DOOM*.
I had not realized that things were this bad for the Obama administration:
Democratic congressional leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, have privately sought as much as $30 million combined from Obama for America and the Democratic National Committee — a replay of the financial help they received from Obama in 2008 and 2010.
But that’s not going to happen, top Obama aides Jim Messina and David Plouffe told Reid and Pelosi in back-to-back meetings on Capitol Hill on Thursday, according to sources familiar with the high-level talks.
I mean, I knew that things were bad, and for the same reason that Ed Morrissey knew: both of us can read campaign finance reports, and both of us remember how the 2008 Obama campaign trumpeted its monthly fundraising. Mind you, it’s reasonable to expect that Obama is probably going to have a hefty enough war chest, but 2008 was a fluke. Or possibly a mass hallucination comparable to the ergot-fueled European witch panics; the historians will make the final decision on that in about sixty years or so, after we’re all safely dead.
But this is something new – and it should be troubling for any Democrat who is both in trouble (or just in a competitive race), and not from a state that will be part of Obama’s final battle plan. To put it very starkly: Democrats in trouble in, say, Kentucky and/or Arkansas, can’t expect the President to waste time keeping them afloat. Likewise: Democrats in trouble in, say, Illinois or Rhode Island, can’t expect the President to waste time keeping them afloat, either. Comes right down to it, even the Democrats in critical swing states will probably need to be accustomed to in-kind support from the President instead of financial assistance. And as for candidates… well. Isn’t that what the DCCC and DSCC is for?
It would be cruel of me to note that the Politico notes that the DCCC and DSCC have been told that they will have only limited access to the President for fundraisers, so let me explicitly note that… and also that i’m not surprised in the slightest by any of this. I was saying back in January of 2011 that it was going to be Obama first, and the Devil take the hindmost…
Moe Lane (crosspost)
*This DOOM subject to change without warning.
Couple this with moving the G8 Summit to Camp David and the programs to do outreach to the Black and Hispanic communities and you begin to see the picture of an Administration that is in a lot of trouble going into an election year. Like I’ve said before this is going to be a Very Bad Year to be a Democrat.
Catseye – I hope you are correct “this is going to be a Very Bad Year to be a Democrat.” My glass-is-half-empty mentality tells me to be very cautious. I’m worried about the House, am worried if Republicans can win the Senate – now that it’s likely a Democrat will get Snowe’s seat, and if Republicans can get the grandprize in light of the polls showing Obama leading the contenders.
First, never trust the polls. There’s only one poll that maters, and it comes when people step into the booth and pull the little lever. There’s a lot of things that can happen between now and then to change minds and alter forecasts, so getting het up about waht a bunch of pollsters (who, let’s face it, have bias and accuracy problems aplenty) isn’t productive.
Second, a lot depends on appearance: bin Laden (putrescence be unto him) was right when he said that people like to follow the strong horse, and looking like a winner matters. If Obama is going to be in the center of a funding bunfight and is shortsheeting the rest of the ticket because he has a crisis of confidence… well, he’s not looking like a winner.
Let Obama be Obama, concentrate on winning in November, and let the rest go hang.
@catseye: I agree. He got 53% of the popular vote in ’08. He’ll get 44% this time. And although Dems are acting chipper, they won’t regain the House, and will most likely lose the Senate. A majority of the people are disgusted.
Catseye and OU812…. man I hope you are correct. Another 4 years of this man and we’ll be a 3rd, 4th country for a couple of generations , if we’ll lucky.
Sounds like to me that Messrs. Messina and Plouffe have no way to quantify how much funding American Crossroads and others on the GOP side are willing to fund Mitt Romney. When you consider that, so far, the majority of the funding (and some of the messaging) for the GOP primary has come from SuperPACS, let’s just say some history could be made on 11/6.
In politics, you want a friend: Buy a dog.