Democrats Agree: Obama Did Us In

Democrats are squabbling among each other in the wake of Wednesday’s disastrous election results. But there’s one thing all sides of the party can agree on: President Barack Obama is responsible for their downfall, Politico reports.

“Fundamentally, Democrats lost the middle,” says Ed Gresser, president of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. “The party's apparent lack of interest in a long-term path away from emergency stimulus toward fiscal balance revived a pre-Clinton reputation for carefree attitudes toward public money.”

Another moderate Democrat, retiring Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh, took the White House to task in a New York Times opinion piece. “It is clear that Democrats over-interpreted our mandate. Talk of a ‘political realignment’ and a ‘new progressive era’ proved wishful thinking,” he writes. “We were too deferential to our most zealous supporters.”

And Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a liberal who promotes bipartisanship, sees “missed opportunities in the last two years” for bipartisan proposals from the Whites House, particularly on taxes.