MSNBC host Ed Schultz wants to be taken seriously as a TV host, but he hasn't yet learned not to promote victory for liberal Democrats before the results are all in. On Tuesday night, even after the polls closed, Schultz was touting a possible Democratic wave. Twice, he proclaimed before his 10 pm show came on that Democrats were "brilliant on the basics" in the Wisconsin ground game -- before they lost four and won two.
At 6 pm, Schultz told Al Sharpton "And if the Democrats are successful tonight, it is really the template on how to get it done. I mean, I think that the progressives in this state, as profound as it is, they have been brilliant on the basics. They have gone door to door. They have talked to their neighbors. They have taken people by the hand to do what they've got to do."
He added: "They have made the countless hours of phone calls. They have done all the things, you know, that -- it's the old saying, Al, you can't take my heart, you can`t take my soul, and you`re not going to take my vote. That really has been the attitude against this big money that has come into this state. And what we saw today and just the last couple months is the grassroots will get the back of people who stand on principle for core Democratic values."
At 8 pm, Schultz repeated this line to Lawrence O'Donnell:
I have talked to a number of grassroots workers today that have told us that they think that the ground game by the progressives to beat back these six Republican senators has been highly sophisticated. They have been brilliant on the basics. They have done everything they've had to do. I mean, this race has everything. It is so futuristic. It is so on the cutting edge. It is transforming how politics is going to be run, I think, in this country.
And it is a real message to Ohio with Senate Bill 5 that is now finally on the ballot, where they got far more signatures than they needed. It's a real message to Michigan where Rick Snyder and his radical agenda and some of the things they have passed in that state such as a financial management decision to come in and run a municipality if they don`t like the way it`s being run financially. I mean, this really is a message I think, Lawrence, to the rest of the country on what has to happen for the progressives.
The failure of the Democrats hadn't sunk in during Schultz's own 10 pm hour, as he asked Adam Green of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee:
SCHULTZ: What's the national lesson?
GREEN: That lesson is that Republicans who declare war on working families will be punished by voters.
Oops...
