As politicians gear up for the 2014 midterm elections, the battle between Republicans and Democrats for Congress is shaping up to look a lot like 2012, NBC News reported.
The 2012 elections were marked by Democrats promoting a popular President against an inadequate Republican, while the Republicans relentlessly attacked the new health care law. President Barack Obama has recently been promoting the notion that Republicans have no course of action.
"You owe it to the American people to tell us what you are for, not just what you're against," Obama said in a speech in early December, according to NBC News. "That way we can have a vigorous and meaningful debate."
Republicans have been highlighting the failures of the launch of the Affordable Care Act website in an attempt to draw away criticism for the government shutdown in October 2013. Republicans previously carried out their attack of the health care law during the 2010 midterm elections, NBC News reported.
Republicans have not fully acknowledged they have not been able to accomplish much this term, NBC News reported. Republican John Boehner, the House Speaker, said Tuesday that the 150 bills that were approved by the House were rejected by the Senate.
"Every single one of these bills has been blocked by Washington Democrats," Boehner said, according to NBC News. "The Senate and the president continue to stand in the way of the people's priorities."
Republicans seem to be the turning the 2014 elections into a referendum on Obama's presidency.
"I think it's more than enough to make it a referendum on [Obama] Jim McLaughlin, a Republican pollster, told NBC News. "The White House is driving the agenda and the agenda's not popular."
For Brian Walsh, a member of the campaign committee that helps Republicans make it to the Senate, a campaign based solely on bashing Obama won't work.
"It cannot just be about Obamacare," Walsh told NBC News. "It's obviously an enormous political problem for Democrats but it's also important for Republicans to talk about their own positive ideas and alternatives to replacing them."
