Sen. Murray: A life on the line for Obama

Sen. Murray: A life on the line for Obama


Defending the nation’s social safety net gets personal for Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., even when she’s speaking to the Democratic National Convention and a nationwide TV audience.

On Wednesday, Murray discussed the tribulations of her own childhood, from her father’s multiple sclerosis to the family’s reliance on veterans benefits. She talked about a period when “we were on food stamps” and the federal student loans that gave seven brothers and sisters “a shot at a college degree.”

“It’s a story that President Obama understands, because it’s a story that he has lived,” Murray told the convention.

She didn’t tell the convention a few things.  Murray is chairing the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, charged with holding the Democrats’ narrow Senate control in a year when 23 of their seats are up.

Obama has supplied very little assistance to the Democrats’ Senate committee.  The President has concentrated on his own fundraising to the exclusion of his party’s Senate and House candidates. He did help Murray in 2010.

Still, Obama is a defender of what Patty Murray believes in, federal programs designed to benefit the middle class, which Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have targeted for deep cuts.

“Their plan would cut away at the foundation of our great nation,” said Murray.  “It would mean throwing in the towel on our middle class.  And we are not going to let them do it.  Not with President Obama in the White House . . .

“They will end Medicare’s guaranteed benefits and repeal health care reform.  So on day one, millions of young people on their parents’ policies would lose their coverage.  They would take away a woman’s right to make decisions about her own pregnancy and decimate Planned Parenthood, where millions of women get basic health care services.  They would sell out our middle class to cut taxes, for millionaires, billionaires and big corporations.”

Murray has hit repeatedly at what she calls the Republicans’ “War on Women,” and made a political issue of the House GOP’s efforts to defund Planned Parenthood clinics and failure by the House to renew the Violence Against Women Act.

It has worked — at least in this Washington.

A heavy majority among women voters in the Puget Sound area sent Murray back to the Senate in 2010, and carried Gov. Chris Gregoire to reelection in 2008.

Murray has been targeted by Republicans in three consecutive Senate reelection races, only to win thanks to her reputation as a politician who sweats such issues as veterans benefits and women’s health and college loans.

The cool, somewhat aloof Barack Obama needs to put on those sweats.