I received this tweet a few nights ago from someone who is exasperated with the Republicans: How bout if all lower class, middle class, unemployed, & women who should know better showed up & voted 4 the peeps on their side last nov?
What happened? Why didn't those groups show and vote for candidates who were on their side?
Abraham Lincoln said, "I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts."
Obviously Democrats failed to "bring them the real facts" in a way that would connect with them.
Why would senior citizens vote for candidates who will ultimately do harm to them by cutting the very programs on which they depend? The answer is that those candidates did a much better job at convincing seniors and others that the policies of the democrats, and especially health care, would harm them and put their very lives in danger.
While one may speculate about the intelligence of voters who would believe what the Republicans said about any issues, the truth still remains that more people chose to vote for Republicans. The Republican, particularly Tea Party, rhetoric was similar to the dialog, not of the 1760s but of the 1850s. Just as plantation owners, who were the party leaders and held positions in Federal, State and Local government, convinced poorer whites in the South that protecting a system that they would never be a part of was in their best interests, so in this election the right wing candidates convinced many groups that policies such as health care reform, which would be good for them, were in fact bad and were the beginning of a move to destroy American democracy.
Democrats failed to counter the attacks from the right by exposing the rhetoric for what is was - half and/or distorted truths designed to fuel emotions and misplaced patriotism. Now we are faced with the debacle of the tax cut battle. A battle we, at this moment ought to have the numbers to win, but do not.