Will Hill Democrats Embrace Obama in 2012?There’s a growing hopefulness among Democrats that the GOP presidential caucuses and primaries will either disgorge a nominee crippled by a protracted fight or produce a truly controversial standard-bearer. When President Obama rolls to reelection, the thinking goes, his margin of victory might be large enough to enable the Democrats to hold onto their Senate majority and even get close to retaking the House.
But can the often fractious Democrats hang together to take advantage of the roiling Republican race?-snip-
Indeed,
some veteran party strategists believe that congressional Democrats have a better appreciation today that their fate is tied to the success of a president than they did back in 1995 and '96 when Bill Clinton was in the White House. “This is a different group of people; they’ve accomplished a lot with the Obama team,” said Democratic lobbyist Vic Fazio, who was chairman of the House Democratic Caucus in the 1990s.
“The old bulls after '94 were even more contemptuous (of Clinton); that’s not the case today.”-snip-
Elmendorf, who was House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt’s chief of staff during the 1995-96 campaign, said that
there “was a lot of resentment” and “more blame” leveled at Clinton for the party’s 1994 midterm debacle, because he had pushed such issues as gun control and the North American Free Trade Agreement that needlessly exposed congressional Democrats.
“You could argue health care hurt too (in the 2010 elections), but everybody wanted to do it,” Elmendorf said. “This wasn’t something the White House foisted on the members, like NAFTA.”-snip-
“The reality is that we do sink or swim together; this is a lesson that people have ignored in the past and have ignored at their peril,” said Democratic pollster Mark Mellman. “Can an individual (member of Congress) make some gains by distancing themselves from the president? Yes. But can a party make gains that way? No.”http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/will-hill-democrats-embrace-obama-in-2012--20110527 
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