memeorandum: The Democrats' Catastrophe and the Need For a New Agenda (Harold Meyerson/American Prospect)

5:25 PM ET, November 5, 2014

Top Items:

Jay Newton-Small / TIME:

McConnell: No Shutdowns, No Full Obamacare Repeal — An exclusive interview with TIME about his plans as Majority Leader — Sen. Mitch McConnell was giddy, not an emotion often seen in the sober 72-year-old Kentuckian. But that's the only way to describe TIME's interview with him in Perry County, Kentucky, on Monday afternoon.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, New Yorker, The Daily Caller, Guardian, Yahoo! News, OnPolitics, Politico, Outside the Beltway, CBS DC and Business Insider

Washington Post:

Battle for the Senate: How the GOP woke up while Democrats were feeling the drag — One night in early September, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called a longtime colleague, Sen. Pat Roberts, from his living room in Louisville, furious about the 78-year-old Republican's fumbling and lethargic reelection campaign.

Discussion: Politico, BizPac Review, The Hill, The Atlantic Online, Hit & Run, Power Line, Mediaite, BillMoyers.com, The Rothenberg Political …, emptywheel and RedState

Alexander Bolton / The Hill:

McConnell expected to woo King, Manchin — Two Senate sources say they expect Mitch McConnell (Ky.) to reach out to Independent Sen. Angus King (Maine) and centrist Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) about joining the Senate Republican Conference. — Republicans have a 52-seat Senate majority …

Discussion: The Daily Caller and Political Wire

Ed Morrissey / Hot Air:

Reid: Why can't we all just ... get along? — Consider this karma avoidance by the soon-to-be-ex-Senate Majority Leader, but Harry Reid's new act won't fool anyone, least of all Mitch McConnell. Reid has run the US Senate for the past eight years like a dictatorship, steadily eroding minority privileges …

Discussion: The Hill, RedState, Washington Post, Mediaite and Politico

Ed O'Keefe / Washington Post:

Joe Manchin on election results: ‘This is a real ass-whuppin’ — Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W. Va.) did not mince words on Wednesday when asked to describe the historic losses by congressional Democrats. — “This is a real ass-whuppin,” he said. — Manchin is a moderate first-term senator …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo

Sahil Kapur / Talking Points Memo:

Meet The Real Next Senate Majority Leader: Ted Cruz — If you thought House Speaker John Boehner has had a miserable time trying to govern, wait until you see what incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is about to deal with. — The Kentucky Republican achieved his lifelong dream …

Discussion: Addicting Info and The Moderate Voice

New York Times:
Obama Vows to Cooperate, Within Limits

Discussion: TalkLeft, Power Line and Gawker

Katherine Connell / National Review:
Democrats Sink to Pre-Great Depression Levels in State Legislatures

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog and Clayton Cramer

Carrie Budoff Brown / Politico:
No Obama pivot after midterms

Discussion: Hit & Run, Fox News, Hinterland Gazette, Liberaland, Conservatives4Palin, Weekly Standard, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, Talking Points Memo and The Hill

Ezra Klein / Vox:

9 takeaways from the 2014 election — 1) The Democrats lost. — Badly. This wasn't just a tough map. Democrats lost Senate seats in Iowa and Colorado. They lost governor races in Florida and Wisconsin. Hell, they lost governor races in Illinois, Maryland, Maine, and Massachusetts!

Discussion: National Review, IMAGINE 2050, The Great Debate, The Dish and Weekly Standard

Harold Meyerson / American Prospect:

The Democrats' Catastrophe and the Need For a New Agenda — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, joined by his wife, former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, celebrates with his supporters at an election night party in Louisville,Tuesday, November 4, 2014.

Discussion: Seeing the Forest and Lawyers, Guns & Money

The Hill:
Democrats sift through the debris

Discussion: Roll Call and Power Line

Nate Cohn / New York Times: The Democrats' Southern Problem Reaches a New Depth

David McCabe / The Hill: Obama has lost nearly 70 House seats since taking office

Josh Kraushaar / National Journal:
Republicans Just Broke Democrats' Blue Wall

Discussion: Conservatives4Palin

Greg Sargent / Washington Post:

What really went wrong for Democrats — The most common explanation we're hearing for the GOP sweep of a dozen Senate races last night is that an already-treacherous map for Democrats was made a lot worse by the failure of core Dem voter groups to show up. — But multiple Democratic …

Discussion: Firedoglake

John B. Judis / The New Republic:

Here's Why the Democrats Got Crushed—and Why 2016 Won't Be a Cakewalk — Barack Obama has been elected president twice, but his party has now gotten drubbed in the two midterm elections held during his presidency. He will face a Republican Senate and House.

