Democrats Try to Make Politics a Local Matter Again

It won't work:

The Democratic-run Congress passed a health-care overhaul and is close to securing new rules for Wall Street. But in his re-election campaign back in southern New Mexico, Rep. Harry Teague is talking about new sidewalks and widening a freeway.

Across the country, Democrats defending House and Senate seats amid the stiffest anti-incumbent mood in two decades are trying to focus attention away from Washington—and toward local factors that might persuade voters to return their lawmaker to office.

The effort is designed to prevent Republicans from turning the fall elections into a national referendum on President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders in Congress, whose popularity among swing voters has been in sharp decline over the last year. Instead, Democrats are trying to turn each race into a unique, one-on-one match-up between local candidates.

"This is going to be about local issues and local things," said Mr. Teague, a first-term lawmaker considered vulnerable in his conservative district.

The plan, as laid out by Democratic strategists, includes two big elements: renewed attention by candidates on hometown construction projects—often without mentioning the unpopular economic stimulus bill that provided the funding—and a ramped-up effort at national Democratic headquarters to find negative information about GOP candidates.

The Democrats had their chance to keep this fight at the local level when they could have listened to their constituents and voted the way their districts wanted them to rather than toe the line behind Obama and the leftist agenda proposed by the liberal leaders in the party. Those Democrats who ignored their constituents to vote the party line are the people who gave the GOP the opportunity to make this a national referendum.

Given the falling popularity numbers for Obama and the dismal failure of just about everything the Democrats have passed this Congress they're not going to be able to confine the congressional races to the local level.  There's some serious payback coming.