Politics The God That Failed

Rich Lowry is editor of National Review.

Alison Lundergan Grimes is the Todd Akin of 2014.

Like the instantly notorious Republican senate candidate from Missouri, Grimes has committed a defining political gaffe. Grimes’ refusal to say that she voted for President Obama in the 2008 and 2012 general elections has some of the same characteristics as Akin’s infamous rape comment: It was telegenic, mockable and universally condemned. She first refused to say she voted for President Obama in a cringe-inducing videotaped editorial board interview with the Louisville Courier-Journal, then after getting roasted by every political commentator in the country, doubled down during Monday night’s debate.


She elevated her refusal to high principle. Out of respect for Kentucky’s constitution and the sanctity of the ballot box, she couldn’t possibly say whether she voted for the man she was a delegate for at the 2012 Democratic convention. In her own mind, Grimes is the Rosa Parks of the secret ballot.

In 2012, Akin’s statement captured the Republican Party’s vulnerability to “war on women” attacks and how its roster of candidates included too many not-ready-for-prime-time players.

This year, Grimes’ miscue speaks to the president’s unpopularity and to the unseemly desperation of Democratic candidates to get as far away from him as possible.

Because the Democrats and the press were determined to make it so, Akin’s gaffe became an albatross around the necks of all Republicans. Although it probably effectively ends her own campaign, Grimes’ flub won’t have that impact. The albatross is President Obama.

On Wednesday, he canceled a campaign trip to meet with his Cabinet to discuss Ebola. Democrats would probably be happy if he sequestered himself in an NIH lab trying to work out an effective response all the way till Nov. 4.

In an excess of enthusiasm for himself a few weeks ago, the president said that his policies were on the ballot, although he’s not. It was about what you’d except him to say if he were a Manchurian candidate for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Even David Axelrod deemed it a flub.

It’s not unusual that presidents are a drag on their parties in the sixth year of their presidencies. What is remarkable is the sodden feeling of disappointment, including among his supporters, about a president who was once taken to have such surpassing political, intellectual and rhetorical gifts. He is the god that failed.

Besides Paul Krugman, who is ready to climb Mount Rushmore with a chisel and hammer, even sympathetic journalists are registering their dismay. Jonathan Alter of The Daily Beast, one of the most plugged-in chroniclers of the Obama White House, wrote in a tone of sadness the other day that Leon Panetta’s withering portrayal of Obama as the “aloof professor-in-chief” hit home. Howard Fineman of The Huffington Post wrote a piece titled, “Remember the Fresh Promise of Barack Obama? What Happened to That Guy?”

It is the president’s perverse achievement to have fumbled away the Democratic Party’s advantages on the economy and foreign policy to a Republican Party still diminished from its shellackings in the late Bush years.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll last month found that on handling the economy Republicans had a 10-point lead over the Democrats, “their largest in almost two decades,” according to Gerald Seib of The Wall Street Journal. On foreign policy, Republicans have nearly a 20-point lead.

It’d be nice to think that the work Sens. Mike Lee, Marco Rubio and others are doing to revitalize the GOP policy agenda is bearing fruit, but these findings are the product of President Obama discrediting the Democratic brand rather than Republicans renovating theirs. Although its Senate candidates are hitting issues with resonance in their states, the GOP is largely bereft of a national agenda—except for opposition to President Obama.

Given that his approval rating ranges from 30 to 40 percent in the most contested states this year, it is a marvel that Democratic senators are running so close or, in some cases, ahead. It is a testament to the independent political identities of senators like Mary Landrieu and Mark Begich, to the Democratic Party’s fundraising (for which Obama has actually been able to help), to the smash-mouth negativity of Democratic advertising, and to lots of artful dodging.

Red state Democratic senators don’t want to have anything to do with President Obama. Oh, no. They are far too independent for that. They will just, if they can, vote for a majority leader who works hand-in-glove with him. (Grimes deserves credit for thoroughness: She also won’t say whether she will vote for Harry Reid.)

It looks as though, for all their tactical shrewdness, the Democratic campaigns won’t be enough. There isn’t an unmistakable Republican wave but the tide is creeping in the GOP’s direction, with states that initially weren’t high on anybody’s list for a Republican takeover, like Iowa and Colorado, showing a GOP tilt.

If Democrats lose the Senate, it will make even more plain the party’s predicament. Six years into the advent of President Obama, Republicans will hold both houses of Congress, while the Democratic Party has its own budding brand problem. A new Washington Post/ABC poll has Democrats sinking to their lowest rating in 30 years.

Most of the magical powers once attributed to President Obama have proven illusory. Doing more than any other one person to revive the Republican Party, though, is a genuinely impressive feat. At this rate, who knows when it will be safe for Alison Lundergan Grimes to say who she voted for again?