Vulnerable Democrats Run Away From Obama

5 minute read

In Monday night’s one and only debate for the Kentucky Senate race, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s Democratic challenger refused to say whether she voted for President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.

“I have my disagreements with the President,” Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes said. “The President is not on the ballot this year.” She added that it was her “constitutional right for privacy at the ballot box” to decline to name for whom she’d voted.

Though she did so clumsily and has been widely criticized for it, Grimes isn’t the only Democrat seeking a Grand Canyon of distance from Obama this campaign cycle. The President’s approval rating is at 42.6% and his disapproval rating is 10-percentage points higher at 52.3%, according to an average of national polls by Real Clear Politics. And he’s even more unpopular in states where Democrats are locked in tight races for control of the Senate like Kentucky, which he lost in 2012 by 23 points; Alaska, where he lost by 14 points; and Arkansas, which he lost by 24 points.

Democrats are hoping this election won’t be a referendum on the president, as midterm elections so often are. With just days left in the campaign, each race has become a smaller-scale war of parochial issues—most of them on which candidates can easily distance themselves from Obama.

As early as a year ago, Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor, who is warding off a strong challenge in Arkansas, highlighted how he opposed the President’s gun control legislation in his first television ad of the cycle. “No one from New York or Washington tells me what to do,” Pryor said in the ad. “I listen to Arkansas.”

On energy, Democratic Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Mark Begich of Alaska both ran ads distancing themselves from Obama’s positions. “[T]he Administration’s policies are simply wrong on oil and gas production in this nation,” Landrieu said in her spot. Begich bragged that he “took on Obama” to fight for oil drilling in the Arctic and voted against the president’s “trillion-dollar tax increase.”

Democratic Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado said in his first debate with Republican Rep. Cory Gardner that he is the “last person” the Obama Administration wants to see visiting the White House.

And while endangered Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan met Obama on the tarmac in North Carolina in August, going so far as kissing him on the cheek—footage that ended up in campaign commercials against her—she made clear ahead of his trip that she believes his Administration “has not yet done enough to earn the lasting trust of our veterans.” (Obama was there to deliver a speech on veterans issues.)

Even Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who isn’t up for reelection this cycle, has taken the President out to the woodshed in recent days for not doing enough to protect Americans in the wake of the financial crisis. “They protected Wall Street,” she told Salon in an interview. “Not families who were losing their homes. Not people who lost their jobs. And it happened over and over and over.”

Meanwhile, Warren, like former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, is proving to be a powerful and popular surrogate these midterms, welcome in places like Kentucky and West Virginia where Obama dare not set foot.

All of which is why Obama’s spending his weekends during the final sprint to the election day golfing, rather than on the campaign trail. He’s done a huge amount of fundraising, but so far only two campaign events for incumbent governors in Illinois and Connecticut. There are a handful of other solid blue states where Obama can help—in his native Hawaii, for example—but First Lady Michelle Obama is much more in demand than he is. Michelle—who has an approval rating of 69%, higher than both Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton at the same point in their husband’s presidencies—has campaigned for Senate hopefuls in Michigan and Iowa and a gubernatorial candidate in Maine, Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. And she’s scheduled to stump for gubernatorial hopeful Charlie Crist in Florida on Friday, not to mention a bevy of voter registration events in other states.

Running away from an unpopular second-term President is practically becoming a tradition in American politics. Before the 1998 midterm elections, Bill Clinton was plagued by the Monica Lewinsky scandal—though Republican overreach helped his party actually gain seats. And thanks to Iraq and Afghanistan, George W. Bush wasn’t very popular with his party in 2006, even before the financial crisis. Republicans lost both chambers of Congress that year.

“It’s a common phenomenon, running against a lame duck president,” says Prof. James Thurber, director of American University’s Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies. “In the last two years of his Administration, Presidents have tended to be very unpopular, having used up their political capital.”

Still, Obama bears the distinction of being so polarizing that running against him has proven successful for Democrats almost from the moment he was elected. In 2010, West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin ran an ad that showed him shooting climate change legislation endorsed by Obama with a gun. That same year Indiana Democrat Joe Donnelly ran ads distancing himself from the President. Both men bucked an anti-Democratic wave to get elected to the Senate.

Democrats this year are hoping to repeat their strategy. Grimes ran an ad in September that showed her shooting skeet while declaring: “I’m not Barack Obama.”

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Photos: Every National Monument President Obama Has Declared

The Organ Mountain Desert Peaks National Monument, near Las Cruces, N.M.
The Organ Mountain Desert Peaks National Monument (New Mexico): The 496,000 acre land near Las Cruces, N.M. holds rich scientific and historical value. The land was a training site for the Apollo Space Mission and World War II aerial targets, as well as a heritage site containing early pictographs from Native Americans Les McKee—AP
SAN JUAN ISLANDS
The San Juan Islands National Monument (Washington): A chain of 450 islands located in Washington State's Puget Sound, the monument offers visitors the chance to experience the natural beauty of the undeveloped, rugged landscape.Craig Hill—MCT/Getty Images
New Mexico Scenics
The Río Grande del Norte National Monument (New Mexico): Located northwest of Taos, the Río Grande del Norte contains stretches of the Río Grande Gorge and is known for its spectacular landscapes, recreational opportunities, and for serving as an important habitat for many birds and wildlife.Robert Alexander—Getty Images
Harriet Tubman
The Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument (Maryland): A new national park, located on Maryland's Eastern Shore, commemorates the life of the most famous conductor on the Underground Railroad. MPI/Getty Images
Brandywine creek, Delaware
The First State National Monument (Delaware): This new monument will tell the story of the early Dutch, Swedish, Finnish and English settlement of the colony of Delaware, as well as Delaware's role as the first state to ratify the Constitution. Shown above: Mill buildings standing along Brandywine creek north of Wilmington, Del.Walker Evans—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image
Buffalo Soldier
The Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument (Wilberforce, Ohio): The home of Col. Charles Young, a distinguished officer in the United States Army who was the third African American to graduate from West Point and the first to achieve the rank of colonel.MPI/Getty Images
Cesar Chavez
Cesar E. Chavez National Monument (California): The home of the famous civil rights activist and labor leader, known as La Paz, spans 116 acres in Kern County, Calif. The property was also the former headquarters of the United Farm Workers. Arthur Schatz—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Chimney Rock Colorado
Chimney Rock National Monument (Colorado): Located in the San Juan National Forest in southwestern Colorado, the monument encompasses 4,726 acres and an archaeological site. The site is the ancestral home of the Pueblo Indians.Hyoung Chang—Denver Post/Getty Images
Fort Ord National Monument
Fort Ord National Monument (California): Fort Ord served as an army post from 1971 to 1994. It was one of the most desirable posting locations because of the scenic views and proximity to beaches. Fort Ord is now a beautiful recreational area with unique landscape features that everyone can enjoy. Vern Fisher—AP
FORT MONROE PARK
Fort Monroe National Monument (Virginia): Fort Monroe is a former U.S. military base, but its history goes back much further. The land was integral to the original Jamestown colony settlers and was set up as a key defense point under John Smith, Christopher Newport, and the Virginia Company in the early 1600s. Stephen M. Katz—AP
Prehistoric Trackways New Mexico
Prehistoric Trackways National Monument (New Mexico): Prehistoric Trackways is the 100th U.S. National Monument and the first designated by Barack Obama. Located in the Robledos Mountains of southern New Mexico, the monument site includes a vast array of fossilized footprints, plants, and petrified wood from the Paleozoic Era. AP

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