'These are are all folks who vote with me,' President Says of Dems Trying to Escape His Lethal Clutch
Democratic candidates may run, but they can't hide—not from a president determined to tie them all to the mast of his sinking ship and take them down with him. After acknowledging to Al Sharpton in an MSNBC interview that many members of his party are disassociating themselves from him in an effort to gain traction with voters unimpressed by his agenda, President Obama noted, "the bottom line is, though, these are are all folks who vote with me; they have supported my agenda in Congress."
Those racing from Obama's embrace and desperately trying to convince all and sundry that they supported nothing of the sort include Alison Lundergan Grimes. The Kentucky senatorial candidate made national headlines by refusing to say whether she voted for her party's own presidential candidate.
President Obama's massively complex and endlessly tweaked healthcare monstrosity is just one albatross around Democrats' necks. Nobody is thrilled with the economy in the middle of his second term. His foreign policy is no winner. Two-thirds of Americans say the country is on the wrong track. Dissatisfaction with the president's handling of Ebola has proven…infectious.
In an article noting the legions of Democrats around the country treating the incumbent president as kryptonite, Time noted, "Democrats are hoping this election won't be a referendum on the president, as midterm elections so often are."
But President Obama is having none of that. "Now, I am not on the ballot this fall," he commented earlier this month at Northwestern University. "But make no mistake: These policies are on the ballot—every single one of them."
"It was a mistake," former White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod said of that particular blown kiss of death to the disloyal minions. The latest comment, too, he'd probably say, was a boo-boo.
But maybe it wasn't. Maybe the president took a look at his plunging approval numbers and decided he wants some company on the way down.