Democrats showing they still don't get it

By Matt Mackowiak

Last week, by a vote of 143-50, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California was overwhelmingly elected leader of the Democratic minority for the next Congress over token opposition from Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina. Democrats also reelected the rest of their House leadership team, even though they had just suffered their worst electoral defeat since 1938.

The vote showed that most Democrats still believe they did nothing to deserve their stunning electoral defeat this month. They blame the economy instead of their policies, and they have apparently convinced themselves that there's no relationship between the two.

While President Obama did inherit a difficult economy, the situation has grown worse in the years since. The recovery has been shallower than expected. We have lost more than seven million jobs since Pelosi became speaker, and more than three million since Obama was sworn in and signed the $787 billion stimulus package.

And yet Democrats this year essentially ran on the slogan "It would have been worse." And of course they got shellacked, leaving the Obama coalition broken into a thousand pieces.

Despite the protestations of Democrats, this election was not a mandate for bipartisanship. (Isn't it funny how the losers always want bipartisanship?) The electorate chose divided government not to increase cooperation between the parties, but to increase gridlock. It's not "What is the government doing for me?"; it's "What is the government doing to me?"

In politics, you're on borrowed time as soon as you stop listening to the voters. After huge losses in 2006 and 2008, Republicans had to show that they heard the voters and were willing to change. They went on listening tours, held town-hall meetings, and produced a Pledge to America that was directly informed by the voters' input. They also got serious about spending with a self-imposed earmark moratorium, which has now been extended through the entire 112th Congress.

Now Republicans have erased all the Democratic gains of 2006 and 2008, and then some, in a single cycle. So are Democrats listening to the voters and changing in response? Absolutely not. They mouth promises about jobs, reducing the deficit, and cutting earmarks, but there is no action.

Led off a cliff and into a hole by Pelosi, the Democrats have chosen to keep digging. Rank-and-file members tried to postpone leadership elections, and 68 of them voted to do so, but Pelosi maintained her grip on power. She now presides over a caucus that's smaller by at least 61 members and much more liberal. Gone are dozens of conservative and moderate Democrats - many recruited by former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel - from swing districts in Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Indiana, and elsewhere.

Now the question is how Democrats in the Senate will respond. While Majority Leader Harry Reid won reelection in Nevada, he lost six Democratic seats. He also has 23 members facing elections in 2012, and eight to 10 of them can expect very difficult races. Those members will be more likely to work with Republicans and to oppose the Democratic agenda because it's in their interests to do so. And Reid will need at least seven Republican votes to break any filibuster, requiring him to reach more agreements with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky if he wants to get anything passed during the next two years.

Part of the rehabilitation process is admitting you have a problem. Democrats in the House seem to think everything is fine. What about their counterparts in the Senate?