By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
In 2012, the American people gave President Barack Obama (D) four more years in our nation’s highest office. Republican infighting and terrible candidate selection, especially in Indiana and Missouri, resulted in Democrats retaining their hold on the U.S. Senate. President Obama accepted his victory as a mandate and in 2013 promoted an ambitious agenda that included historic new restrictions on Americans’ Second Amendment liberties and massive immigration reforms, including a path to citizenship for millions of illegal aliens.
2013 was a massive disappointment for Democrats. The President’s immigration reforms stalled in the Republican controlled House and his gun control plans never got out of the Democrat controlled U.S. Senate. The recovery has remained weak and largely jobless. Obamacare’s rollout was disastrous and mandate after mandate have been delayed by the administration further and further out into the future out of fear of the political and economic fallout. Primetime viewership at the Obama administration aligned cable news network, MSNBC, plummeted 24% in 2013.
Alabama Republican Party Chairman Bill Armistead said on Tuesday, March 25, “Democrats are scrambling to separate themselves from Obama! The midterm elections this year will give citizens the chance to reevaluate who they sent to Washington to represent them. Do they want a congressman who fights for them or do they want someone who blindly follows Obama? Many Democrats in Congress are pushing themselves away from President Obama in hopes of improving their chances to remain in office.”
Chairman Armistead said, “The abysmal approval rating of Obama truly is a reflection of the political, social and economic unrest across the country. Obama has clung to his signature piece of legislation with every staggering step. He has continued to push a product on the American people that they neither want nor need nor can afford. By blindly following Obama, many Democrat Congressmen wreaked havoc on their home districts and, with midterm elections, must face the reality that they might lose their job because of it.”
Chairman Armistead continued, “Democrats are distancing themselves from Obama and ObamaCare. With a job approval rating of less than 40%, it is no wonder Democrats are avoiding having the President participate in their campaigns. Democrats are focusing on voter turnout programs, hoping they can raise the typically low turn our numbers for midterm elections by convincing their base to head to the polls. They don’t think citizens are energized to vote during midterms, they are wrong. Americans are energized; they are tired of dealing with a president who has turned our country upside down with a shattered health care law and who has more than doubled our national debt. President Obama promised change, Americans are ready for a more positive version.”
“More than half of the country (53%) is dissatisfied with ObamaCare and for good reason: many lost their jobs, their doctor and their insurance plan. The Obama Administration is wasting our tax dollars to shove ObamaCare down our throats. As an example, from January to the end of March the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which is administering the president’s signature health-care law, will have spent $52 million on paid media for ObamaCare. And, the advertising continues with the Obama Administration spending $17.3 million a MONTH on advertising alone.” “Individuals, small- and medium-sized business, the young, the old, the healthy and the unhealthy are all tired of the president shoving the ObamaCare pill down their throats. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that ObamaCare “will cause 2.5 million people to leave their jobs and will increase our budget deficit by $1 trillion over the next ten years.”
Alabama Republicans are hopeful that dissatisfaction with the President and Obamacare will trickle down the ballot. Polls showing more enthusiasm among Republican voters than Democratic voters, Republicans hope, will result in higher turnout among Republican voters.
Alabama Republicans are hoping that the 2014 election is a referendum on President Obama and his economic policies. Alabama Democrats on the other hand are hopeful that voters will heed their message and focus the 2014 election instead on dissatisfaction with the Accountability Act, stagnant State employees pay, and allegations of Republican corruption.
