Democratic officials are second-guessing the party’s obsession with attacking the Koch brothers, saying it bears some of the blame for last year’s devastating election losses as the focus on the conservative billionaires diluted a party message already struggling for clarity.

With as many times as outgoing Majority Leader Harry Reid mentioned the Koch brothers in Senate floor speeches this year, you'd think that they were the ones who spent the most money during the 2014 midterm elections. Think again. Out of all the billionaires who donated money to causes or campaigns for the midterms, the top two were Democrats and they outspent everyone else on the list, combined. David Koch isn't even near the top.

Once seen as either sure things or formidable contenders, these candidates flopped -- big time.

Working-class white voters continued their decades-long defection from the Democratic Party.

From some unexpected losses to unforeseen political developments, here's what threw us for a loop.

The frenzy over the Keystone pipeline has come down to Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu’s furious search for a 60th “yes” vote in the Senate — the culmination of a desperate week of arm-twisting by a lawmaker whose political career is on the line in the lame-duck Congress.

National Democratic campaign groups have abandoned Sen. Mary L. Landrieu in Louisiana, leaving her massively outspent as she tries to hang onto her seat in a Dec. 6 runoff election to determine the last Senate seat.

Washington usually lives up to its reputation as a place where time stands still when all people in all the other places want to move, if not at warp speed, faster than Congress will. The Democrats, still as addled as the famous duck hit on the head by the farmer’s wife with a long-handled wooden spoon, are still trying to get through the famous five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. They’re still stuck on denial. How could such a thing happen when we’re so wise, so good, so compassionate, so sincere?

We’ve noticed a theme to some of the closing arguments Senate candidates are making in the final days before the election: They’re trying to talk to voters exhausted by polarization and partisanship -- even if

Our notion of American exceptionalism and superpower status is blinding us to reality. Here's what we need to admit.