Reply #8: Focusing on Obama is like trying to stop a Brown, Sweetness, Bo Jackson, or a Tomlinson

[TheKentuckian]

The Republicans are perhaps smartly starting to let "Sanders" get his and shut down the passing game.

Attacking Obama not only entrenches his wide base of supporters but strangely makes him more popular and effective.
Congress is more of an institution. Generally speaking most people feel positively about their Congress critters but despise Congress on the whole. Congress is easy to attack. It has no face other than the one attacking paints on it. As a political party you can then pump your resources into close districts and make the election into a referendum on Congress as a whole or an unpopular President.

This is a constant strategy put to work whether you're in or out. You always need a broader majority or to run "the rascals out". Our bizarre set of rules and checks and balances guarantees watered down compromises, coming close but missing the target, and/or infuriating running roughshod over a sizable portion of the people and their interests.
As a consequence most people for a variety of reasons naturally are fairly bitter on Congress and government in general, this is exacerbated pretty much out of control in times like ours where most people lack even a basic understanding of how these institutions are even supposed to work.

So, the Republiscum may see that attacking Obama is pissing into the wind, at least for now. They hope to diminish the majority to grind everything to a halt with Democrats still technically in charge like the last congress. They would then hope to go after Obama as weak and ineffective because of course nothing is getting done.
They figure for now they might at least be able to peel a few seats to enhance their obstruct/destruct agenda and stay away from the nasty business of actually reforming to an actual governing oriented entity. Actually, even just pretending to being dedicated to constructively governing would be an upgrade over their insane babble of the last 30-40 years.

Of course they are wrong.

Maybe not by much but still wrong. I believe that most of the electorate is getting that until the Republicans stop making us feel like we want Nixon back due to his obvious intellect but just as much for his relative honesty, commitment to the Constitution, policies, and general demeanor then it is patently insane to have them in charge in any way.
Unless these shadows change significantly, we pick up a few more seats. Of course at this point it matters what kind more than how many.