The Democrats heat up some leftovers for the 2016 Senate races.

redstate.com ^ | 5/23/15 | Moe Lane

[cotton1706]

Before we get into the meat of this story from the National Journal, let me just note that this – “One of the most underappreciated stories in recent years is the deterioration of the Democratic bench under President Obama’s tenure in office” – has always been properly appreciated by me. I noticed this issue a while back. Sorry, but I felt the need to establish that.

Moving on…

…less attention has been paid to how the shrinking number of Democratic officeholders in the House and in statewide offices is affecting the party’s Senate races. It’s awfully unusual to see how dependent Democrats are in relying on former losing candidates as their standard-bearers in 2016. Wisconsin’s Russ Feingold, Pennsylvania’s Joe Sestak, Indiana’s Baron Hill, and Ohio’s Ted Strickland all ran underwhelming campaigns in losing office in 2010—and are looking to return to politics six years later. Party officials are courting former Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina to make a comeback bid, despite mediocre favorability ratings and the fact that she lost a race just months ago that most had expected her to win. All told, more than half of the Democrats’ Senate challengers in 2016 are comeback candidates.

Again, this is only a surprise if you are not paying attention; which I will concede is often the case for many voters. Josh Kraushaar touched on the reason that this all happened only lightly, but I will be a good deal more explicit about it. The Democrats are in this mess because in 2006 and 2008 they decided to treat what was a natural and transitory shift in American voting practices into an excuse to do every stupid political thing that progressives have wanted Democrats to do since the end of the New Deal.

[ClearCase_guy]

Yes, the Democrats are a weak bunch of losers. I imagine that the GOP Establishment will have no trouble beating them! Then the march toward Progressive Politics can continue unimpeded.

The only thing in the way is Ted Cruz.

[Gaffer]

The Democrat back-bench and down-ticket bench is so sparse is because there’s a rancid piece of meat sitting in that refrigerator out in the garage that runs off a GFCI outlet(that blew a couple three/four/five/ten winters ago).

Perfectly understandable. We haven’t had much money to stock up that second refrigerator out there because we don’t have any savings, a job or any prospects except taxes so we just kinda forgot it.

We’re only now noticing the stench because the cat refuses to go out into the garage through the cat-door unless he absolutely can’t hold it any more. And when he comes back he acts like a drug-induced whirling dervish.

I can tell you this. I’m not gonna go out there an open that hotbox with the rancid meat. I’ll leave that up to some other fool.

[No, don’t look at me like you don’t know who I’m talking about :0)]

[Publius]

The bench is sparse because it was cleaned out in the elections of 2010 and 2014.