President Obama's escalating military campaign in Iraq and Syria has drowned out the economic pitch he hoped would help salvage a midterm election that has been favoring Republicans. But the airstrikes against Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) also have introduced a new complicating factor into the fall campaign, forcing both sides to reassess their closing political messages.
Obama is drawing new attention to the nation's recovery from the Great Recession with a speech Thursday at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., linking U.S. stature abroad to economic strength at home. It is a delicate argument for a president whose handling of pocketbook issues remains unpopular.
Senior administration officials insist that unlike George W. Bush in 2002, Obama does not plan to make national security and the threat of Middle East extremism the centerpiece of his message for the campaign homestretch. Yet they acknowledge the matter will be impossible for Obama and Democrats to ignore.
"You'd like to be able to be talking about the economy in September, but this is a really important piece of business for the president of the United States to do," said Jennifer Palmieri, the White House communications director.
Republicans, too, have had to confront the new dynamic. Wes Anderson, a GOP pollster, said Obama's job approval ratings appear to have improved after his military campaign against ISIL. But he said voters still disapprove of his job combating terrorism. "So they are telling us they like the fact that he's doing something they think he should be doing," Anderson said. "But they don't trust him on the issue."
One of Anderson's Senate candidates, North Carolina state Rep. Thom Tillis, has a new ad accusing Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan and Obama of keeping quiet while the ISIL threat grew. "The price for their failure is danger. To change direction, we have to change our senator," the narrator says.
Texas' red-hot governor's race
Wendy Davis and Greg Abbott — both vying to become governor of Texas — sparred this week in their second and final televised debate over the state's mismanagement of an economic-incentive fund that has put Abbott on the defensive and given Davis new momentum. Davis, a Democrat and a state senator, accused Abbott, a Republican and the Texas attorney general, of concealing the lax oversight of the fund to help contributors to his campaign. Abbott responded by accusing Davis of profiting from a company that received money from the fund when she served on the Fort Worth City Council. Davis denied the accusation and told Abbott that he knew he was being dishonest. "Mr. Abbott, this is about your failure," she said. Five weeks before the November election, the first open-seat race for governor in more than 20 years has intensified, with Davis and Abbott waging a multimillion-dollar advertising war. Abbott has been the front-runner and Davis the underdog.
McConnell pulls ahead in Kentucky
Disdain for Obama in Kentucky is at a fever pitch, and it is at the core of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's increasingly confident re-election campaign. McConnell has a small but steady lead over his Democratic challenger, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes. This is one of the few Senate races where the Republicans might once have been vulnerable. It's not that McConnell is that popular: Only 36 percent of registered voters had a favorable view of him in a recent Bluegrass Poll. But Obama is disliked even more — just 29 percent viewed him favorably.
Punch line
"It was reported today that the recent security breaches at the White House could cost the director of the Secret Service her job. Luckily, after she's escorted out of the building, it should be pretty easy for her to get back in." – Seth Myers
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