Enter
lead-up to the 2008 election,
Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.) told
Bloomberg TV that he did not
want President George W. Bush to
come anywhere near the Granite
State: “No, I think the President’s
popularity unfortunately is at a
fairly low level.” It was a break
from the 2002 campaign, in which
Sununu was elected over Democratic challenger Jeanne Shaheen.
At that time, Bush was a welcome
presence on the campaign trail
— Sununu brought him to New
Hampshire just days before the
election. But, in 2008, he took a
different path, and now Jeanne
Shaheen is in the Senate.
Perhaps I’d think more favorably
on this distance-yourself-fromthe-presidency strategy if a coherent outcome could be identified.
As far as I can tell, the only thing
it does is prevent a photograph
from being taken of the president
with the candidate in question,
which could in turn be used in attack ads. But, then ... so what? If
there’s a Democratic politician out
there who can legitimately say that
the effort made to distance himself
from Obama stopped his opponent
from trying to tie them together, by
all means, let me know!
Look, I can understand why so
LOOKING FORWARD
IN ANGST
HUFFINGTON
02.16.14
many Democratic incumbents are
jaded. There’s a handful of senators whose votes on the Affordable
Care Act were a bit courageous,
and now they all have to live with
the bungled rollout of the HealthCare.gov website. The Obama
White House didn’t cover its end
of the deal on a matter those lawmakers had no control over, and
now they have to eat it. Strong
Voters would rather hear
about how these incumbents
plan to make government
work better than about how
they’re the passive victims
of other people’s decisions.”
criticism of the thing that screwed
them over is warranted.
Of course, voters would rather
hear about how these incumbents
plan to make government work
better than about how they’re the
passive victims of other people’s
decisions. So if they want to be
picky about sharing a stage with
the president, that’s fine. But
sooner or later, they’ll have to
come up with a reason why people should vote for them
all by themselves.