Once More Into the D.C. Breach

Having been on the receiving end of attacks by the Republicans for months, Democrats are now fighting back, as evidenced by Democratic senator Barbara Boxer's spirited performance against Republican opponent Carly Fiorina in California and Democratic senator Russ Feingold's similar stand against Republican Ron Johnson in Wisconsin. In Minnesota, Tarryl Clark has noted right-wing gadfly Michele Bachmann running scared so much that Bachmann has put out a new e-mail calling for more help from her supporters to keep her House seat. Could this mean that the Democrats are gaining momentum?
Not a chance.
The economy remains so excruciatingly bad, and Republicans have such an established ability to communicate their message, that it's appearing less likely that the Democrats will even minimize their losses, much less reverse them. Furthermore, because the Republicans have been on the attack for so long, it seems almost like an act of desperation for Democrats to attack in response.

It's also proven to be very effective for the Republicans to divorce themselves from the governing process for so long. At the beginning of the year, many pundits believed that incumbents of both parties would be blamed for the sorry state of the economy, and that Democratic incumbents would naturally bear more of the brunt of voter antipathy simply because there were more of them. Now, however, they're bearing all of it. Republican incumbents, by contrast, are sitting pretty. In Iowa, Charles Grassley - once a likeable moderate but now known as a purveyor of the "death panel" ruse against the health care law - is on his way to winning a sixth term to the U.S. Senate. David Vitter in Louisiana is still a favorite for re-election to the Senate, despite two sex scandals and a reputation for protecting BP. The Democratic challengers in these races, Roxanne Conlin and Charlie Melancon, respectively, are fighting hard but with little wind at their backs. It is very difficult for Democratic challengers to run effectively against Republican incumbents in Iowa and Louisiana when the national party is trying to defend Democratic incumbents in tough races in California and Wisconsin.
To be fair to the Democrats, even if they had counterattacked months ago, they'd still be behind in the polls due to an economy that stubbornly refuses to recover. Nevertheless, for the Democrats to promise a counteroffensive in the midterm campaigns at this point is comparable to the notion of the French planning to invade Nazi Germany after the fall of Belgium. The Democrats still have a chance to hold the Senate, even though the House is probably gone. But if present trends persist - and there's not much time left - the Senate may also fall to the GOP.

President Obama is a cool and reasonable man, and that has hurt him in his inability to connect with voters. But if a Tea Party-dominated Republican party gains control of one or both houses of Congress, that might be the best thing for him.