It's my least favorite common campaign line from democrats, especially when they are incumbents or people who otherwise are/were in positions of power. There is no try, just do. Stop promising it and do it.
There's always some tension by diagnosing image problems as a problem of media portrayal or a problem of how Dems portray themselves, but there's something to the point that they're too unwilling to take their own side in an argument, and some do not understand that no one cares about fairness and hypocrisy. You aren't going to stop Mitch from doing what Mitch wants to do by trying to get a ruling from Referee Zombie Tim Russert.
There are limits to how much the minority party can gum up the Senate - and I'm no expert in all the tools available to them - but they certainly can cause problems.
