Democrat Scare Tactics Won't Stop GOP From Taking the Senate

Team Reid and company have a big problem in the United States Senate.

The Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, along with President Barack Obama, knows that unless Democrats are able to maintain control of the "world's greatest deliberative body," then any semblance of relevancy left for the president's last two years in office will be gone. Period.

Fortunately for Americans (and unfortunately for the president and his acolytes on the left) this prospect is beginning to inch closer to reality.

[sharequote align="center"]Team Reid and company have a big problem in the United States Senate.[/sharequote]

The GOP needs only to wrest six seats from the Democrats in order to grab control of the Senate. Acquiring power in the Senate, coupled with sustained control of the House, would severely inhibit Obama's uncompromising far-left agenda.

If Democrats have any hope of forestalling this outcome then they will need to rely less on scare tactics and scandal-mongering and more on reasonable policy initiatives.

A recent NPR poll showed just how tenuous a grip Democrats have on the Senate. The poll also demonstrated just how far the electorate has come from viewing Obama as an asset to now seeing him as a hindrance to the Democrats.

In the poll of 12 Senate battleground states (Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina and West Virginia) NPR found that Obama's popularity and approval numbers paled in comparison to his popularity in the United States as a whole.

U.S. President Barack Obama (L)  with Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) (R). Credit: Getty Images

While not particularly well received nationwide (Obama enjoyed an unenthusiastic 41 percent approval rating in a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll) his approval ratings dropped even more so among states holding important Senate races later this year.

Within the aforementioned 12 states, the president's approval rating sank to a lowly 38 percent. Worse yet for Democrats, Obama's approval numbers among independents (33 percent) suggests a tough hill to climb for Democratic candidates tied to the president's unpopularity.

Adding to Democrat woes, a majority of battleground states holding hotly contested Senate races this year are states that voted overwhelmingly for Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential race.

As if the president dragging down the party wasn't bad enough for Senate Democrats, voters have shown that they are not responding particularly well to the demagoguery and scare tactics employed by Democrats in these battleground states. Issues, not innuendo, were the drivers moving voter support.

(AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis)

In fact, on every policy issue queried by NPR, respondents sided with the GOP. From the economy (47-37 percent) to health care (45-41 percent) to the future of the middle class (42-42 percent) and foreign policy (50-34 percent), battleground state respondents placed greater faith in the Republican candidate than they did in the Democrat.

Even the liberal cognoscenti are sounding the alarm to fellow Democrats.

"Obama and the Democrats seem poised to suffer from the 'six year itch' that the president’s party has usually suffered during midterm elections of a second term," expressed The New Republic.

"The Democrats have not developed a national theme - comparable, say, to the Reagan Administration’s 'staying the course' in the 1982 election - to rally voters to their cause... at this point, it seems likely that Obama will have to face a Republican House and Senate next year."

At this relatively late stage in the campaign cycle it is unlikely that vulnerable Senate Democrats will be able to rewrite their campaign playbooks.

Sound policy ideas, not a preternatural obsession with slandering the Koch Brothers and demagoguing the GOP, will rule the day come November. On this note the GOP seems to have the upper hand and the inside track to reclaim control of the Senate.

Scott G. Erickson is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati and is a conservative writer and law enforcement professional from California. He can be found at www.scottgerickson.com or @SGErickson

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