Roland Martin: Democratic Failures began Long Before Election Night

03 November 2010

CNN Political analyst Roland Martin didn't mince words when he basically called the mid term election results of 2010 partially the fault of Democrats who did not maintain their connection to 2008 voters.  Martin said that some candidates waited until the last minute to try to reach out to some crucial communities like Black and Latino voters in certain parts of the country.

He also had hard but obvious words for President Obama about he should be thinking in retrospect given the election results, and busted Democrats for not seizing the multiple opportunities they had to solidify their base long before Nov 2 2010.
 

MARTIN: You cannot come and talk to your base at the last second.  The Obama movement became an Obama moment. You have to energize young people. The numbers -- young people across the country were lower this election than even 2006.  
...
You cannot talk to Tom Joyner Morning Show 3 times in the last 2 months, but 1 time in 21 months.  You have to keep people engaged and active because if you look at some of the critical races, black voters could have made the difference.


Martin also lambasted those Democrats who also apparently didn't see the need to maintain a continuous, direct dialog with their base.

MARTIN: Beyond the President, the people who also are running the party. Alex Sink, their people called me the day before the election: "Can she come on?" Did you not realize we were here for the entire year?  And so they're going to have to -- he's going to have to make some serious adjustments as it relates to how do you take the people who put you in office and... keep them involved? Keep them active? Moving them to action for the next 2 years...

Listen to the audio clip below:


Full Roland Martin segment:
http://www.rolandsmartin.com/blog/index.php/category/video/