Someone didn't get the lesson in 2010

[Tom Rinaldo]

113. I understand, but now is not the moment for worring about winning future elections

Now is the moment for caring about what our elected government does or does not do. In other words, now is the time when the reason for elections comes into focus. One major reason why I chose writing about the potential impact of cutting Social Security on the midterm elections now is because we haven't cut Social Security yet - so that impact still may not materialize. Important decisions are still pending. The record that Democrats will run on in 2014 has not yet been written. Now is the time to care about these things. And I think it can still be helpful to remind Congressional Democrats and would be Congressional Democrats that their own electoral fates are largely in their own hands with the decisions they will shortly be asked to make. The President does not have to run again.

I will work for Democrats in 2014, which ones is yet unclear. But the effectiveness of all of our actions will be tempered by the mood of the country. Independent of the debate taking place on an activist hang out like DU, polling shows that the vast majority of the American people do not support cutting Social Security benefits. Polling shows that a strong majority of the American people would support increasing taxes if that is what it ultimately took to preserve Social Security benefits that currently exist If our party leaders insist on flying in the face of public opinion they are cutting their own base out from under them.