Let The Second-guessing Begin: Some Dems Question ‘avoid Obama’ Strategy

Washington (CNN) — Top Democratic strate­gists in Washington are already begin­ning one of the city’s old­est tra­di­tions — sec­ond-guess­ing a los­ing elec­tion strat­e­gy before what is expect­ed to be a sting­ing defeat in Tuesday’s midterm elections.

One of the key debates to emerge is whether Democratic can­di­dates were too cau­tious in avoid­ing President Barack Obama at all costs.

“Running away from the pres­i­dent is nev­er smart,” said one top Democratic strate­gist who has worked with both the White House and Senate can­di­dates this midterm cycle. “You look like chick­en s — ,” the strate­gist added on con­di­tion of anonymity.

A White House offi­cial who also asked not to be named so he could speak freely argued Democrats still have a chance to hold the Senate. “We don’t think any­thing is done until elec­tion day,” the offi­cial said in an email that includ­ed elec­tion day polls in 2012 that showed the pres­i­dent tied with Mitt Romney. Obama went on to win a deci­sive victory.

Still, the con­ven­tion­al wis­dom to ban­ish the pres­i­dent from key Senate bat­tle­grounds, in favor of either Bill and Hillary Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, and even First Lady Michelle Obama made sense to most Senate Democratic cam­paigns. The pres­i­den­t’s low approval num­bers plus the con­ser­v­a­tive ter­rain at risk for Democrats in Arkansas, Alaska and Louisiana was a “tox­ic com­bi­na­tion,” as anoth­er top strate­gist put it. Read more here http://​www​.cnn​.com/​2​0​1​4​/​1​1​/​0​3​/​p​o​l​i​t​i​c​s​/​o​b​a​m​a​-​s​t​r​a​t​e​g​y​-​d​e​m​o​c​r​a​t​s​-​q​u​e​s​t​i​o​n​i​n​g​-​a​c​o​s​ta/