Obama speech is GOP fodder
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. - President Obama gave Republicans a gift of sorts by confirming their midterm election narrative that next month's balloting is a referendum on his policies. Within hours, GOP candidates across the election landscape capitalized on his words with ads tying their Democratic opponents to the unpopular president.
Struggling three-term Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, facing an independent without a Democrat on the ballot, was the first Friday to air an ad featuring Obama's comments from a speech Thursday in Evanston, Ill.
"Now, I am not on the ballot this fall," Obama said in remarks intended to motivate Democrats to vote. "But make no mistake: These policies are on the ballot - every single one of them."
Republicans strongly agree and have been expressing the same thought for months. Their candidates have spent the better part of a year trying to plaster Democratic opponents with the unpopular Obama and his agenda in an effort to gain the six seats required to take the Senate majority.
"The president has given both sides ample fodder for motivating their bases," Democratic consultant David DiMartino said.
Many of the races targeted by Republicans are states Obama lost in 2012. One of the midterm battlegrounds - quite unexpectedly - is Kansas, home of the president's lowest approval rating in the nation.
Forty-four percent of the state's voters register as Republicans, 24 percent as Democrats, and 32 percent as unaffiliated. Roberts survived a bruising primary in August, only to see the Democrats nudge their candidate from the race and throw support behind Greg Orman, a wealthy businessman running as an independent.
Roberts' new ad refers to his opponent as "Obama's candidate for Senate in Kansas." For his part, Orman has been critical of Obama as well as Republicans and maintains that he will work with lawmakers in both parties.
The president's comments could help Roberts, a three-term Republican from GOP-heavy western Kansas. And it could help fuel his fence-mending operation with the 42 percent of Republicans who voted for tea party candidate Milton Wolf in the GOP primary. Wolf's contention that Roberts rarely comes home to Kansas resonated and left a dent.
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Obama speech is GOP fodder