There is growing panic among Democrats in Congress about the 2014 elections, and it is based on numerous factors that give them serious anxiety. In the Senate, Democrat Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire just found out that she will be challenged by former Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts, who has received $600,000 from the Super-Pac American Crossroads, and Democrat Senator Mark Udall of Colorado is now being challenged by Rep. Cory Gardner, a serious threat. In the House, the GOP just won a significant victory in a special election in Florida’s 13th district, which Barack Obama won decisively in 2012.
Democrats have abandoned Obama on his appointments for the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and surgeon general; Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California just lambasted the CIA last week. The most powerful depressant for the Democrats may be Obama’s poll numbers, which are down to 41%. Since World War II, a number lower than 50% spells disaster for the president’s party in mid-term elections.
Further, GOP donors are feeling optimistic about their chances; they have invested roughly $40 million already for 2014 while the Democratic donors have cautiously advanced $17 million. One Democrat even allowed that Barack Obama was “poisonous” to the chances of Democratic candidates. Rep. Joe Garcia of Florida quavered, “I’m a prolific fund-raiser, but I can’t compete with somebody who has got 50-some-odd billion dollars. One hopes the cavalry is coming. One hopes the cavalry is coming.”
Senate Democrats pilloried Jennifer Palmieri, the communications director for the White House and Phil Schiliro, its health care adviser, when the two spoke to them last month about ObamaCare. The senators wanted to know why Organizing for Action (OFA) was not running commercials for the senators that would explain their support for ObamaCare. One source reported of the White House officials, “They did not want to hear about health care enrollment.”
On Wednesday, Rep. Steve Israel, the chairman of the House Democrats campaign group, begged the White House political director, David Simas, to give the Democratic congressmen some help. One of the problems for the congressional Democrats has been that OFA has been sucking up donors’ money and there has been a paucity of support for the congressmen.
ObamaCare has hurt the Democrats so much that one candidate, Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona, ran an ad stating that she “blew the whistle on the disastrous health care website, calling it ‘stunning ineptitude’ and worked to fix it.”
Rep. John Yarmuth of Kentucky was blunt, simply stating that Democrats are “getting beat to death.”