White House defends Obama’s ‘policies are on the ballot’ claim

White House press secretary Josh Earnest on Monday defended President Obama’s assertion that November’s elections are a referendum on his economic policies.

Republican congressional candidates have seized on Obama’s argument, made during an economic speech at Northwestern University on Thursday, that although he is not personally on the ballot, his “policies are on the ballot — every single one of them.”

{mosads}Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) almost immediately inserted the line into a campaign advertisement, and Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus has highlighted it in ensuing days.

Former senior Obama adviser David Axelrod told “Meet the Press” on Sunday that the president had made “a mistake” with the line, arguing Democrats should instead be offering a vision for the future.

“The problem is how are middle-class people going to make a living in this country and what policies can we implement that can help,” he said. “We ought to have that debate.”

But Earnest said Obama had not hurt his party by nationalizing the midterm elections as an evaluation of his policies.

“The president was clear. He said explicitly that his name would not be on the ballot, but what he also said is that in each of these races there is a clear choice,” Earnest said. “And the president has been direct about how important that choice is, and he’s also been unambiguous about which side of the equation he falls on.”

The White House said voters would have to choose “between candidates who are supportive of policies that will benefit the middle class and candidates who are supportive of policies that will benefit those at the top in the hopes that the benefits will trickle down to the middle class.”

“That choice is clear in race after race, in state after state,” Earnest said. “And the president is strongly supportive of those candidates. The vast majority of them are Democrats who are supportive of the kinds of policies that benefit middle-class families that this president himself has long advocated.”