With just over two weeks to go until election day Democrats are still looking for the magic formula.
Perhaps nothing has frustrated Democrats more than their yearlong failure to find a message that could puncture the anger of millions of voters who seem bent on punishing the party in power. It wasn't for a lack of trying.
It wasn't for lack of persistence either. Two years down the road with consecutive trillion-plus deficits under his belt, unemployment at nearly 10 percent, and recovery nowhere in sight, President Obama continues to lay the blame on George W. Bush. The message is not resonating, and progressives are at a loss to explain it.
And that's not the only message that failed to penetrate. The if-only-voters-were-smart-enough-to-understand-Obama's-brilliance message hasn't caught on either. Democrats are mystified. The reality based community was perplexed, but then the explanation hit them over the head like a two-by-four.
Rejection of policies like health care reform is really rejection of the president because he is African-American, they said. They had discovered a vast body of Americans who were still racists! Mystery solved! But somehow, public gratitude for this important constructive criticism never materialized. Progressives are bewildered.
Instead of showing appropriate gratitude for this progressive enlightenment, Americans have been pouring millions into Republican election campaigns. In fact, Democrats trail Republican fund raising by a wide margin. It has gotten so bad that Democrats have been forced to pull advertising from several races.
Democrats, desperate to hold their losses to three dozen seats, plan to run TV ads in 59 races in the remaining days. But their chief House campaign committee has recently canceled millions of dollars worth of advertising for struggling Reps. Steve Driehaus and Mary Jo Kilroy of Ohio, Suzanne Kosmas of Florida, Betsy Markey of Colorado and Steve Kagen of Wisconsin.
Out of the Republican fund raising advantage comes Obama's new message: The US Chamber of Commerce is a threat to our democracy. David Axlerod went on Face the Nation last week to accuse it of using money from foreign sources to pay for political ads. According to Axlerod, no offense but the Chamber is dishonest, criminal actually, until it proves otherwise.
It's odd, but this new message hasn't struck a chord with the electorate, either. And though there is still time for it to take hold, there's not a lot of hope that it will. Obama and his progressive allies may eventually find their way to comprehension, painful though it may be.
But then again, maybe not. In one of his more recent pronouncements Obama identifies yet another factor that clouds voter judgment: fear.
The strategy of casting American voters as ignorant, racist, dishonest, and stupid hasn't worked, but it's given Obama an idea for a new message: Irrationally fearful Americans are responsible for the recession because they can't think clearly. What could possibly go wrong with that one? After all, we'll have the Democrats to allay our fears.
Updated at 6:45pm
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