During a recent visit to Illinois to stump for Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, President Obama reminded voters of what the 2014 midterm election is really about. “I am not on the ballot this fall,” he said. “But make no mistake: These policies are on the ballot. Every single one of them.”
It was probably not a wise thing for him to say, at least if he hopes to have his party preserve its Senate majority. Obama’s approval ratings are suffering badly in every state that has a competitive Senate race this year. In some states they are below 30 percent. According to a recent poll by YouGov, more than 50 percent of the voters in Kansas, Arkansas, Kentucky, South Dakota, Alaska and Louisiana plan to cast their vote next month as a rebuke to Obama.
Democratic candidates are avoiding Obama as if he had Ebola. And Republicans have found great success with the message that their Democratic opponents are “rubber stamps” for Obama, or vote with Obama 90 (or 95, or 97, or 99) percent of the time — not to mention that every Democratic senator in a tight race this year voted for Obamacare in 2009.
Both Obama and the Republicans have it right. A vote for any Democratic Senate candidate is effectively a vote for someone who will go to the Senate and vote for Obama’s priorities almost without exception.
To some extent, the principle of party unity has always existed, but it is more true now than ever before, thanks in large part to the partisan leadership of a close Obama ally — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Reid controls the Senate floor, and he has used his power to prevent votes on more than 350 measures the House has passed, some of them with large bipartisan majorities.
Reid has also seized control of the amendment process through his frequent use of a parliamentary maneuver known as “filling the tree.” Here’s how it works: Reid proposes dozens of meaningless amendments to each bill under consideration to prevent other senators from proposing meaningful ones. This helps him prevent votes from ever happening on issues where some Democrats, such as Pryor or Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., might have disagreements. According to the Congressional Institute, Reid performed this maneuver 44 times during his first four years as majority leader. His predecessor, Bill Frist, R-Tenn., used it only 12 times in his first four years.
The result is that even if there is any true difference between the views of a Democratic senator and those of Obama, it will rarely if ever manifest itself.
And so it makes sense for voters who like Obama and approve of his policies to vote for Democrats this year. But it makes no sense at all to vote for Democrats if you are unhappy with the first six years of Obama.
