Peter Wehner
"How much damage is Barack Obama doing to the Democratic Party? According to the respected political analyst Stuart Rothenberg, the answer is quite a lot. According to Rothenberg, “President Barack Obama is about to do what no president has done in the past 50 years: Have two horrible, terrible, awful midterm elections in a row.”
Mr. Rothenberg compares Obama to the worst midterm numbers of two-term presidents going back to Harry Truman. He concludes that it’s likely that over the course of two midterm elections, Democrats will lose somewhere in the range of 68-75 House seats range and 11-15 Senate seats.
Those final totals won’t be known for some time to come, given that Louisiana and Georgia may have run-off races that extend into next January. But certainly by Wednesday morning, we’ll have a pretty good sense of just how bad of a night Democrats will have suffered. Most of the polling of late suggests things are breaking for Republicans, though this development should keep the champagne on ice for now. In any event, it’s not too early to consider the fact that Barack Obama may be on the verge of doing unprecedented damage to the party he represents.
The man who thought he was the symbol of the possibility of America returning to its best traditions may become the symbol of the most politically destructive (to his own party) chief executive in modern American history. In light of the awful Obama years, voters are in the process of giving a fresh look to the GOP. The question is whether it will be enough to win the trust of voters who have turned against the president."(Commentary Mag)