Obama did everything he could to discourage Democratic voter turnout in 2010. From flip-flopping and breaking campaign promises and pushing through Republican-like legislation to Obama's broadcasting in the weeks before the 2010 midterms that he was going to continue to "work in a bipartisan manner" with Republicans, no matter what the outcome of the elections. Whether Democrats gained seats or lost control of the Congress:
Aides say that the president’ s been spending “a lot of time talking about Obama 2.0,” brainstorming with administration officials about the best way to revamp the strategies and goals of the White House.
And despite the predictions that Democrats may relinquish a large degree of legislating power, including perhaps control of the House and even Senate, Obama isn’t thinking of the next two years as a period that’ll be marked with the same obstructive nature from the GOP.
“It may be that regardless of what happens after this election, [Republicans] feel more responsible, either because they didn’t do as well as they anticipated, and so the strategy of just saying no to everything and sitting on the sidelines and throwing bombs didn’t work for them,” Obama says. “Or they did reasonably well, in which case the American people are going to be looking to them to offer serious proposals and work with me in a serious way.”
Dick Durbin says Obama’s post-election agenda “will have to be limited and focused on the things that are achievable and high priorities for the American people.” Tom Daschle says Obama has to reach out more: “The keyword is inclusion. He’s got to find ways to be inclusive. “
Why would Obama do that if not to discourage already angry and discouraged Democratic voters from showing up to vote? That was the effect. Discouraging and suppressing Democratic vote turnout in the midterms (from Obama's flip-flopping on just about every pledge and continuing Bush-Cheney policies and putting Republican-like legislation through Congress) was predictable, and
had been predicted.
And why would Obama do that if not to set up some sort of rationale for moving to the right, some reason for continuing to cave to Republicans?
Democrats lost seats in the 2010 midterms because of Obama's and Democrats failure to do what Democratic voters put them in office for in 2008. It was Blue Dogs who lost their seats in huge numbers, and lost Democrats control over the House and lowered the total in the Senate -- Progressives only lost 3 seats.
Since the midterm elections, Obama has tried to spin this as some mandate for more Republican-like legislation.
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