Today it is Senator Claire McCaskill announcing she will not attend and Reuters reports that chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Steve Israel, is attempting to get in front of this story of Democrats jumping ship to avoid being linked to the Democratic party before election day, by "officially" encouraging Democrats to stay in their districts instead of attending the Democratic Nation Convention.
"If they want to win an election, they need to be in their districts," New York congressman Steve Israel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told the Reuters Washington Summit on Tuesday.
Israel emphasized that Democratic President Barack Obama's poll ratings - which have hovered around 50 percent - have little to do with his stance.
"I don't care if the president was at 122 percent favorability right now," he said. "I think (candidates) should be in their districts," rather than spend time at the convention, which will be in Charlotte, North Carolina, September 3-6.
"A trip to Charlotte may be interesting," Israel said, "but why leave your districts?"
Nothing to see here, move along............
The problem with attempting to turn it all into a "no need to be there" type situation rather than voters thinking these folks want to put some distance between themselves, the Democratic party and Barack Obama, is the pattern that is emerging in other areas, which conflict with the easy out Israel is trying to give those Democrats that are staying away from the convention.
For example: House Democrats are starting to break with the party and specifically the Obama administration in the Fast and Furious scandal and news reports today say that in tomorrow's vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in Contempt of Congress, some House Democrats will be voting with Republicans against Holder. This is despite the fact that Barack Obama tried to claim executive privilege on the documents Holder has refused to produce subject to a Congressional subpoena.
Rep. Jim Matheson will vote to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress for withholding documents pertaining to a failed Justice Department sting that let guns get into the hands of drug runners.[Update] Second House Dem saying he will vote for Contempt of Congress Charge against Holder.
Matheson, D-Utah, announced his position Tuesday, joining House Republicans, such as Utah Reps. Rob Bishop and Jason Chaffetz, who have railed against Holder’s reaction to the congressional probe into the Justice Department’s "Fast and Furious" operation. One of the lost guns was later used in the murder of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.
"It just compounds the tragedy when both sides play politics instead of releasing the facts. The Terry family, the public and Congress deserve answers," Matheson said. "Sadly, it seems that it will take holding the attorney general in contempt to communicate that evasiveness is unacceptable."
[Update #2] Greta Van Susteren says sources claim 20 Dems will vote against Holder.
Another Example: Politico headlines with "Dems go AWOL in class war."
For three years Obama has been pushing a class wafare campaign and Democrats were fast to jump on the bandwagon, inciting the Occupy movement, until it fizzled and now they are AWOL on the issue.
Things have gotten so bad that some Democrats are even refusing to say whether they will vote for Obama!
There is no doubt vulnerable Democrats are distancing themselves from the party and Barack Obama. His coattails are not what they were in 2008.
Why It Won't Work
For the first two years of Obama's presidency, Democrats controlled both the House of Representatives and the Senate, they passed bills that were unpopular as a whole with the American people and with no bipartisan support from Republicans.
They own those votes.
Obamacare aka Affordable Care Act is a perfect example.
Studies found that Obamacare most likely cost Democrats control of the House of Representatives in the 2010 midterm elections, where Republicans took the largest amount of seats from Democrats in over 70 years.
The study, by five professors from institutions across the country, looks at the health care bill alongside other contentious votes in the 111th Congress and determines that, more so than the stimulus or the cap-and-trade energy bill, it cost Democrats seats. In fact, they lost almost exactly the number of seats that decided the majority.
The study ran 10,000 simulations of a scenario in which all vulnerable Democrats voted against the health care bill and found that the rejections would have saved Democrats an average of 25 seats, which would have made the House parties close to a tie. (Republicans won 63 seats overall, but the study suggests around 25 of them would have been salvaged.)
In 62 percent of the simulations, Democrats were able to keep the House.
Now it is 2012 and tomorrow the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the constitutionality of the individual mandate which is the heart of Obamacare and whether if that falls the whole bill must fall because Democrats removed the severability clause from earlier version and it was not present in the final bill that was signed by Barack Obama.
This puts Obamacare right back into the spotlight just months from the November 6, 2012 elections.
Republican Campaigns will obviously highlight any Democrat that voted for Obamacare as well as any Democrats that voted against repeal bills in the House of Representatives since 2011.
Whether the Supreme Court rules to uphold the entire bill, strike just the individual mandate, or overturn the law as a whole, doesn't matter to these vulnerable Democrats' reelection chances. Obamacare is an albatross around each and every Democrats' neck.
Same goes for tomorrow's Contempt of Congress vote against AG Eric Holder, any Democrat that does not vote in favor for it will find their vote highlighted in campaigns against them, tying them directly to Democrats and Obama in obstructing the Congressional investigation into Fast and Furious.
Those are just two examples showing Democrats can run but they cannot hide from their ties to the Democratic party, their party line votes, nor their close ties to Barack Obama by rubber stamping his agenda throughout his term in office.
(Changes were made to this post to reflect new info and to correct spelling errors- should know better than to write without at least two cups of coffee!)