National Memo Editor-in-Chief Joe Conason complained that “Beltway media” is unfairly attacking President Obama after the 2014 election on Friday’s “Reid Report” on MSNBC.
When asked about the prospect that President Obama would be more open to dealing with Republicans, Conason responded “well, that’s the bias of the Beltway media in general, is Democrats always need to be nicer and Republicans can be as tough and resolute as they want. And no one criticizes them for that.”
He continued, “We had a historic low voter turnout, and that’s the reason why they [Republicans] had a historic victory. In other words, when you see Republicans constantly trying to suppress the vote, which they do, we now know why, because when the fewest number of people actually vote, they do the best they’ve ever done. So, when we’re talking about issues and policies and what should be advanced and what shouldn’t be, it’s really important to keep in mind. The president had when he was first elected, the highest turnout, possibly ever, or certainly one of, and this is the lowest. What does that mean in terms of mandate? He did pretty well in 2012, too. Landslide victory over their candidate.”
Maria Kumar, CEO of Voto Latino, added, “this is the very first election, Joy, that we’ve had without the Voting Rights Act that was gutted back in 2013 with the Supreme Court. And the idea that so many people were disenfranchised is very real. We’re seeing a lot of stuff coming out of The Nation with Ari Berman who does an excellent job of reporting disenfranchisement in North Carolina, Florida, Texas, not surprisingly areas where we expected a larger turnout than usual, but that unfortunately people all of a sudden felt that all of a sudden they didn’t understand how to navigate basically having the proper ID, so on and so forth.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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