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"You know Team Obama has problems when some of Obama's biggest supporters don't want to be seen with the president as he's nominated to run for a second term," said RNC spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski. The risks of appearing too chummy with the president are all too real for McCaskill, who faces a difficult re-election fight in a state Obama lost in 2008. Crossroads GPS, a conservative outside group founded by Republican political operative Karl Rove, has already aired an attack ad dubbed "Obama-Claire" that uses images of the two Democrats together. "A Democrat is a Democrat. You can't deny that you're a Democrat, just as the Republicans mostly don't deny that they're Republicans," said former Rep. Martin Frost, D-Texas, who chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the 1990s. The committee's current chairman, Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., said recently that candidates should make their own decisions about whether or not to attend. But Israel added that it makes complete sense for candidates to stay in their districts
-- where they can interact with voters -- rather than leave town a few months before the election. In the Senate, where Democrats can only lose four seats and still hold their majority if Obama is re-elected, the party's nominees for open seats in Arizona and North Dakota have both said they will campaign at home rather than fly to Charlotte. Both are states Obama lost in 2008. Democrats aren't the only ones thinking twice about showing up for their party's big party. Former Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle, a Republican seeking a Senate seat in liberal-leaning Hawaii, said she won't attend the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. The same holds true for Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., who is challenging Tester for his Senate seat.
[Associated
Press;
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