Now Is Not The Time To Roll Over

Simply put, last night was a rough one for the Democratic Party. Sixty or so seats in the House, six or seven in the Senate and a plethora of governorships and legislatures across the country were lost to the Republican Party. Soon to be Speaker Boehner is claiming a mandate, President Obama has tail between his legs, but now more than ever is the time to fight for a progressive agenda in America.

For some odd reason, the President thinks that being a Democrat is a bad thing in light of what happened at the polls. He is mistaken however.

In the last two years the President has accomplished more to help the American worker since L.B.J. Where Bill Clinton failed on health care in 1993, Obama succeeded by taking the first (but not final) step towards ensuring that all Americans have health insurance. The Recovery Act helped our nation avoid a true economic catastrophe. And there are many more fucking things on list of accomplishments.

Unfortunately though, the devastation wrought by the Bush Administration was beyond horrific and could not have been remedied in under two years' time. Sadly, the American voter by and large assessed Obama and his party with the blame for our unemployment woes.

Obama and his party can take some of that heat, not for what they did, but for what they did not do. A full scale, innovative and assertive jobs bill should have been the first item on the agenda (perhaps if they stuck to their guns with the original idea and intent of the Recovery Act).

Most importantly though, what has been a complete failure for the men and women in blue has been the lack of effective messaging. What was Obama's greatest strength as a Presidential candidate was the weakest link for both the White House and the Democratic majority on the Hill. For instance, the word "stimulus" should have been left to the policy wonks. The "Jobs, Jobs and more Jobs Act" would have been better.

So in the next two years, as Obama re-learns his campaigning skills (a Ryan Seacrest interview does not signal an improvement in his game), our party's faithful has to push harder than ever to force the thinned out Democrats to stick to their principles and vote for smart, sensible legislation and not the type of bill that widens the income equality gap more than it's at now (which is at it's largest in American history). Republicans will try to claim that giving tax cuts to the wealthy will spur job growth, but in reality that has only hurt the American worker, hardly ever has it helped. Instead we must regulate big business, or at least make it clear to the voters that that is the intent of the (sadly) leaner and (hopefully) meaner Democratic Party.

If the lesson learned for the Democratic leadership is to "compromise" with the uncompromisable G.O.P, then the results of 2012 will look a lot like 2010....only with the Presidency on the line.

Go Vote!

I know it's been forever since I've opened my blogger's publisher tool, but I just had to take a minute to post this message:

"Go Vote!"

And this one: