If you're a Democrat strategist, you've had a tough year. Your President is unpopular, his international policies are an inept, disastrous, mess and his signature legislation is a train wreck that the American people despise. You know that, if the midterm election becomes a referendum on the job the President has done, your congressional candidate is doomed. So you've spent months helping them walk a knife edge. They have to appeal to a diminished but still-faithful base, but they also have to put as many miles between themselves and the current administration as possible.
