There's Plenty of Room Under the Weiner Bus

Congressman Anthony Weiner from New York was hiding in his basement in Washington, DC this morning after yesterday's victory for Republican Scott Brown in the Massachusetts special election to fill the late Ted Kennedy's senate seat.

"It's a mess," he said. "If we Democrats don't pay attention to it, we're making a mistake."

He proceeded to throw the Democratic candidate in Massachusetts, Attorney General Martha Coakley, under the bus, not one, not two, but three times. While this sort of behavior pleases Imus enormously, it is not helpful for Weiner's distressed party.

"Health care got too complicated, and people didn't understand what we were trying to do," he said. "I think the President has to come down off the mountain a little bit, and help us sell to the American people the changes we're trying to make."

Brown's win wipes out the 60-vote Democratic super majority in the Senate, endangering the health care bill they were hoping to soon pass. But Weiner contended that Democrats should never have relied so strongly on the 60 votes in the first place.

"We have to figure out a different strategy," he said.

Weiner hopes his party leaders will be appropriately contrite about having lost the seat. "If the White House, and Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid come out and say, 'Oh, this was nothing, this was an anomaly and the American people don't get it,' then we're going to make a huge mistake," he said. "We can't combine ignorance with arrogance."

Even though Brown focused on many local issues during his campaign, Weiner said he put just enough emphasis on Obama's national agenda to highlight its flaws.

"Enough people bought into the idea...that the direction we're going in is wrong in Washington," said Weiner, who believes his fellow Democrats ignore the people of Massachusetts at their own peril.

"If we're having a problem in a blue state like Massachusetts, we're going to have problems all around the country," he said. "But it's not irreversible."

Imus hopes Democrats heed the warnings of Weiner, whose own congressional seat could be in jeopardy if his party doesn't recalibrate its message. Otherwise, he told Imus, "I'm going to have a lot more time to be spending on the radio with you."

To which Imus replied, "Lose this number if you can't get this straightened out."

-Julie Kanfer