Is Alex Sink chewing on a bushel of sour grapes following her loss to Rick Scott or is she accurately hitting on some of the political and messaging failures of the Obama White House and the Democratic party in general? In an article on Politico this weekend, Sink lays some of the blame for her loss at Obama's feet, yet her critiques illustrated by some of Politico's all-too-common off-the-record and unsourced quotes and anecdotes makes it seem like Sink isn't totally out of line by pointing the finger at Obama.
In an interview with POLITICO, Sink said the administration mishandled the response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, doesn't appreciate the political damage done by healthcare reform and argued that her GOP opponent's strategy of tying her to the president did grave damage to her candidacy in the state's conservative Panhandle."They got a huge wake-up call two days ago, but unfortunately they took a lot of Democrats down with them," said Sink told Politico while also adding the administration is "tone-def" and needs to be "better listeners."
"I faced headwinds from Washington that I liken to a tsunami and was going up against a guy who had unlimited resources," she continues. "I could have overcome either one but not both."
Sink goes on to critique the Administration's handling of the oil spill, but never quite throws a bomb at any of Obama's policy. Though with out critiquing the bill, she does say, "they never acknowledged that they had problems with the acceptance of health care reform."
Sinks camp apparently felt that Senior's distrust of the bill may have been too much to overcome. Yet, most seniors covered by standard Medicare will see benefits from the new law with the gradual closing of the dreaded prescription coverage "doughnut hole."
Perhaps Sink's campaign might have been better off to realize that, yes, she was running as a member of the president's party and should have taken on and defended some of the anger directed towards democrats instead of side skirting them.
Sink's camp came in to conflict with the White House a number of times. She refused to meet the President at the tarmac when he was flying in for a Miami fundraiser, and rebuffed an offer to have Obama appear at a "Get out the Vote" rally in the final days of the election in South Florida. In another instance operatives in the Sink campaign "laminated and regularly mocked" a memo from a mid-level administration figure that they saw as "illustrative of the Obama team's cluelessness about the race."
Yet, unnamed sources close to the administration contend that the White House kept the campaign alive by providing organization assistance and money.
Unnamed Florida Democrats ultimately contend that Scott's attempts to link Sink to an unpopular Obama and Nancy Pelosi was just to much for the campaign to overcome in a midterm election fueled by tea party fervor and anger at the administration.
[Politico: Centrist Dems rip 'tone-deaf' White House]
