Democratic War Room--Better Late Than Never

It is about time the Democrats begin to respond to the Republicans in a coordinated manner. The Boston Globe reports on the new Democratic "war room" for the Democratic Senators, which will help to coordinate the message. Hopefully this will lead to stronger cooperation between all Democrats to allow them to offer an effictive counter to one-party GOP rule.

After seeing so many surrogates during the campaign who were unprepared to defend Kerry from attacks when interviewed on television, I wonder if this might have made a difference in the past election.

From the Boston Globe:

For the first time, the 44 Democratic senators are coordinating their media messages through a centralized Senate Democratic Communications Center. The new center has its "war room" in an office on the Capitol's third floor, where staff members send out daily talking points to Democratic press secretaries, line up radio and television interviews with senators, and issue "rapid-response" news releases in the style of political campaigns.

The center has an aide dedicated to getting information to Democratic-leaning bloggers and yesterday launched a website, democrats.gov, to better communicate the positions of Senate Democrats.

Democrats in the Senate have already shown a willingness to flex their muscles on major issues. This week, they are holding up the nomination of Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state, even though she is expected to win easy confirmation, to keep the focus on questionable decisions made by the Bush administration in pursuing the war in Iraq.

On Friday, a newly formed Democratic Committee on Oversight and Investigations will hold its first hearing, in an attempt to highlight areas and issues that the Republicans are not willing to. The initial hearing will focus on whether Bush's contention that the Social Security system is in crisis is accurate.

Reid said Senate Democrats do not consider Bush's victory over Senator John F. Kerry to have been a statement in support of Bush's policies, and will continue to fight for their own values.

"Let's not get carried away with the 'mandate' of President Bush," Reid said. "There is no mandate, and the issues that Senator Kerry ran on . . . are good issues."