MÁS PROBLEMAS PARA OBAMA

January 6, 2010, 12:12 pm

Democrats Face Shifting and Perilous Political Environment

By JEFF ZELENY AND ADAM NAGOURNEY

President Obama awoke on Wednesday to a dispiriting reality: Less than a year after taking office on the strength of a historic Democratic sweep, his party is facing a shifting and perilous political environment that could have big implications for this year’s midterm elections and his own agenda.

The rapid swing was underscored by the sudden announcements that Senators Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut and Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota would rather retire than fight the uphill – and uncertain – battle toward re-election. Word that the Democratic governor of Colorado, Bill Ritter, had made the same decision only heightened the perception that the party’s fortunes had turned after a year in which a conservative push against Mr. Obama’s ambitious agenda, a sluggish recovery from the deep recession and an outbreak of angry populism nibbled away at his political strength.

The White House knew, of course, that this would be a bleak political year.

Seldom has a week passed where a Democrat, fearful of the outcome in the midterm elections, hasn’t switched parties or jumped ship entirely. But the decisions from Mr. Dodd and Mr. Dorgan, who have served a combined 46 years in the Senate, brought new attention to the party’s troubles.

The prospect of Democrats holding their Senate majority – 60 votes to overcome Republican filibusters – is now clearly more difficult. While Mr. Dodd’s departure actually seems to increase the chances of his party holding his seat, Mr. Dorgan’s retirement gives Republicans a good shot at a pickup in a conservative-leaning state.

And while legislative politics is always complex, even with 60 votes – just look at what it took for Democrats to get a health care bill through the Senate – Mr. Obama’s agenda will become even trickier to pass with each lost Democratic seat, especially in the Senate.

Democrats have tried and largely failed all year to win over moderate Republicans as they push Mr. Obama’s initiatives. The Democrats would become even more reliant on centrist Republicans like Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, should they lose their 60-seat majority.

Moreover, the moderate and conservative-leaning Democrats, like Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, could also look at the changing environment and prove even less willing to go along with their party on difficult issues. Even before the November elections, the sense that Democrats face increasing peril could hurt the prospect of the more liberal House succeeding in extracting concessions on health care legislation from the Senate, whose bill had a more centrist tilt to it.

For Democrats, the time for real panic will come if those retirements create a domino effect among other vulnerable Democrats. If, for example, Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas suddenly announces that she will not seek re-election – a prospect her aides say is out of the question – that would be a moment of real alarm for the party.

But even Republicans weren’t feeling entirely giddy on Wednesday. The Dodd-Dorgan decision may, essentially, be a political wash.

Republicans were optimistic about their chances of knocking off Mr. Dodd and picking up a seat in Connecticut. But even before he made his announcement official, the state’s attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, threw his hat into the ring. Mr. Blumenthal has a far stronger chance of holding the seat for Democrats, party strategists believe, so suddenly Republicans may have far less of an opportunity than they thought.

In North Dakota, Mr. Dorgan was already facing a tough re-election and Democrats were poised to write off that seat. And they can invest their money elsewhere in hopes of saving other seats or picking up a new one.

“There’s not an election tomorrow. There’s not an election next week. There’s not an election for 11 months,” said David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama. “The mistake that this town often makes is behaving as if things are static and acting as if the conditions that pertain today are going to describe the conditions 11 months from today. Things can change for the better and worse.”

Republicans face their own challenges. They have to defend open Senate seats in New Hampshire, Ohio and Missouri, after a spate of retirements of their own last year.

Jim Jordan, an adviser to Mr. Dodd and other Democratic candidates, dismissed the suggestion on Wednesday that the collection of retirements spelled doom for the party.

“These are individual political and personal decisions. I don’t think this is predictive of much or reflective of much, other than a handful of Democrats at the same time deciding that they want to do something else,” Mr. Jordan said. “It is indisputable that the environment is difficult, but it’s not much better for Republicans. They’ve had their share of retirements, too.”

So what blame does Mr. Obama bear for the Democratic troubles? Could he have made a more compelling rationale for his agenda? He is the leader of the party, so the burden to rebuild – and maintain that stronghold of only a year ago – is his.

As with other presidents who have gone before him, the history of midterm elections is running against the White House. The question now, strategists say, is not if Democrats will lose seats, but how many – and how effective Mr. Obama can be in improving the environment for his party over the balance of the year.