I think Republicans are right the midterm Senate elections really are about Obama. I know President Obama will only be in office for two more years, and Senators are elected for six, but who can foresee more than two years ahead anyway? And if the elections aren't about Obama, what else could they be about? At the federal level, the main thing being decided this cycle is which party will retain control of the Senate. So if you support the president, you should want the Senate to remain in Democratic control so that the president can at least get his judicial and executive branch nominees confirmed, get a budget passed, keep the government open, and other stuff that most Americans probably support. And if you want to block the president from accomplishing anything, you should support the Republican candidate.
So I find myself disappointed that most of the moderate Democratic (and one Independent) candidates running for office in the swing states (Alaska, Arkansas, Kansas, New Hampshire, Louisiana, Iowa, Colorado, Kentucky, North Carolina, Georgia) seem to be pretending the election might be about something other what it obviously seems to be. They are running scared from the president, refraining from inviting him to campaign events, distancing themselves from his positions, and being afraid even to admit that they voted for him. I'm not a political professional, and I'd love to hear from some of the political professionals on this site as to why this is supposedly a good strategy, but it seems wrong to me. I mean, if the main effect of the election you're in is to determine whether your party controls the Senate or not, which in turn will determine whether the Senate is going to be cooperative or confrontational with the president, well then, that is what the election is about. You can't hide from that. Are the voters that stupid, that you can fool them by running a Democrat who barely admits to that party affiliation?
It seems like Democratic candidates might have gained more traction by expressly campaigning on the premise that the Affordable Care Act has brought millions of people real benefits, or that we have extricated ourselves from two wars in the Middle East, or that the economy has gained from one of its longest expansions in history. Why not tell people some of this good news? It's true that voters might be suffering from a little bit of Obama fatigue (that is typical in the sixth year of any presidency), but that's all the more reason why they need to be reminded of the president's accomplishments. That kind of talk would at least fire up the base, and get them to vote, which is half the battle. And it might carry some weight with independents, who upon reflection, might decide that they are tired of the obstructive attitude Republicans in Congress have played, and just might want to give the president a little easier time in his last couple of years in office.
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