MSNBC’s Tom Curry gets into the nitty gritty of why the Dems lost.
One veteran Democratic strategist, Clinton White House political director Doug Sosnik, sums up the answer in one word: Applebee™s.
For Sosnik, the chain of modestly priced restaurants (more than 1,600 in 49 states), symbolizes precisely what is wrong with the party™s Washington-based elite.
Democratic leaders are out of touch with the American people, Sosnik said in a panel discussion Tuesday sponsored by the centrist Democratic Leadership Council (DLC).
œThe leadership of our party has a cultural disconnect, Sosnik said. œOur leaders ” particularly Washington, D.C.-based ” don™t really have the same life, day to day, as all those people out there in those red states. We don™t eat at the same restaurants. I don™t know how many politicians in town that are leaders of our party who voluntarily go to Applebee™s, unless it™s for work. You look at the swing voters out there, what their sporting events are, the music they listen to, the celebrities, the television programs, it™s just not what the East Coast leadership (watches) ” it™s not quite where we are.
“Talk about Applebee’s, we don’t even go to the Cracker Barrels and the Denny™s as well,” added Donna Brazile, who served as Al Gore’s campaign manager in 2000.
With that in mind, I would encourage the Democratic party leadership to patronize as many of America’s beloved regional chains as possible, in order to have a fuller understanding of the wider populace’s sensibilities.