Why, WHY, did the Dems never run against the Do-nothing Republican Congress?

[fiorello]

Am I wrong? Since 2008 the Republicans first filibustered, and then, since 2010, straight-out blocked every Obama initiative to strengthen the economy, especially to provide jobs. And the Democrats have said about this-zilch. Not Obama, not any swing state candidate for house or senate, and not (most important) Hillary Clinton.

Look, the average American doesn't even know what Congress does, and certainly not which party controls Congress. It's up to us to tell them. (The media? Forget it.).

Instead, this election became all about the "status quo" (us) versus "change" (Trump).

The real change would have been Hillary Clinton with a Democratic congress. Then you might see an infrastructure program run by someone like Ohio's Sherood Brown, who could steer projects towards rural and rust belt counties.

But no one ever talked about that.

In 1948 Harry S Truman won re-election by placing emphasis on the Do Nothing Republican Confress.

In 2012 Joe Biden summarized things in 9 words: Bin Laden is dead and GM is alive.

And in 2016? It seems to me that the Republicans Congress got a free pass. Even though they were pretty open about their intention to wreck the economy if it would make Obama look like a failure and help elect a ARepublican in 2016. And it worked... in part because we kept it secret.

Am I wrong?

Look, this is no rant against Hillary, the problem goes back many years in different forms. But it is definitely a rant. It has really been bugging me. I wish I was wrong.

[JI7]

1. because congressional races need to be seen within those individual districts and most congress

members are popular in their district.

Democrats did get more votes overall but because of gerrymandering and just how things are set up dem areas tend to have less representation.

[SFnomad]

3. Democrats did not get more votes in the House races in 2016

The only time that Democrats have gotten more votes, but stayed in the minority was 2012. The other years that the Republicans won the majority, they also had the most votes in House races. Also, House districts in individual states are supposed to have about equal population ... at least that's what supposed to happen during redistricting, which happens every 10 years, the year after the census. Because of changes in population within districts during that 10 year period, the districts do get out of balance.

[elleng]

2. They complain it costs money!

No sh*t, sherlock! Think if they'd have let us know, in a broad, loud way, that to do this important thing, they needed our financial help, we'd have done it?

[Docreed2003]

4. Exactly...

And it didn't help that we learned after the election that some reps/senate candidates were begging the DNC for money and exposure and didn't receive it. Some of those, like Russ Fiengold, were canaries in the coal mine.

[elleng]

5. YES!!!

AMAZING that should happen to him!

[global1]

6. I'm In Total Agreement With You And I Posted This Back On Nov 27th.....

Last edited Sun Jan 8, 2017, 01:33 AM - Edit history (1)

Then when Hillary won the nomination she should have directed her campaign against the Repugs instead of directing her campaign against Trump.

I believe it was a tactical mistake by her campaign not to take after the Repugs. They thought if they would take on Trump they would capture the votes of those anti-Trump Repugs and they didn't want to piss them off associating these anti-Trumpers with the Repugs.

The Dems in general - including the Obama's, Biden and even Bill - went after Trump when the real enemy was the Repug Party.

The Repug Clown Car lost their primary to Trump because they did the same thing - they made it about Trump.

Hillary's campaign should have realized and seen that going after Trump was a losing proposition. They didn't.

So it's a nice try to blame this on Bernie - but it was Hillary, her campaign and the Dems that didn't attack the real enemy - The Repug Party - that from the day Obama was inaugurated - vowed to make him a one term President and did everything in their power to gridlock this country and stonewall every logical and right thing to bring this country back from the brink of the disaster that BushCo left us with.

Obama and the Dems could have made America Great Again - but The Repugs stonewalled them every step of the way.

And guess what - America rewarded them and gave them the trifecta. We blew the best chance we've had in 2016 to right this country and now we wonder if we'll ever recover.

[hedda_foil]

7. What global1 said