The Washington Post has a long story on what went wrong for the Democrats. Basically, as Ron Fournier notes, there are two progressive parties now, the Democrats and the Obamas. The Democrats are going on record (!!!), not background, to attack the President and his team.

The funniest part of it?

This:

Lawyers negotiated for months over legal minutia, with Obama’s counselors insisting that the president appear only as a guest and do no donor solicitation, which would have violated federal law. After Obama appeared at two Senate Majority PAC events — June 17 in New York and July 22 in Seattle — the president’s lawyers demanded that no staffer follow up with the donors for at least seven days.

That’s right. The President hid behind lawyers instead of just saying no to stuff he did not want to do.