear a message they refuse to hear is a fucking joke. The other side lives in some bizarre bubble.



It's like this...a guy runs YOU off the road for no reason known to mankind then flips YOU off for for no reason known to mankind.


Figur that one out!

[JoseGaspar]

25. Sorry, but whether something is a ...

..."major accomplishment" in politics is decided in real life and not by opinions on a political board. Less than a handful of Democratic candidates ran on Health Care or Stim or FinReg and they lost. The "major accomplishments" were enough to mobilize the right-wing to vote against them but not enough to pull the Democratic base out to vote for them. That is not a "major accomplishment"... that is failed triangulation. It is supposed to work the other way, even for the most cynical "pragmatists".

You can't dismiss that as a failure of communication.

You could argue that posterity will recognize what the ungrateful voters refuse to.... but that's not politics, either. That's just an attitude. I doubt that even Gibbs would take a stab at that.

As far as "two weeks before" goes... two weeks ago, Obama was still taking shots at FDR and saying that Summers did a "heck of a job".

That is a message, of sorts.