Legal Commentary

Counterintuitive

By Big Tent Democrat

Steve Benen cites the new NBC/WSJ poll for this statement:

Dems'success is inextricably tied to Obama's standing. [. . .] [T]his should point Democratic lawmakers in the right direction on health care, though the message isn't getting through.

Nothing in the poll (or in any actual election results) supports this argument. Consider the NBC poll:

[I]f the public is fed up with Washington, its anger isn’t necessarily directed at President Obama. Only 27 percent say they blame him for not being able to find solutions to the country’s problems. By contrast, 48 percent blame Republicans in Congress and 41 percent blame congressional Democrats. “The president has problems,” Hart adds, “but the Congress has much bigger problems.”

This is, of course, good news for the President, but it demonstrates the OPPOSITE of what Benen is arguing - in fact the fate of Congressional Dems is NOT "inextricably tied to Obama's standing." In fact, it seems to show that Congressional Dems' standing is, to their misfortune, NOT tied to Obama's standing.

More importantly, the relative popularity of Obama compared to the Congress does not translate into people coming out to vote for Dems in an election where Obama is not on the ballot. The reality is the Congressional Dems' fate in November is 'inextricably tied' to the BASE, not to Obama. They need the unions and activists and hard core Dems to work for, and VOTE for, them in November. And it is becoming painfully clear that Obama has little effect on that.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on January 27, 2010 (boomark / email).