Three months of politicking

So President Obama had his big night, a win in the contested Democratic
senate primary in Colorado. Andrew Romanoff, backed by former President
Clinton, failed to knock out sitting Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), who
was appointed by Obama last year to replace Ken Salazer when he became
secretary of the Interior.

The White House, battling against the liberal left now fuming over comments by press secretary Robert Gibbs in an interview
with our Sam Youngman, wasn’t prepared for the revival of the
Clinton-wins-again storyline. Liberals are mad at the president and his
men, and Team Obama is under increasing pressure to “unite,” with
embattled Democrats holding on to their jobs for dear life as they head
into a challenging fall campaign. After numerous primaries and special
elections in which Obama’s support killed off the candidacies of Sen.
Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley,
New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine and Virginia gubernatorial candidate Creigh
Deeds, the president needed a win.

Bennet goes on to face Tea Party-backed Ken Buck, who I thought would lose his primary to Jane Norton after he made several gaffes and implored voters to send him to Washington because he doesn’t wear high heels. (See my post on the subject.) With that high percentage of female voters in the Colorado GOP primary electorate, I thought Buck was a goner, but I stand corrected.

We will see what the coming months bring for candidates accepting help from the president, and because Obama is unpopular in numerous key battlegrounds, many of them don’t want his help. Then in January we can expect a pivot to President Obama-reelection candidate. The House and Senate majorities will no longer be a grinding concern; Obama will be running for himself again.

What political mojo is left, now that the country has turned against this once-popular president? What does he plan for Obama 2.0 to turn things around? Michael Gerson, a former aide to President George W. Bush, wrote last week in his Washington Post column that Obama has lost his touch with even those who support him because he is so cool and removed.

“Obama leads a country without reflecting its passions — at least any that he is willing to share. Events lead him apparently untouched. He doesn’t love the crowd. Americans have always loved Obama more than he seems to care for us,” wrote Gerson. He concludes that “the man who doesn’t need the love of crowds is gradually losing it.”

Yet Obama accused Republicans, while speaking at a fundraiser in Texas last week, of not only playing politics but underestimating his ability to play politics just as well.

“Now we’ve got three months to go, so we figure we can politic for three months,” Obama said in Austin, Texas. “They’ve forgotten I politic pretty good.”

On Nov. 3, the morning after the midterm elections, we will know just how well.

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