Shortly after Republicans officially clenched the majority in the Senate last night, chief-of-staff for outgoing Majority Leader Harry Reid sent direct shots across the left bow at the White House for major losses and revealed how Democrats got this point of incredible defeat. From The Washington Post:
At a March 4 Oval Office meeting, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and other Senate leaders pleaded with Obama to transfer millions in party funds and to also help raise money for an outside group. “We were never going to get on the same page,” said David Krone, Reid’s chief of staff. “We were beating our heads against the wall.”
The tension represented something more fundamental than money — it was indicative of a wider resentment among Democrats in the Capitol of how the president was approaching the election and how, they felt, he was dragging them down. All year on the trail, Democratic incumbents would be pounded for administration blunders beyond their control — the disastrous rollout of the health-care law, problems at the Department of Veterans Affairs, undocumented children flooding across the border, Islamic State terrorism and fears about Ebola.
Yikes. Until this point, Reid has been a key player in halting debate about President Obama's agenda. For years Reid has stopped hundreds of pieces of legislation passed by the House from ever seeing a vote or discussion in the Senate. Now with a Republican Senate and two years of Obama's presidency remaining, those efforts may have gone to waste.
Meanwhile, although President Obama and the White House have argued for months the 2014 midterms are not a referendum on his policies or messaging strategy, liberal media outlets aren't buying it.
Republicans capture control of the Senate. http://t.co/K4M2pNdJYO
@NYGovCuomo wins reelection. http://t.co/tNyZArYo1d pic.twitter.com/Gvcjb2IuOV
— New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) November 5, 2014Now leading HuffPost: OUCH http://t.co/tJNq3dMcKO pic.twitter.com/ZdnNo4YaAf
— Huffington Post (@HuffingtonPost) November 5, 2014And the final shot form the New York Post:
Today's front page: GOP takes the Senate http://t.co/p5Pg4OqZfG and Cuomo wins a 2nd term http://t.co/anVqWym7ch pic.twitter.com/8ONuvlvy2w
— New York Post (@nypost) November 5, 2014President Obama will hold a press conference about the election today at 2:50 pm from the White House. On Friday he will meet with a bipartisan group of lawmakers about how to move forward.
