The Clinton’s surrogate team is confident with their presidential prospects, and now are turning to down-ballot elections. There is the possibility for the Republicans to lose their advantage on the Hill, and the Democrats are capitalizing as much as they can on that. President Obama has made headlines the past week for his attacks on GOP House and Senate candidates.
On October 20th, the President went after Florida Senator Marco Rubio. Rubio, who is a staunchly pro-life conservative, is currently locked in a tight race with Patrick Murphy. RealClearPolitics is reporting that Rubio still has the edge, with an average 3.4 percent lead. Obama criticized Rubio for condemning certain actions and statements made by Donald Trump, while still casting his vote for the GOP nominee. The president suggested, “That’s a sign of somebody who will say anything, do anything, pretend to be anybody, just to get elected.”
Sunday, just three days after his Rubio rant, Obama slammed another GOP candidate, Darrell Issa, a representative from California. Darrell Issa’s main competition in California’s 49th District is Democrat Douglas Applegate. This time Obama cried foul on Issa for a mailing campaign and for being, as the president describes it, the “Trump before Trump.” The mailing campaign had a positive tone with Issa expressing that he was “very pleased” that Obama signed the Survivors’ Bill of Rights into law. Obama felt that the campaign was hypocritical of Issa, who constantly caused trouble for the administration when he chaired for the House Oversight Committee.
That last line of attack was rich, seeing as hypocritical is the only way to describe the Obama’s down-ballot strategy so far. Calling out Rubio for voting for Trump, despite condemning the candidate’s flaws? Bernie Sanders is doing that right now, with every message to his supporters to vote for the woman who he called corrupt and not a true progressive. Obama himself would be guilty of this after the hard fought democratic primary in 2008. That is what all politicians do after the primaries – they reevaluate their priorities based on who is left standing.
At least Rubio is still separating what he does and doesn’t agree with Trump over, while Sanders and Obama have completely moved to praising Clinton.
As for the Issa attack, Obama has no real ground to stand on. The Survivors’ Bill of Rights Act was always a bipartisan bill. Mimi Walter, a Republican representative from California, and Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat representative from California, introduced the bill. Issa cosponsored the bill, with the assertion that, “We have to overhaul the way our criminal justice system treats the victims of sexual assault. Too often, justice remains out of reach for who’ve already been victimized by this heinous crime.”
So, instead of appreciating one of the few times during his administration that both parties were able to accomplish something – Obama turns it into an attack.
Nice try Mr. President, but we see through that.