The Democrat Party's most seasoned leaders say their congressional counterparts haven't done enough post-election introspection about why their "tepid" efforts and messaging failed,
The Hill reported.
Among those asking for a more thoughtful post-mortem dissection of Democrats' massive midterm losses was Howard Dean, a former Democratic National Committee chair and onetime presidential candidate who urged his colleagues to regroup as they pivot toward 2016.
"I haven’t seen any discussion about the complete lack of message,” Dean told The Hill “I think they need to figure out what they stand for and then talk about it.”
His message was shared by Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, who also chaired the DNC. "No, there’s not been enough (introspection)," Kaine told The Hill. "I’m less focused on the party than the Senate. We have to do some serious soul-searching to ask why so many of our colleagues lost races. They were not bad public servants. They weren’t bad candidates. We have to ask why they lost."
As Democrat leaders in Washington have accepted little blame for midterm losses, Kaine said they must shoulder responsibility and then learn from it, formulating a new way ahead.
“We haven’t had the discussion about what went wrong," he told The Hill. "We haven’t had the discussion about what we need to do going forward to be more successful in the mission we have, and now is the time to really begin the discussion."
One person who seemed to step up to take some responsibility for his party's midterm failure is President Barack Obama. He noted that "the buck stops here," as he moves toward his last two years in office with Republicans in control of Congress,
Buzzfeed reports.
“The message that I took from this election, and we’ve seen this in a number of elections, successive elections, is people want to see this city work. And they feel as if it’s not working," Obama told CBS's Bob Schieffer, according to Buzzfeed. “They see Washington gridlocked and they’re frustrated. And they know one person in Washington and that’s the president of the United States. So I’ve got to make this city work better for them."
The most recent Gallup polling, taken Nov. 6-9, shows Democrats with a 36 percent favorability rating, a dip of six points since a previous survey taken before the elections, the website
SaintPetersblog noted. Republican favorability has remained unchanged at 42 percent.