Nationalizing the midterms in 2006 won Democrats majorities in both houses of Congress. Extending their anti-Bush message enlarged their majorities in 2008. So naturally in 2010, as Republicans promise en masse to return to destructive Bushian economics, Congressional Democrats have localized their races.
Amateur hour. Which has sent the White House's political operation into desperation and despair; it had wanted, duh, to nationalize the Democratic campaign -- for weeks, Obama labored to alert and alarm voters about returning to GOP "policies that got us in this mess" -- and to pool advertising resources accordingly.
The Democratic House and Senate campaign committees, however, preferred to disperse funds to individual races, to be used in their own individualized way. The result? Those party organs are now defending even once-upon-a-time safe seats. Why? Because voters indeed perceive this as a national election, just as Republicans have insisted it is.
Now the White House is scrambling. It had a message -- the message -- but its potency has been diluted and contaminated by dozens upon dozens of individually tailored messages. So Obama is forced to bob, weave and shift; his political voice has been "in flux during the final stretch," as the NY Times puts it, as he "searches for a way to frame the message that will connect with voters and get news coverage...."
Obama's latest shift: "He called the flow of undisclosed money from corporations and big business a 'threat to our democracy.' " Which of course it is. But let's face it: voters' interest in that topic couldn't be located with an electron microscope.
"Senior White House officials say the shifts are a conscious effort," continues the Times, "to find new ways to make the president’s basic argument so it stays fresh and stays in the news."
And that, as we all know, is unmitigated tommyrot.
For starters, Obama's "flow of undisclosed money" argument has little to do with his earlier "basic argument" of alert and alarm over GOP policies; second, not many a sober politico ever wishes to introduce "new way" themes into a campaign with only three weeks to go. Monotonous jackhammering on the opposition's greatest weakness (in this case the GOP's past performance) -- that's always the preferred ticket.
As I said, amateur hour. But the White House's "told you so" will be of no comfort.