President Obama’s Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, has created a firestorm among Congressional Democrats by his assertion that it is possible that the Democrats could lose control of the House of Representatives in the midterm election! The Senate would be much more difficult to lose since the GOP would need ten seats gain, a tall order! Having said that, however, never in the past has one house switched control without the other doing the same!
Gibbs’ statement rings true, but it puts the Democrats on the defensive, and it makes some of them wonder if maybe, in some weird fashion, the President might prefer a GOP House so he can use them as a “whipping boy” when he comes up for reelection in 2012!
The argument, historically, could be that three Presidents in their first term, after seeing their party lose control of Congress, was able to use that fact politically to benefit his own reelection, as it made a convenient enemy to attack in the campaign that followed!
This refers to Harry Truman in 1948, after the Republicans gained control of Congress in 1946; Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956, after the Democrats took over Congress in 1954; and Bill Clinton in 1996, after the Republicans seized control of Congress in 1994!
In an odd way, it might, actually, be easier for Obama if such were to happen, but to believe that he or his press secretary was trying to set up such a scenario, is ridiculous on its face!