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Southern Democrats who lost key races this election cycle

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

New Orleans (CNN) -- The 2014 elections seemed like the final reckoning for Southern Democrats, the culmination of a political metamorphosis that began in the Civil Rights era and concluded under the nation's first black President.

Wiped out in governors' races, clobbered in Senate contests, irrelevant in many House districts and boxed out of state legislatures, Democrats in the South today look like a rump party consigned to a lifetime of indignity.

"I can't remember it being any gloomier for Democrats in the South than it is today," said Curtis Wilkie, the longtime journalist and observer of Southern life who lectures at the University of Mississippi. "The party has been demonized by Republicans. It's very bleak. I just don't see anything good for them on the horizon."

Democrats are looking everywhere for solutions to their Southern problem. They hope population changes will make states such as Georgia and North Carolina more hospitable. They want more financial help from the national party. Some are even clinging to the dim hope that Hillary Clinton might help make inroads with white working class voters in Arkansas in 2016.

Success here is crucial for the party. There's virtually no way for Democrats to win back a majority in the Senate -- much less the House -- without finding a way to compete more effectively in the South. But the truth is there are no easy answers for a party so deep in the hole.

White voters have abandoned Democrats for decades, and the flight has only hastened under President Barack Obama. The migration has created a troublesome math problem: Democrats across the region now depend on African-American voters and not much else.

It's a disastrous formula in low-turnout midterms dominated by white voters. In Louisiana on Saturday, deep south Democrats bid farewell to their last remaining Democratic senator, Mary Landrieu, who won the African-American vote but failed to secure enough white support in her race against Republican Bill Cassidy. Landrieu won just 18 percent of white voters on Election Day in November, and she failed to expand that margin in the runoff, resulting in another knife-twisting loss for Democrats hoping to put the devastating 2014 midterms behind them.

With Landrieu's loss, there are now just three Democrats senators hailing from the Old Confederacy: Mark Warner and Tim Kaine in Virginia, and Bill Nelson in Florida. But both of those states have diverse populations and thriving economies that have pushed them away, culturally and politically, from their southern neighbors.

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The plight of the Southern Democrat

By Dana Bash and Ted Barrett, CNN

updated 5:11 PM EST, Mon December 8, 2014

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (2nd R) (R-KY) answers questions on Capitol Hill in September.

(CNN) -- They called it the "nuclear option" when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Democrats changed Senate rules this year to make it easier to confirm long-stalled executive and judicial branch nominees.

Now Senate Republicans will hold a special closed meeting Tuesday afternoon to weigh whether or not to change the filibuster rules back when they take control of the Senate in January, according to a GOP aide.

Related: 5 ways life changed after the Senate nuclear option

While many Republicans have pushed to change the rules back -- so that 60 votes again would be required to break a filibuster of most presidential executive and judicial appointments -- others have signaled Republicans might not try to change the rules.

In fact, Sen Orrin Hatch of Utah, a senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee who is influential with GOP senators on these matters, wrote in Monday's Politico that despite being a "Senate institutionalist" he no longer feels the rules should be changed back because doing so would reward Democrats for skirting the rules, allowing them to "pack important courts" with "far-left judges."

"Republicans would need 60 votes to confirm their nominees (should a Republican win the White House), while Democrats needed only 51 vote to confirm their own picks," Hatch wrote. "Such a partisan double-standard makes no sense and would cause irreparable harm to our third branch of government."

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GOP will consider undoing Democrats' 'nuclear option'

House Democrats from the nation's manufacturing heartland are vowing to fight President Obama's push for a major trade deal in the Asia Pacific, saying the pact will harm U.S. jobs and charging that the administration has not been transparent with Congress in its negotiations.

"The administration refuses to change its approach to secret negotiations and is pushing to send a final package to Congress with almost no ability for us to scrutinize it," Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said Monday on a conference call with reporters. "Enough is enough: no more offshoring, no more NAFTA-style trade deals."

