Message of the day to all Dems, Coakley, Rahm, Celinda Lake, national Dem committees, Axelrod, whoever, whatever: Shut the *$%& Up! I don’t know how else to say it. I’m watching MSNBC and hearing all the key players dumping on each other. As I’ve said, the Coakley campaign seems to have been run just terribly. And that’s just the beginning of it. But really, with all that’s at stake, the White House political office left this to Coakley, unsupervised? Really? I just have very little patience hearing all the people who are by definition all to blame have an argument about who’s most to blame.
What I’m seeing — and this isn’t just based on public comments but our reporting behind the scenes — is that there’s a lot more energy going into dodging blame for this unforced error of galactic proportions than there is going into the real issue: closing the loop on the health care bill. Which is the only issue in policy terms and political terms. That’s it. Everything else is water under the bridge.
And the key is this: this nonsense arguing is very reminiscent of 6 months of chatter and wasted negotiations that prevented this from getting done in the early summer instead of letting it get to this point. Which was n-e-e-d-l-e-s-s.
Jon Chait has this right. The Dems need to relax, get to work, pass the bill and move on.
