33 Senator seats are up in the 2012 election cycle, 10 Republican seats and 23 Democratic seats and Republicans need a net gain of 3 Senate seats (if a Republican wins the presidential campaign) or 4 Senate seats if Obama is reelected, to take control of the Senate and boot harry Reid out of the Senate majority leader spot.
2012 is crucial for Senate Democrats and they are asking the Obama machine to not lock up and max out their richest Democratic donors, via The Politico.
“We have a huge number of incumbents who are up this cycle and a lot of them have taken tough votes to enact significant portions of this president’s agenda and I think that there is a sense that there should be an all-hands-on-deck approach to keep the Senate in Democratic hands,” said one Democratic official familiar with the meeting.
If Obama's policies were more popular, if his disapproval numbers on specific areas weren't so high (71 disapproval on the economy was reported yesterday), then those Senate Democrats that took those "tough votes to enact significant portions of this president’s agenda" could always ride his coattails but those coattails are not there anymore, so they need money.
Money the Obama team is sucking up in his attempt to save his own job for four more years.
Majority Leader Harry Reid and other top Senate Democrats have also asked for at least $10 million in aid from the Democratic National Committee as well as the president’s re-election campaign to help underwrite expensive TV ad campaigns and on-the-ground efforts for crucial Senate races in 2012, according to Democratic sources.
In a recent meeting in Washington, Reid, along with Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the third-highest ranking Democrat, and Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), who chairs of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, made their pitch to Messina, according to Democratic sources.
Messina would not agree to the request not to max out big donors, and no decision was made on the amount of financial backing that Senate Democrats will get from the DNC and the Obama-Biden campaign.
Without control of the Senate or the House, Barack Obama, if reelected, would spend fours years as a lame duck president but he doesn't really care if anything gets done, all he cares about is not being a one term president.
With disapproval numbers like the ones above, it is very likely that Obama will be one term prez and he may just take Senate Democrats down with him.
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