Over the course of many months in 2007, during the highs and lows of the Democratic presidential primary, I had the opportunity to sit down and talk politics with a good number of Democratic Members of Congress who were (and still are) running for reelection in tough, swing districts. Each one, whether running in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Virginia or Florida gave the same answer when asked which prospective Democratic nominee - Clinton or Obama - would make their congressional race easier. Each one answered Barack, despite the fact that Hillary was then outperforming him among their Democratic primary voters. At the time, the conventional wisdom was that in swing districts, although Clinton might appeal to the working class white voters that comprised the bulk of their districts' Democratic constituencies, Obama was seen as the less polarizing candidate for the general election. As such, most of these Members believed that Clinton posed them the greatest threat in the general since she was likely to pump up the turn out of the Republican base. Obama, by contrast, was going to pull independents to their side and reduce the enthusiasm of movement conservatives. But an interesting thing has happened in the months since the primary. For a variety of reasons - the resurgent posture of the Democrats in Congress, a dominant fundraising performance by the DCCC and a stable of far superior congressional candidates than those proffered ...
Anytime
