Now, the question is, does the democratic team in place have the balls

[WCGreen]

to build on the rebukes and start to bring sanity back into our political structure or will they continue to cow tow to the nasty GOP...

The people can only be pushed so far before they snap.

The GOP did this in Wisconsin and Ohio and were rebuked.

The Dem's have got to get serious and put together an ALTERNATIVE to the GOP and not just GOP lite.

If they don't pull all the various factions in our party together, then the momentum started tonight will simply go poof...

And that means the democrats in swing states need to break with the bull shit and stand tall and if they don't, the leadership must strip away their committee assignments and let them join the GOP and then we run a real democrat the next election.

[lonestarnot]

1. Nothing is going to go poof! We are going to take over. End of story!

:7 Then we better get it fucking done!

[MrSlayer]

2. I hate to say this but probably not.

Too many Democrats are bought and owned the same way the entire Republican Party is. They will continue to vote against the interests of the People. And forget about taking committee assignments away, only Republicans have that kind of message discipline. Remember who let that fucking asshole Lieberman stay in his spot. We have to do it the hard way, primaries.

[WCGreen]

4. that's what I mean about having the balls to use the power they have...

[WingDinger]

7. If occupy pressure stays, so does the left shift.

[yurbud]

8. sadly true. the only message corporate dems get from victory or defeat is ''move to the right''

[leftstreet]

3. The Democrats aren't offering alternatives. Voters just keep saying no to GOP policies

When Democrats run on rightwing policies they get voted down, too

[meow2u3]

12. Time to primary the GOP-lite "Dems"

Get some real Dems to run instead.

[spanone]

5. we will find out soon.....super committee.

[midnight]

6. I agree.... No GOP lite.... Kick Reagonomics to the curb...

[CaliforniaPeggy]

9. Nothing to add, but K&R...

[Poll_Blind]

10. My girlfriend has a saying "You can trust people to do what they do." What do you REALLY think...

...the Democratic Party are going to do? Look away from the monitor, maybe up at the ceiling, gather together all of your recollections over the last, oh...5-6 years...and then think "Does what I, WCGreen, personally recollect of the behavior of the majority of the Democratic Party from 2005 onward lead me to believe that the Democratic Party will, in fact, 'get serious', stand up to and offer a serious alternative to the GOP- that doesn't involve abortion rights or another social issue?"

See, when I do that I just get a tension headache and mutter "Jesus" over and over.

I'd like you to be right. But I don't think the Democrats are going to break with any bullshit. I think they're going to saddle up the bullshit and try to ride it into another term. I also think the chances of Democratic Leadership stripping away committee assignments is about as likely as Mrs. Pacman sweeping the nation for a second time.

I think the closest thing to a Democrat that's going to shuffle up on stage during the 2012 debates is going to be our President Barack Obama and I think, if we're lucky, the best we're going to do is have four more years of a Repuke-controlled House while we narrowly hang on to the Senate as the President gets into a bowing contest with Boehner.

That's my best-case forecast for the next five years. Things mostly remain static after the 2012 elections.

I've looked a bit at the House races in 2012 and I just don't see how we're going to make up the deficit. Just to break even I think we have to gain 24-25 seats in the House and, IIRC, the most ever gained, historically, was 21. That's excluding the actual races, themselves. That's not paying attention to the actual political climate that some of these Democrats are existing in- i.e. red states where they just eeked out a win.

PB

[tabatha]

11. A lot of money was thrown at this ---- and failed.

The paid-for politicians can be defeated.

People need to find about some of Ohio's methods.

[WCGreen]

13. I think this is a one time event....

I was too busy working my own campaign to see how much effort the party contributed to this race.

If we were in pound for pound, the first thing I would do with organized labor would be to schedule monthly meetings between the Union Heads of all Unions to see what is on the horizon and see how we could work together to get things done.

If we, the party, doesn't do that, then the old acrimony that has festered between labor and the party since the mid 90's will reappear and we will have gained nothing from working together.