Discussion: ThinkProgress, Bloomberg View, New York Magazine, American Thinker, The Dish, Vox and New York Times

New York Times:

Negativity Wins the Senate — Republicans would like the country to believe that they took control of the Senate on Tuesday by advocating a strong, appealing agenda of job creation, tax reform and spending cuts. But, in reality, they did nothing of the sort.

Discussion: Liberal Values, Washington Post, Christian News …, Lawfare, Mediaite, John Hawkins' Right Wing News and Outside the Beltway

Steven Hayward / Power Line:

Climate Change? An Issue for Losers — Ross Douthat nails it in his NY Times blog post-mortem: … Andrew Restuccia notes in Politico: … Will Bunch in the Philadelphia Daily News: … The Keystone pipeline appears to have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, according to the National Journal:

Discussion: National Journal

Ross Douthat / New York Times:
The Evaporating Democratic Majority

Discussion: Business Insider and Bloomberg View

Andrew Restuccia / Politico:
Tom Steyer, greens have rough night at the polls

Discussion: The Daily Caller, The Hill and ABC News

John Podhoretz / New York Post: A stunning tidal wave of change in the Senate

Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight:

The Polls Were Skewed Toward Democrats — For much of this election cycle, Democrats complained the polls were biased against them. They said the polls were failing to represent enough minority voters and applying overly restrictive likely-voter screens. They claimed early-voting data was proving the polls wrong.

Discussion: The Dish, Gawker, The Daily Caller, Talking Points Memo, Hot Air and Outside the Beltway

Alexander Bolton / The Hill:

‘Hundred-year majority’ for House GOP? — Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, proclaimed Wednesday that Republicans may have built a “hundred-year majority” in the House. — “We're as back to a majority as any of us have seen in our lifetimes.

Discussion: rubber hose

Elana Schor / Politico:
Elections give Keystone a filibuster-proof majority

Discussion: Outside the Beltway

New York Times:
Republicans' First Step Was to Handle Extremists in Party

Discussion: No More Mister Nice Blog and Bloomberg Politics

Peter Baker / New York Times:

President Obama Left Fighting for His Own Relevance — WASHINGTON — Two things were clear long before the votes were counted on Tuesday night: President Obama would face a Congress with more Republicans for his final two years in office, and the results would be seen as a repudiation of his leadership.

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, Hot Air, New York Magazine, American Spectator, Truth Revolt, JustOneMinute, Firedoglake, Washington Post, Weekly Standard, rubber hose, Taylor Marsh, Betsy's Page, NPR, The Daily Caller and The Mahablog

Kenneth P. Vogel / Politico:

Big win for conservative big money — Establishment Republican money finally got what it paid for — an electoral wave. — After two cycles during which conservative mega-donors' record spending was plagued by flawed candidates and internecine squabbling, their side's big money operatives got to do some gloating on election night.

Discussion: Right Wing Watch and Seeing the Forest

Nicholas Confessore / New York Times: New Outside Groups Prove Worth to Conservative Donors

David Wasserman / The Cook Political Report:

First Impressions: Historic GOP House Majority — It's hard to overstate House Democrats' bad night. By all measures, Republicans enjoyed an historic night, exceeding pre-election expectations across the country. There are fewer than ten races where the outcome is in some doubt …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, The New Republic, Washington Monthly and New York Times

Jay / Miami Herald & MiamiHerald.com:

Alex Rodriguez's DEA confession: Yes, I used steroids from fake Miami doctor — › — ‹ — For 21 tumultuous months, New York Yankees superstar Alex Rodriguez has defiantly maintained he never used banned substances from a Coral Gables anti-aging clinic …

Discussion: Truth Revolt, New York Times, New York Magazine, abc11.com and The Daily Caller

ABC News:

Meet Elise Stefanik, the Youngest Woman Ever Elected to Congress … Republican Elise Stefanik has become the youngest woman elected to Congress in history, winning her race against Aaron Woolf in New York's 21st open district 56-32, ABC News projects. — She's the first Republican to win the district …