Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) told ABC News that the Democratic Party cannot ignore the lessons of the Massachusetts special Senate election unless it wants to be lead to “even further catastrophe.”
The race to fill the late Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat has become hotly contested in recent weeks, even though the Democratic candidate, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, enjoyed double digit polling leads up until the middle of December. Republican candidate Scott Brown has called the race a referendum on health care reform and has promised to be the 41st vote to block cloture on the landmark legislation if he’s voted into office.
The lesson, according to Bayh, is that the Democrats have pushed their agenda too far to the left and have, in the process alienated independent voters.
“It’s why moderates and independents even in a state as Democratic as Massachusetts just aren’t buying our message,” Bayh told ABC. “They just don’t believe the answers we are currently proposing are solving their problems.”
The senator also said he thinks the Democrats will be in denial about a potential Coakley loss. “If you lose Massachusetts and that’s not a wake-up call, there’s no hope of waking up,” he said.
