Dems Feasting on a bit of Fear and Loathing

Via Memeorandum

While you're enjoying your morning coffee, consider the poor suffering Democrats who suddenly find themselves feasting on a bit of fear and loathing as they consider their prospects for the forthcoming election:

They no longer believe the jobs and housing markets will recover – or that anything resembling the White House’s promise of a “recovery summer” is under way. They are even more concerned by indications that House Democrats once considered safe – such as Rep. Betty Sutton, who occupies an Ohio seat that President Barack Obama won with 57 percent of the vote in 2008 – are in real trouble.

In two close races, endangered Democrats are even running ads touting how they oppose their leadership.

“Democrats kept thinking: ‘We’re going to get better. We’re going to get well before the election,’” said one of Washington’s best-connected Democrats. “But as of this week, you now have people saying that Republicans are going to win the House. And now it’s starting to look like the Senate is going to be a lot closer than people thought.”

A Democratic pollster working on several key races said, “The reality is that [the House majority] is probably gone.” His data shows the Democrats’ problems are only getting worse. “It’s spreading,” the pollster said.

Of course this is all off the record so they can speak candidly, don't ya know? Democrats are only brave when they are taking a long walk on a short plank for Obama's health care agenda. Now they are gnashing teeth because the "Recovery Summer" they hoped would assuage the voters they infuriated vote after vote has turned out to be as big a bust as their stimulus plan. Too bad they weren't able to pull off a little economic hocus pocus to keep us all blissfully at bay.  Styrofoam columns and soaring speeches can not dress up failed economic policy.

While they're feasting on fear and loathing, many Democrats are shedding their Democratic identities as they run for cover in the Independent Witness Protection Program:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called them her “majority makers” – the moderate to conservative Democrats in right-leaning districts whose election in 2006 made her Speaker.

And now many of them – and other Democrats in competitive districts -- are fighting for their political lives in a harsh environment and have found it necessary to distance themselves from their leaders and Democratic policies.

Jake Tapper has a whole slew of Democratic incumbents' ads denying the Obama/Pelosi/ Reid triumvirate with passion:

Rep. Jason Altmire, D-Penn., is up on the air in Western Pennsylvania heralding his opposition to the Democrats’ health care reform bill and the Wall Street bailout.

“ I like that Jason Altmire is not afraid to stand up to the president,” a man in the commercial says.

“And Nancy Pelosi,” adds a woman.

That is quite a different picture of Altmire than the one we saw in March when Politico featured his membership in the Drama Queen Caucus:

There was a picture of Altmire talking on the phone in his office splashed across the front page of The Washington Post on Thursday, above a story that began by recounting how many times this month he had been personally wooed by Obama (two meetings and one phone call from Air Force One).

Cracked a reporter from the freshman’s hometown Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “The photo shows him on the phone in his office — tossup whether it’s with President Obama or yet another reporter.”

Anyone paying attention to the never-ending drama that unfolded as we waited for supposed "Blue Dogs" to reveal their vote on ObamaCare, knows there was no standing up to Pelosi, Obama or Reid.  It was all about waiting for dispensation to vote no while Pelosi made certain their vote wasn't needed.  A vote for any of these supposed independent thinkers - Pelosi's "majority makers" as it were - is a vote to put the gavel back in her hands.