I've seen a lot of diaries here tonight about how President Obama shoulda done or shouldn'ta done that, about how he didn't listen to the progressives and now all his candidates have lost.
So I wanted to throw my two cents in. It'll probably get lost in the wash, but I have to try.
And I'll start with the immortal words of Tip O'Neill:
All politics is local.
OK, we've had one special election in the Senate to fill - replace, rather, since no one can fill - Ted Kennedy's seat. Some people call Martha Coakley "Obama's candidate," but she was picked by the Democratic voters in Massachusetts in a fair primary, and as far as I recall Obama didn't try to influence that primary.
What happened next is only partly the president's fault - as another diary (Muzikal203's) pointed out, he does have a country to run. It's pretty clear that Obama, the DNC, and the DSCC all expected that Coakley, who was after all a veteran campaigner who had won state-wide races before, would run a proper campaign.
She didn't. She acted like the seat was already hers and she had no need to stoop to asking voters for their vote. BIG mistake. Scott Brown took every advantage of it, too, running a slick retail campaign which, among other things, played down his Tea Party and GOP connections, and by the time Obama and the Dems realized what was happening, it was too late. Blame him for that, but not for the rest of it - Coakley would have won if she had acted like a candidate and not like the heir to the throne.
We also had two governor's races, and in both cases Obama campaigned for the Democratic nominee, and they lost. In New Jersey, Corzine lost because he was so unpopular that if God had campaigned for him, he wouldn't have won. As it is, I think Obama raised his numbers some, but not enough. In Virginia, Deeds was a lousy candidate (though, unlike Coakley, he at least tried to get out there), and McDonnell, much like Brown, ran a stealth campaign. It's interesting to note that in both states, the voters are having a severe case of buyer's remorse - something that might be useful to remind people of come November.
So now we come to tonight. Yes, Obama backed Specter. That was, from all accounts, what he had promised Specter he would do if Specter switched parties. And Obama is that rare politician who keeps his promises. But Specter had doomed himself with his admission back in 2009 that he was switching parties in order to win re-election. All Sestak - or any other opponent - had to do was save that clip until just before the primary, and Specter was toast. (I saw the ad; it was brilliantly done.) Can't blame Obama for that one.
The other Pennsylvania race - the really interesting one, since the GOP had announced it would prove they could take back the House in November - was the race to replace Jack Murtha in the PA-12. Obama stayed out of that one, but the really interesting thing, according to what I heard on Countdown, is that the Republican candidate ran on how he was opposed to everything Obama was doing or planning to do, while the Democrat talked about what he was going to do for the district. Which not only proves Tip O'Neill's point, it also suggests that bashing Obama isn't necessarily a winning strategy for the GOP this fall. (A lesson they should have learned in the NY-23, but the Republicans are showing all the signs of being slow learners.)
So that leaves Arkansas. Here I will point out a Washington Post analysis of tonight's results which reminds everyone that Obama lost Arkansas in 2008 and isn't all that popular there. Moreover, he didn't do much for Lincoln other than record a single radio ad for her.
In other words, don't read tonight's primary and general election results as being bad for Obama, or as a warning that he needs to "come home" to the progressive side. The election was not a referendum on Obama and it's not a signal of impending doom. If anything, it's a sign that the country is pissed, yes, but it's also paying attention. And it's making decisions on what they think will be best locally.