There is no "distance" between Democrats and Obama

In response to W.Va. Dem Tennant Dumps on Obama, Ad Depicts White House in the Dark:

It’ll be very interesting to see if this “running away from Obama” stuff works, because it’s all a total scam.  Every single Democrat, no matter who it is, is a lockstep vote for Obama and his Party’s agenda.  ObamaCare should have proved, once and for all, that there are no “moderate” Democrats any more.  

Natalie Tennant supposedly throwing down against Obama on coal is hilarious.  No Democrat currently drawing breath will do one single blessed thing to halt Obama’s War on Coal, which is really a subset of his War on Energy.  She’s not going to flip any switches and turn out the White House lights.  If the people of West Virginia are lucky, she might receive permission from Harry Reid to cast a sham vote or two against Obama’s agenda, in cases where the Democrats are sure they can get what they want without her.  

If Democrats hold the Senate, all these supposedly “moderate” and “anti-Obama” Democrats won’t make a lick of difference.  Obama’s going to want to consolidate his gains in these last few years of his term, while he golfs and hits the fundraising circuit.  Democrats as a group are not at all interested in undoing any major elements of Obama’s “legacy,” because that’s tantamount to admitting Party ideology was wrong.  They won’t do anything that would make the Party seem toxic going into the 2016 election.  No matter what someone like Hillary Clinton might think of Barack Obama personally, she knows damn well she can’t win running on a platform of “my party was an utter disaster under the last Democrat President, but vote for me and I’ll fix everything, because I’m totally different.”  Also, it’s a core element of Democrat political strategy to claim that all resistance to Obama is either partisan intransigence or straight-up racism, and that’s not a talking point they’re going to sacrifice by indulging high-profile Democrat critics of the President or his plans.

It’s tough for anyone to run away from the titular head of the party, Democrat or Republican.  Voters generally don’t buy it, and they shouldn’t.  In 2014, they especially shouldn’t.  Party leadership matters a lot more than the alleged maverick running in your state or district, and that’s especially true of the Democrats, because they generally have much tighter party discipline than Republicans (and no Big Media goading them into earning Strange New Respect awards for denouncing their own team.)  In this particular political season, with this particular lame-duck President, the idea of effective resistance from members of his own party is laughable.  Anyone tempted to fall for the scam should ask themselves: don’t you think this alleged resistance to Obama from these maverick red-state Democrats will evaporate like the morning dew if his approval numbers pick up?