White House to Senate Democrats: “Sauve qui peut!*”…

This is not what you tell people when you’re trying to keep a loss from being a rout:

Understanding full well Obama’s unpopularity is a drag on some Democrats in tight congressional races, White House officials are signaling to party leaders and campaign managers alike there will be no consequences should they run away from the president in order to win.

This is what you tell people when you think that there’s going to be a rout, no matter what, but you want to maybe rebuild something from the shattered fragments afterwards.  It’s also a tacit admission that you’re expecting this preemptive forgiveness to be largely if not almost completely an academic exercise anyway. If I was a more reckless man, that’d be grounds for a DOOM call right now.

Via

and

Moe Lane

*Classical Reference.

#rsrh A reminder: Obama for America staffer taking too many notes = secret defeatist.

This isn’t directed at anyone specifically: I just wanted to point out that anybody who is planning to write some variant of How Obama’s Defeat In November Of 2012 Was The Fault Of Everybody In The Universe Except Me for the political book trade would be needing to start cataloging the Litany of Shame And Failure right about, well, now.  And the books will arrive; there are a lot of people who are going to want to know why the Democrats threw away the Presidency.  Plus, it’s not like these people are Bush Republicans: they’ve not exactly been trained to think of loyalty as a virtue.  Crabs in a pail, folks: crabs in a pail.

Now, normally I’d just stand and cheer, except that I [expletive deleted] hate most political books, so why help these people out?  In fact, I’ll give out some helpful suggestions, for anybody who doesn’t want to be a chapter heading of their very own next year:

Continue reading #rsrh A reminder: Obama for America staffer taking too many notes = secret defeatist.

DNC to Blue Dogs: Sauve qui peut.

At this point, you’re probably wondering what the heck the DNC was thinking with running this ‘mob’ nonsense.

After all, it seems relatively harsh – not to mention, stupid – to categorize anywhere from 45% (adult votes, CNN) (H/T) to 52% (registered voters, Quinnipiac) (H/T) of the population who have problems with either the entire policy, or the way that the Democrats are presenting it, as a “mob.”  Mobs break things.  These folks are just ticked off voters – and judging from the age levels we’re seeing in the pictures and videos, they’re ticked-off older voters.  That demographic turns out for elections, and the Democrats are openly calling them names.  What gives?

What gives is that a lot of those ticked-off voters live in districts that do not normally concern Democratic strategists.  It’s one thing to have a town hall erupt in vigorous dissent in all of those swing districts; entirely another one to have it happen in areas that matter. With “matter” being defined as “have an impact on the Democratic leadership’s individual races.”  Those areas need to be shored up, and while demonizing one’s opponents doesn’t help you with moderate voters it’s an excellent way to reinforce your appeal to partisan Democrats.  As for the Blue Dogs… well, the Democrats do have got a really big padding in the House.  What does Nancy Pelosi care if she only has a, say, ten vote majority?  She still has the gavel and the title, doesn’t she? So let the ‘conservative’ Democrats eat cake.

Which was, by the way, the stuff that was left over when you baked bread: you rolled it up and shoved it on the baking pan so that the loaves didn’t get dislodged.  The metaphor actually works better that way, in fact.

Moe Lane

PS: Alternatively, you can listen to the critique of Senator Barbara Boxer, who thinks that… I’m not sure what she thinks, but it apparently involves clothing choices.  And Ronald Reagan!  And Al Gore!

I understand that the NRSC had some choice words in response; I look forward to reading them in full.

Crossposted to RedState.