REPUBLICANS: "My God, what (an effing) mess---A loss is what the GOP's political class NOW expects."

[kenfrequed]

76. And I think messaging is important

Yes, local is important but too many people have embrased a Rahms-ian tactician mindset towards all elections. Winning tiny media cycles and getting meaningless points on the board is truly unimportant unless there is a larger strategy and messaging that is paid some deference to.

To elucidate this I would point out that there are far more Democrats that run against sitting democratic presidents when running for their congressional seats than Republicans. This is an example of not following a larger issue-based strategy but choosing to run towards a delusional middle rather than doing all of our part to move the middle.

Other than bigotry, fear, ruthless efficiency, surprise and a fanatical... oh wait, that's someone else.

The republicans are good at unified messaging even though their message is actually crappier than ours. We have good policies that most Democratic voters and activists would be behind completely and they are issues of economics that the majority of voters favor as well. Unfortunately many individual democratic congressmen only half mention these issues or waste endless time trying to appeal to voters that hate them for existing. The appearance of moderation is not, in itself, a terrible thing. But the projection of moderation without specific and unified policy stances is silly and has all the content of Jello.