Milbank hyperbolizes that Democrats are "in a freak-out about the results in Florida," agonizing over "whether Obamacare, or President Obama, will ruin the party in the fall." So he soothes them, sort of, with some vital "perspective":
The prospect of Democrats regaining control of the House was never a real possibility....
In the Senate, meanwhile, Republicans probably already would have 50 seats rather than their current 45 if the tea party hadn’t caused the GOP to throw away so many races in 2010 and 2012.
This--Doom awaited and still awaits, in all probability, no matter what--is a comforting perspective? "Hey, buck up, you're going to get slaughtered anyway, so why the long face about Florida?"
A long, sobered face it should be, however I don't detect a "freak-out." In Florida Democrats tested a tepid defense of Obamacare and a localized offensive against the Republican candidate. Both failed, but in failure there's opportunity. And here, I think, is where Milbank's gloomy "perspective" is wildly off track and poorly advised.
This year's election is a historical, and perhaps even historic, first. Never have we confronted a second presidential-term midterm in which the opposing party is at least borderline traitorous--in which that party has actively, demonstrably and flagrantly worked against the general welfare of everyday Americans.
What's more, as of November the GOP will have been in open rebellion and full-sabotage mode against an exemplary executive for six years--a grotesquery matched not even during the grisly sectional crises of the 1850s.
Those, Mr. Milbank, are the vital perspectives. This is no garden-variety midterm, and it shouldn't be viewed, or accepted, as such.
The key to winning?--or rather defeating the monumentally squalid GOP? If one exists for the Dems, it lies in the nationalization of the midterm campaign. The ugliness we face isn't local or statewide, it's continental; and any defensiveness or assaults on particular GOPers will take Democrats nowhere. They must instead address contemporary Republicanism as the nationally malicious, broadly fraudulent construct it is.
That means getting President Obama, both his head and his body, in the game. He needs a strong push. And if such vigorous pushing is grossly misinterpreted by some Dems as "Obama-bashing"--a really weird kind of Obama-bashing, I might add, since it comes from Obama's supporters such as myself--well, so be it. We can tackle only one kind of ignorance at a time.