Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The ill winds of an angry electorate are blowing against Democrats, the warning signs clear in a closer-than-expected Senate race that may doom President Obama’s health care agenda and foreshadow the party’s midterm election prospects.
Anti-incumbent, anti-establishment sentiment is rampant. Independents are leaving Obama. Republicans are energized. Democrats are subdued. And none of that bodes well for the party in power.
“It’s going to be a hard November for Democrats,” said Howard Dean, the Democratic Party chairman in 2006 and 2008 elections when the party took control of the White House and Congress.
While he praised Obama as a good president, Dean said the Democrat hasn’t turned out to be the “change agent” the party thought it elected, and voters who supported Democrats in back-to-back elections now are turned off. “They really thought the revolution was at hand but it wasn’t, and now they’re getting the back of the hand.”
Just how much voters have soured since Obama took office is reflected in the president’s late-game decision to rush to Massachusetts today to try to stave off an extraordinary Republican upset in the race for a Senate seat Democrats have held for more than half a century.
Obama faced a no-win situation as he weighed whether to campaign with Democrat Martha Coakley. Had he decided against going, he would have enraged the base and been blamed if she lost. But a Coakley defeat following a presidential visit would be embarrassing.
Once heavily favored to cruise to victory, Coakley is locked in a tight fight with Republican Scott Brown, a little-known state senator, for the race to fill the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s seat.
The stakes are enormous.
Losing the race would cost the Democrats their 60-vote coalition in the Senate, where they can’t afford to lose a single vote. The president has been relying on that supermajority to pass not only his health care overhaul but also the rest of his legislative agenda heading into his first midterm elections.
Voters are down on Washington. They are deeply divided over the health care plan in Congress. Nearly all remain anxious about the prolonged recession, and only about half approve of Obama’s job performance. Excessive spending and big government irk them. And they have lost faith in institutions.
