Democrats Running for Re-Election Keep Distance as Obama Popularity Drops

Photo Credit: J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE, APDemocrats running for re-election in Arkansas, Louisiana and other Republican-leaning states faced enough problems before President Barack Obama’s popularity swooned in November. Now they are awkwardly distancing themselves from him a year before the election, seeking the right balance between independence and betrayal.

A popular president can help his party’s candidates for Congress and governor candidates in mid-term elections. But Democrats increasingly worry they could suffer losses, much as they did in 2010, Obama’s first mid-term elections.

In a twist few expected, Republicans are still hammering the issue that fueled their successes in 2010: the health care overhaul they call Obamacare. They are making life especially uncomfortable for Democratic senators in states Obama lost.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, facing a tough re-election bid in Louisiana, recently posed for photographers exiting Air Force One with Obama after flying from Washington to New Orleans. But she skipped the president’s public event there to attend a small-dollar fundraiser elsewhere, saying it had long been on her schedule…

In Alaska, Democratic Sen. Mark Begich has not asked Obama to campaign for him. If Obama and other federal officials should visit Alaska, said Begich campaign manager Susanne Fleek-Green, the senator wants them to travel to the North Slope “so they understand the opportunities and challenges we face with oil and gas development.”

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