The delusion is strong with this one.
On Friday's Morning Joe program on what remains of MSNBC, Al Sharpton, completely ignoring how late appearances in Maryland and Illinois by President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle coincided with significant deterioration in the situations of Democratic Party gubernatorial candidates in Maryland and Illinois, blamed Bill and Hillary Clinton, and not the Obamas, for Tuesday's Democratic debacle.
Longtime liberal journalist Cokie Roberts made the obvious observation that Barack Obama wasn't "all alone," as Sharpton had apparently claimed before the beginning of the excerpt below, but that "he went to states" (HT Hot Air):
Transcript, picking up at Roberts' first full sentence (rough, given all the crosstalk):
COKIE ROBERTS: But I also don't understand how you keep saying that Mika and Al keep saying the President was all alone. He went to states and campaigned for candidates —
AL SHARPTON: Very late, very late, that was the last two weeks. Cokie, he went out two weeks ago, while Clinton went all over the place. Is this a Clinton defeat? Why is it only President - Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, the cavalry is coming in. Well, the cavalry got beat.
Is this a Clinton defeat? I think we’re Obama obsessed.
ROBERTS: The surrogates who succeeded were on the Republican side.
To refresh Al's memory, President Obama visited Upper Marlboro, Maryland on Sunday, October 19, sixteen days before Election Day. While the Associated Press predictably tried to cover for him by calling the event a "rowdy rally," a Reuters reporter, other observers, and many tweeters noted that many attendees left early.
Every poll up to and after that point had Democratic candidate Anthony Brown leading by seven or more points. A CBS/New York Times/YouGov poll done just before and after Obama's appearance showed Brown up by 13 points. Given that the AP's Josh Lederman completely ignored what really happened, it's reasonable to say that it took several days for people to find out how unimpressive Obama's appearance in even a highly supportive area went flat.
Brown lost by over four points — an over 17-point swing from that CBS poll. Is it really possible that negativity from Obama's appearance had absolutely nothing to do with that, Al?
Two weeks before Election Day in Illinois, incumbent Pat Quinn was up slightly in the Real Clear Politics average. Obama appeared in Chicago on October 20, and proceeded to make an embarrassing reference to "unpaid bills" still present at his home there. It was so embarrassing that the White House transcript still dishonestly pretends that the remark was "inaudible." Meanwhile, just before Election Day, Michelle Obama tried to claim that Illinois has one of the best job-growth performances in the nation, when the truth is that it has performed very poorly compared to most of the rest of the nation in job growth since massive Democrat-driven tax increases were passed in 2011.
Quinn lost by almost 5 points in a state which had been blue almost from top to bottom for 12 years.
President Obama, somehow believing that Scott Walker was in serious trouble, campaigned in late October in Wisconsin. Result: Walker won, rather handily. About the only thing you can say in the President's defense is that his visits to Connecticut and Rhode Island to support Democratic gubernatorial candidates did no harm.
While it is true that Hillary and Bill Clinton clearly weren't of much help to Democratic Senate candidates in Kentucky and Arkansas, their policies weren't on the ballot. Barack Obama said his were. Voters acted accordingly. The blame for the debacle rests almost entirely on him. Get over it, Al Sharpton.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