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) said that unless the administration made significant changes to the proposed deal, including new protections on currency manipulation, Democrats would "fight the administration tooth and nail on this."

The opposition from Obama's own party, and a significant portion of his liberal base, has presented a conundrum for the White House as it pursues the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which is the economic centerpiece of the administration's strategy to re-balance U.S. attention and resources to Asia. Negotiators from the 12 countries are in Washington this week for another round of talks in hopes of making progress toward an agreement in principle this coming spring.

White House advisers said they believe there could be more support for the trade pact in the new Congress because Republicans, who will take control of the Senate, are generally more supportive of free trade agreements. Last week, Obama touted the pact during an appearance with business leaders in Washington, calling on opponents not to "fight the last war" against previous trade pacts such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). He said those who oppose the deal are in favor of maintaining the "status quo," a remark that angered labor unions and some Democrats.

The administration has said the proposed pact, which would encompass nations representing 30 percent of the world's gross domestic product, would increase U.S. exports by lowering tariffs, while also imposing higher labor and environmental standards on other nations. But opponents said they fear that the deal will lead to more outsourcing of U.S. manufacturing and agricultural jobs.

"The notion that any of us are wedded to the status quo is false," said Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.). "All of us agreed that in a period of globalization we want trade to be more free and clear. But to me the status quo is continuing to accept a paradigm that allows an agreement to be negotiated without Congress's role being considered."

With the topsy-turvy alliances in play, the first political test for Obama is expected to come early next year: The administration has vowed to work with Republicans to pass a measure that would give Obama fast-track authority to cut a deal with the other nations that could not be changed by lawmakers before a vote in Congress. Such a measure is considered crucial, administration officials say, because other nations need confidence that the U.S. will bring its best and final offer to the negotiating table.

But the Democratic Congress members said Obama administration trade negotiators have not been forthright in explaining what is in the deal, so they are opposed to granting Obama the fast-track authority. U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman's office said he and his staff have held more than 1,500 meetings and discussions with members of both political parties since the TPP talks began in earnest several years ago.

DeLauro and other House Democrats met last week with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) to discuss strategy in opposing the TPP. Obama would need Democratic votes in the Senate for a bill to go forward.

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House Democrats vow to block Obama on Asia trade pact

Sen. Dianne Feinstein said detainees were tortured.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) Senate Democrats on Tuesday released a report detailing the torture of 119 individuals who were held in the custody of the Central Intelligence Agency in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The report said that CIA personnel, aided by two outside contractors, decided to start a program of indefinite secret detention and the use of brutal interrogation techniques.

It is my personal conclusion that, under any common meaning of the term, CIA detainees were tortured, said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat of California, in a statement accompanying the report.

I also believe that the conditions of confinement and the use of authorized and unauthorized interrogation and conditioning techniques were cruel, inhuman and degrading, Feinstein said.

In a statement on the Senate floor, Feinstein said that the detention program was run by surprisingly few people.

The report is a 600-page summary of a 6,700 page study that remains classified. It roots come from an investigation into the CIAs destruction of videotapes of detainee interrogations that began in December 2007.

Not only is [torture] wrong, it doesnt work. It got us nothing but a bad name, said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in a brief statement on the Senate floor.

In a statement, President Barack Obama said the report reinforces my long-held view that these harsh methods were not only inconsistent with our values as nation, they did not serve our broader counterterrorism efforts or our national security interests.

Feinstein said she considered delaying the report due to instability in the Middle East, but said that she concluded that turmoil was likely to last for years.

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Capitol Report: Senate Democrats release CIA torture report

Clinton, Warren, Biden top CNN poll of Democrats
John King, Jackie Kucinich Ed O #39;Keefe on a CNN poll that looks at the #39;16 field with and without a Clinton nomination.

By: CNN

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Clinton, Warren, Biden top CNN poll of Democrats - Video