According to Nancy Pelosi who, come January, will see the size of her flock there in the House shrink by a factor of 12, and maybe more, the Democrats didn't lose Tuesday's midterm elections because voters don't like the Democrat Party's message, on the contrary, they lost because Democrat voters simply stayed away from the polls.
Apparently it was during what was a rather lengthy phone call just a couple days after the election that Nancy told her caucus members, "Next year has to be the year to expand the universe of people who vote. I'm concerned that eligible voters did not vote in the election this year." But why is it that she thinks that stayed home?
Nancy said, "We have the magic and the resources to have massive voter registration over the country — not just places that might benefit the Democrats." And she then went on to say, "I don't care if they vote for a Republican, just so [long as] they vote, get in the game, are counted, and people will pay attention to what their concerns are."
If Nancy was being honest with herself, as well as with those in her caucus, she wouldn’t have been focused on excuses and would have recognized the fact that House Democrats would likely have had difficulty taking back the chamber even if more voters had turned out, as several factors were working against them. But it’s just easier to make excuses.
Barry's popularity ratings have been dropping all year, and many Americans are frustrated by the economy and concerned over the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the Ebola outbreak, and the thousands of immigrants who crossed the nation's southern border earlier this year. Many Republicans connected House races to Barry, and many Democrats are blaming Barry as a result.
"We lost all over because people weren't motivated to come out to vote," New York Democrat Rep. Jerrold Nadler said during the call. He added, "And the whole campaign — not just the campaign, but the whole zeitgeist for years — has been the president who has the bully pulpit refusing to attack the Republicans, refusing to differentiate, refusing to defend his own policies."
Connecticut Democrat Rep. Rosa DeLauro also complained that Republicans made their races a national, rather than local, issue. She complained, "We had base voters who were disappointed in the president and who did not come out. ... But what happened in the House was not a result of a House strategy."
Pelosi still believes, however, that Democrats can one day take back the House, even though current district maps won't be redrawn until 2020 and the next Congress to be affected won't take office until at least 2023. She says she remains concerned about the damage, as she frames it, that Republicans will do over the next eight years.
She said, "I don't know any children that can wait that long for us to do the job for them, any families that can withstand, not only this past few years, but eight years projected." And she went on to say, "We can make the change in the voting environment in the year 2015. It's our responsibility." I believe the ‘children’ will be far better served with the Democrats being in the minority for as long as we can keep them there.
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