Who would have ever thought a man whose only real experience was that of a community agitator wouldn’t be up to the job of running America?
Interestingly, even this article detailing centrist Democrats “ripping” Obama couldn’t face the reality of the sheer extent of the disaster Obama led the Democrat Party into: this wasn’t the worst election drubbing since 1994; it was the worst election drubbing since 1938 (and since 1928 in the state legislatures).
THAT is how big the ruin has been for the Marxist Democrat Party.
Centrist Dems rip ‘tone-deaf’ White House
By JONATHAN MARTIN | 11/6/10 7:14 AM EST Updated: 11/8/10 5:10 AM ESTIn the wake of the party’s worst election drubbing since 1994, the deep frustration felt by many centrist Democrats toward the White House and the national party is now out in the open. And it’s being aired in the battleground state that’s the biggest prize in presidential politics.
Florida Democratic gubernatorial nominee Alex Sink pointed an accusatory finger Friday at what she called a “tone-deaf” Obama White House to explain why she narrowly lost her campaign.
In an interview with POLITICO, Sink said the administration mishandled the response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, doesn’t appreciate the political damage done by healthcare reform and argued that her GOP opponent’s strategy of tying her to the president did grave damage to her candidacy in the state’s conservative Panhandle.
“They got a huge wake-up call two days ago, but unfortunately they took a lot of Democrats down with them,” said Sink of the White House.
She added: “They just need to be better listeners and be better at reaching out to people who are on the ground to hear about the realities of their policies as well as politics.”
Sink’s complaint can, of course, be chalked up in part to sour grapes on the part of a candidate fresh off a tough loss looking for an explanation. She lost her race by a single percentage point.
But Sink’s pointed critique expressed the sentiments of other Florida Democrats after an election in which the party lost four U.S. House seats and every statewide contest Tuesday, not to mention statehouse losses that left Democrats facing GOP legislative supermajorities in one of the largest states in the nation.
Sink, the state’s elected Chief Financial Officer and a former banking executive, ran against Republican Rick Scott, a wealthy former health care CEO who spent tens of millions of his own fortune.
“I faced headwinds from Washington that I liken to a tsunami and was going up against a guy who had unlimited resources,” Sink said. “I could have overcome either one but not both.”
Sink even had the advantage of facing a GOP opponent who was a first-time candidate who had previously run a company slapped with the largest Medicare fraud fine ever issued. But Scott countered that liability with a massive ad campaign linking Sink to Obama, a very unpopular figure in the more conservative parts of the sprawling state.
“[People] preferred to vote for somebody with questionable ethics than for somebody who was associated with the Washington Democratic agenda,” the Floridian said.
Sink said there is a disconnect between the White House and the rest of the country.
“I think they were tone-deaf,” she said. “They weren’t interested in hearing my opinion on what was happening on the ground with the oil spill. And they never acknowledged that they had problems with the acceptance of health care reform.”
The new law, she said, is “unpopular particularly among seniors” — a key voting bloc in the Sunshine State.
As for Scott’s hard-hitting ads depicting her as an Obama clone, Sink said the spots hurt “particularly in Northwest Florida.” […]
But when the candidate criticized the White House response to the oil spill and specifically a summer speech by Vice President Joe Biden in a POLITICO article, an angry administration official called her to demand she “walk back” her assessment, said two sources familiar with the situation.
Sink didn’t deny the exchange.
“I don’t follow anybody’s party line if I don’t think they’re on the right track,” she said when asked about the call.
Another heated back-and-forth took place over whether Sink would meet Obama on the Miami airport tarmac when the president arrived in August for a state party fundraiser. The White House was angry, according to Sink sympathizers, about what they saw as a snub when the candidate stayed away. […]
Still, when they weren’t protecting the president’s image, Obama aides were either totally unhelpful to the campaign or trying to big-foot the operation, according to sources familiar with the contest.
In the spring, when Sink’s campaign was adrift and desperately in need of a shake-up, there was a meeting in Washington with a group of senior Democrats.
Following the meeting, a mid-level White House political official sent out a one-page memo that operatives saw as so illustrative of the Obama team’s cluelessness about the race that they had it laminated and regularly mocked it.
The document, obtained by POLITICO, included such numbered headers as “Hire Key Staff” and “Develop and present a holistic campaign plan.”
A White House official said the memo was only a summary of the conversation for the participants — not a strategic plan.
But Sink’s allies also complain that Obama aides too frequently intervened with the state party’s coordinated campaign.
A White House political affairs office staffer flew down to Florida in the spring to meet with major Obama donors to get their input on the joint funding program.
“They went around what we were trying to do and tried to get their donors to influence what the coordinated process was instead of letting us drive it,” carped one Democratic operative involved in the race.
Even as they concede that Sink made mistakes, Florida Democratic operatives who were not directly involved with the campaign make the case that she was dragged down by the national party.
“She talked about jobs, she talked about taxes, but it didn’t matter,” said veteran strategist Screven Watson. “They put Sink with Pelosi and Obama.”
“If only we had worked on jobs and the economy and maybe an energy bill — but no, we tried to do everything,” he said of the national party. “And then they do an awful job of communicating what they did. So what’s the end result? We just saw it.”
Clueless. Tone deaf. Incompetent. Self-absorbed. That’s your president. And that’s according to Democrats.
Obama said he’s worried high enemployment is becoming the new “normal”:
“What is a danger is that we stay stuck in a new normal where unemployment rates stay high, people who have jobs see their incomes go up, businesses make big profits, but they’ve learned to do more with less, and so they don’t hire,” he said.
And, of course, high unemployment WILL BE the new normal, until Obama is driven out of office in disgrace like Jimmy Carter.
Notice that Obama demonizes businesses for being too greedy and stingy to hire, rather than having any sense whatsoever that his policies have made it too expensive to hire new employees, or that his policies have left businesses with no idea what kinds of taxes, energy prices, health care costs, regulations, and frankly demonizing, that they will face from this incredibly ideologically socialist ship of fools.
This is God damn America. And don’t forget that I warned you what God damn America would look like (and see here also). And it’s going to continue to remain God damn America until the God damn America president is no longer able to pollute the highest office in the nation.
Tags: Alex Sink, centrist Democrats, clueless, community agitator, community organizer, Democrats, Democrats rip Obama, disconnect between the White House and the rest of the country, God damn America, healthcare, illustrative of the Obama team’s cluelessness, Obamacare, oil spill, rip, ripping, self-absorbed, since 1928, since 1938, the Washington Democratic agenda, they took a lot of Democrats down with them, tone-deaf, White House
Start Thinking Right 
November 9, 2010 at 8:26 am
As a Floridian, I am grateful Sink and Crist went down in flames. Sink’s platform was the typical Liberal playbook though she talked jobs, lowering taxes, etc. Liberals like to SOUND like Conservatives during campaigns but they legislate and vote Liberal. They are liars and hypocrites.
You’re right Michael, until the lying, deceiving, hypocritical Destroyer-in-Chief is out of power we are in serious trouble. I pray Obama destroys Democrats ability to get into power EVER again.
November 9, 2010 at 4:50 pm
I still wonder why California ignored the rest of the country.
I can only figure it was the huge public-sector unions. The media kept reporting that Jerry Brown was only spending a fraction of what Meg Whitman was spending. And yet we were seeing five anti-Whitman ads for every one that was for her.
I think that’s what happened in New York, too.