Obama’s party seeks reasons for defeat

WASHINGTON, Thursday

President Barack Obama and his Democrats were forced into some soul-searching yesterday after a stunning election defeat that is likely to prompt them to make a mid-course correction.

The stage was set for an increased focus on creating jobs and pushing through as quickly as possible those elements of a US healthcare overhaul that can gain passage in Congress.

Mr Obama attributed a Republican’s victory in a Massachusetts US Senate race long held by Democrats to Americans’ frustration that Washington had not done enough to fix the US economy and improve on a 10 per cent jobless rate.

“People are angry, they are frustrated. Not just because of what’s happened in the last year or two years, but what’s happened over the last eight years,” Mr Obama told ABC News on the first anniversary of his taking office.

The election outcome on Tuesday is likely to prompt Mr Obama to do some fine-tuning of the drafts of his January 27 State of the Union speech, an annual address that he had hoped to use to celebrate passage of a US healthcare overhaul.

That revamp, which dominated the Democrats’ congressional calendar last year and appeared close to passage, hangs in the balance after Republican Scott Brown’s win took away the Democrats’ 60-seat supermajority in the 100-member Senate, enabling Republicans to engage in blocking tactics.

The White House and Democrats were insistent that a healthcare overhaul was still urgently needed. “We will move forward,” said House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

But a sense was growing that it would not be beneficial to use strong-arm tactics to pass a healthcare overhaul and that perhaps an incremental approach would be more successful.

“I would advise that we try to move quickly to coalesce around those elements in the package that people agree on,” Mr Obama said.

Moderate Democrats, who face a struggle holding on to their seats in the November 2010 congressional elections, urged party leaders to take stock of the changed political environment and not rush any healthcare votes.

“Some in our party overreach. Some are advocating for more government than my constituents,” said Louisiana Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu.

“What I take back from the message is that they think that parts of the healthcare debate have been overreaching.”

Such comments prompted one senior Republican congressional aide to observe with a smile, “They’re running away from healthcare faster than we are.”

Democratic elders said the stunning Massachusetts outcome should serve as a wake-up call to the party ahead of November congressional elections.