THIS IS NOT 2008 – AT 10:19 A.M. ET:   Although you'd never know it from the way he talks, President Obama is in serious political trouble.  Even some liberals are distancing themselves from him.   He is no longer the religious figure of 2008 – Barack, come to save us.  He is now Barack, king of blunders, emperor of the open borders.  From the Weekly Standard: 

With Barack Obama's job approval well below water these days, perhaps it's no surprise that Democratic candidates for Congress this year aren't jumping at the chance to have the president come campaign for them. Dave Weigel at Slate points out how remarkable it was last week when Democratic senator Mark Udall of Colorado declined to appear with Obama, despite the fact that the president won Colorado twice. "Members of the White House political team will grit their teeth and ask low-level campaign staffers if, you know, it would be OK for the commander-in-chief to show up," Weigel writes. "They will be told to call back in a few days. Often, they will be told, 'No thanks, but send money.'"

Now comes the news that even in Northern Virginia, the liberal region outside of Washington that's transformed the Old Dominion into a blue state, Democrats are shying away from Obama. The president appeared in McLean in Fairfax County (60 percent support for Obama in 2008 and 2012) on Tuesday to call for action on extending the federal Highway Trust Fund. But where was the Democrat running for McLean's open House seat? John Foust is a member of the Fairfax County board of supervisors and lives in McLean, but the Democrat and House hopeful was "noticeably absent" from the Obama transportation event.

COMMENT:  In the immortal words of the American philosopher, Johnny Carson, "How quickly they forget."  Obama is now seen as a lame duck, and his lameness will only increase after the November election.
His botching of the border crisis is, for many Americans, the last straw.  They're tired of giving Obama one more chance to get something right.

But will Obama's unpopularity translate into the GOP taking the Senate in November?  Current polling shows there is no guarantee of that.  Individual Dem candidates are showing surprising resilience.  Republicans need six seats to control the Senate.  And that assumes they won't lose any.  I think it's +4 for Republicans right now.  Squeezing out those other two will be brutal.

July 16, 2014