Hoyer Finally Admits the Obvious: Health Care Bill Killed the Dems in 2010 - FDL

[RBInMaine]

99. You are largely right, but here is some more to add to why the GOP has a good election in 2010.

As to the healthcare vote, the Dems needed to do a better job of explaining the law. They and their allied organizations didn't counter the organized right wing lie machine enough nor their astroturf TeaBag protests. The law is a STEP in the right direction, is NOT "socialized medicine", and yes, while not perfect it certainly does a lot of GOOD and as a moderate bill included many planks which many R's used to support. The second Obama took office, the right wing went into obstruction/attack mode, and Dems did not hit back hard enough. Part of the problem was the progressive base did not support the law enough so would not stand up to the TeaBaggers on it hard enough. They wanted to shoot for the moon with single payer (which I support but it can't pass nationally anytime soon), and then when they had to drop the public option they had a rea; hissy fit. The problem was that the public option sadly would NOT PASS in the Senate, and the RePUKES were determined to defeat him on it to make it his political "Waterloo". It did pass in the House. Obama supported it. But governing is compromise, like it or not, and ALL progressives needed to strongly support a STEP toward some PROGRESS. Instead, the corporate sponsored TeaNuts got tons of airtime by the corporate media and progressives where not out there slamming them back down. At least not nearly enough.

So in 2010 the right wing lie machine kept talking about "government takeover" and "death panels" and "cutting Medicare" (as if they care about Medicare), and this emboldened the right wing base and scared some independents. So yes, this was an issue.

But the MAIN reasons for 2010 Republican wins were a WEAK ECONOMY and MORE REPUBLICAN ENTHUSIASM. Many indies were simply angry in general about the economy. After two good Dem cycles, and since the economy wasn't fixed overnight. they were angry and voted AGAINST THE MAJORITY PARTY which in more cases were Dems. It wasn't so much voting FOR the R's. At the same time, WAY TOO MANY Dems and Progressives did not engage, did not campaign, and did not vote. We had more progress from 2008 to 2010, even if it wasn't purity, than we have seen since The Great Society, and yet WAY TOO MANY (not all, but too many) Progressives/Dems sat it out. NO EXCUSES for that, and am sick of hearing them. So, we got GOP ASSHOLES like Walker, and LePage, and Kasich, and Scott etc. at the state level and all kinds of TeaNuts in Congress.

And now the RePUKES have tried to use 2010 as a mandate to foist a hard right wing agenda on the nation, and it has backfired. Dems and progressive referendums did very well in 2011, and 2012 will be even better.

Moral of the story: GET THE HELL UNITED, STAND UP HARD TO THE REPUKES, AND DON'T BITCH AND WHINE AND REFUSE TO VOTE AND THEN BITCH EVEN LOUDER WHEN THE GOP WINS. Simple as that.