"It stung like hell."
- Georgia Democratic Party Chair, DuBose Porter, in a conciliatory email to party activists
If a dramatic election happens and no one votes, does it still mean the electorate changes to purple?
The finger pointing over who was to blame for Tuesday's devastating losses started as soon as the polls closed - maybe even before in places like Colorado and Kentucky, where flawed campaigns and unforced errors by candidates killed off an incumbent and skewered a rising star.
In Georgia, the senate campaign of Democrat Michelle Nunn was shaking its heads in near disbelief. As the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported it:
"As soon as the GOP nomination was settled, the names 'Harry Reid' and 'Barack Obama' were hung around Nunn’s neck like a two-headed albatross. She couldn’t get out from under it, her team said." But Democrats and political analysts all realize that, for the most part, it wasn't the candidates. It wasn't the message. It wasn't the low approval numbers for President Obama in states that could have been in play, or the billions spent by outside groups to link Democratic candidates to him and the majority leader.It was the voters - those who chose to show up and those who stayed home.