Some Va. Democrats shun ties to Obama

With President Barack Obama's popularity sinking because of a still-ailing economy and an emboldened GOP, some Virginia Democrats are not so subtly adding distance between themselves and the president.

This week, House Minority Leader Ward L. Armstrong, D-Henry — who was redistricted out of his seat after 19 years and is now challenging fellow incumbent Del. Charles D. Poindexter, R-Franklin County — launched an ad dismissing his opponent's efforts to link him to Obama.

"That's a stretch, Charles," Armstrong said in the ad. "I'm pro-life, pro-gun and I always put Virginia first. That's why I opposed the cap-and-trade bill."

Late last month, Sen. Phillip P. Puckett, D-Russell, went further, saying he would not support Obama's re-election bid.

"It's very clear to me that the administration does not support the coal industry in a way that's beneficial to our area. So I don't plan to support President Obama for re-election," Puckett told WJHL-TV.

Others share in the dissatisfaction, even if they're reluctant to voice it, said Larry Sabato, a political analyst and director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

"A Democratic state legislator said to me, and I quote, 'We thought we were electing JFK, and we got Jimmy Carter,' " Sabato said.

The attitude is especially prevalent among Democrats in rural and suburban areas, he said, because for them, being linked to the president is a serious liability in their own re-election bids.

"The main reason is simply that Obama is unpopular," Sabato said. "They know that in their districts, he is a heavy weight around their necks. They encounter this as they go door to door and as they try to solicit donations."

And the trend is not limited to the state legislature.

Outgoing Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., has been critical of the president on many fronts, even with no political incentive.

Though he voted for the Affordable Care Act, Webb later said that the Obama administration "did a really terrible job handling health-care reform." He also repeatedly challenged Obama on the U.S. role in Libya's recent tumult.

Weeks ago, Webb described the president's proposal to pay for a portion of his jobs bill with tax increases as "terrible."

"We shouldn't increase taxes on ordinary income," Webb said. "There are other ways to get there."

Indeed, reception of the jobs plan has been almost universally lukewarm among lawmakers. Even U.S. Senate candidate Timothy M. Kaine, who served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee after being picked by Obama, has stopped short of a wholesale endorsement.

While Kaine supports the concept of allowing Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans to expire, he thinks they should expire only for those earning more than $500,000, compared with the president's suggestion of $250,000.

More significantly, he is opposed to Obama's debt-reduction proposal to increase capital-gains rates on high earners.

"Kaine's in a very special position," Sabato said. "He is joined to Obama at the hip. There's nothing Kaine can do to run away from Obama that would be credible. His best chance is simply to run as Tim Kaine. … In other words, 'Don't confuse me with that fellow in Washington that I know quite well.' "

Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-Va., also has voiced only tepid support for select elements of the president's jobs bill and has been mildly critical of the funding proposals.

"Some of the things that the president proposed on the pay-fors … some of them I can live with," Warner told the Richmond Times-Dispatch last month. "I think it would be better to put it in the context of an overall plan. Too much of what we've been trying to do has been piecemeal."

Sabato said the difficulty of rousing political support for the jobs act is more about the plan than the president.

"It's because it's not real," he said. "It was designed to score political points, not get passed."

And then there are the polls.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Sept. 15 showed that 54 percent of registered Virginia voters disapprove of Obama's job performance. More than half of those polled thought he did not deserve another four years in office.

A Roanoke College poll released last week showed Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney polling ahead of Obama in Virginia 45 percent to 37 percent, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry about even with the president.

Even among Democrats, confidence is not high. In an interview on WTOP radio last month, Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, D-11th, was asked if he thought Obama could win Virginia, a battleground state that Obama took in 2008.

"In my opinion, no, today he would not win the state," Connolly said.

Though 13 months is too short a time to turn the economy completely around, Sabato said, there are any number of scenarios under which Obama's popularity could climb.

"The political seasons will change between now and next November," he said, "and if Obama's numbers go up, those Democrats rediscover the virtues in the president they had forgotten."