So much for the Obama coattail effect
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s favorite paper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, reports on new poll numbers showing that President Obama’s recent visit to Vegas hurt more than helped the Senator’s already sagging polling numbers:
WASHINGTON — During his whirlwind visit to Las Vegas two weeks ago, President Barack Obama mentioned U.S. Sen. Harry Reid by name four dozen times, gave him a big hug and talked him up as if he was a long-lost brother.
In remarks that could not have been more laudatory, Obama repeatedly characterized the veteran Democratic leader as a man “made of very strong stuff” who was making the right decisions for the state back in the nation’s capital.
But as Reid faces an uphill path to win re-election to a fifth Senate term, Obama’s enthusiastic endorsement does not appear to have improved the Senate majority leader’s standing among constituents, according to a new poll conducted for the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Reid got no bounce from Obama’s visit on Feb. 19, when the president spoke highly of him at Green Valley High School and to business leaders at CityCenter, polling indicates.
A larger percentage of voters surveyed (17 percent) said they would be less likely to vote for Reid following the president’s visit than said they would be more likely to vote for him (7 percent). Seventy-five percent said Obama’s visit would have no effect on how they vote.
“Reid was not helped, and Obama was not any more popular than he was before he came to the state,” said Brad Coker, managing director at Mason-Dixon Polling & Research.
Obama’s day in Vegas “did not have much of an effect” on Reid’s re-election chances, notably among independent voters, Coker said.
“The independents hold the key to Reid, and for Reid there is no sign he is cracking them right now,” he said.
I’m sure President’s dissing of Vegas didn’t help matters, either.
What a difference a year makes. Who’d have thought a year ago at this time that our celebrity President would have been a drag rather than a boost to any politico running for election or re-election in his party in 2010 – just a year after he was sworn into office and was hailed as the greatest thing to happen to America in, like, forevah? Turns out that’s exactly what’s happened, and not just in NV. Let’s not forget that the President himself made a last-minute pitch for failed candidate for Senate Martha Coakley just days before the Miracle in MA happened in which a Republican won the seat formerly held by the late liberal lion Ted Kennedy. And didn’t Obama campaign for Jon Corzine, too? Why yes, he did. He also campaigned for failed Dem candidate for governor (VA) Creigh Deeds.
This poll, of course, comes on the heels of the report out of the LA Times from a couple of weeks ago regarding certain Congressional Democrats who have sought for and received “official” permission from the WH to distance themselves from the admnistration in a phony effort to paint themselves as “independents.” As I noted in that post, if you have to seek permission to do that, then you, um, really aren’t “independent” in the first place.
In light of these latest poll numbers, it’ll be interesting to see in the weeks and months ahead if Reid will solicit Obama for “help” in attempting to get elected again to serve another term in the US Senate. If you’ve read the book Game Change, you know that Reid actually had a hand in and encouraged to a significant extent then-Senator Barack Obama to run for president, so I suspect Obama will be loyal to Reid as he has been before even in the face of the growing hostility to him in the state of NV but only if Reid can ram through healthcare “reform” (a possibility becoming increasingly likely). If not, he’ll throw him under the bus like he has so many others “allies” who became political liabilities. Of course, by that point, Obama’s numbers may be so low that Reid wouldn’t welcome his “help” even if he offered it on a silver platter.
Delicious.