Could the honeymoon be coming to an end? At least they are not wearing Nazi Paraphernalia…
The president will make his first appearance in the campaign Thursday, when he headlines a fundraiser for R. Creigh Deeds (D) in McLean, in part to try to help the state senator from Bath County win over wavering Democrats such as Cleland.
But Obama’s entry into the race presents a challenge for Deeds: How does he continue the momentum created by Obama, the first Democratic presidential candidate in more than four decades to carry Virginia, without being saddled with the baggage the president now carries?
His answer has largely been to distance himself from the president’s policies despite attempts by Republican Robert F. McDonnell to force him to take positions on issues such as unions, climate change and health care.
The coffee was still brewing when Chris Ann Cleland got her first reminder of the day that voting for Barack Obama might have been a mistake.
The Prince William County real estate agent was sitting at a long wooden table covered with paperwork. Her clients, a young couple who had brought their 2-week-old baby, were finalizing a short sale on a townhouse that they were anxious to unload, even if it meant ruining their credit, because they had maxed out their credit cards trying to make the payments.
For Cleland, it was another example — one of many this day — of the broken promises of a president who she thought would be different. Obama pledged to change a Washington culture that favored corporations and the connected and instead lift families such as the one sitting next to Cleland out of their economic funk. Rather, she said, Obama has backed billions of dollars to banks that continue to “act like they’re broke” and started the country down a path that Cleland said she thinks will lead to more grief for the middle class.
“He’s just not as advertised,” she said. “Nothing’s changed for the common guy. I feel like I’ve been punked.”
There is no empirical evidence at this point in Virginia’s race for governor showing that huge numbers of voters think like Cleland and will respond by sending a message to Washington. But Obama’s policies are nonetheless having immediate consequences in the campaign as the candidates adjust their strategies to account for the president’s controversial domestic agenda, which has overshadowed many state issues.
