The chairman of House Democrats campaign arm said Republican talk of impeaching President Barack Obama is actually helping to mobilize the Democratic base and move “persuadable voters” toward them in the 2014 election.
“I think that the Republican strategy of lawsuits, approaching impeachment, is fundamentally misfiring,” Israel said Tuesday according to The Hill.
“Look, I understand their strategy is intended to gin up their base, but it’s having the unintended consequence of moving our base in a midterm election and also moving persuadable voters, swing voters to us in a midterm election,” Israel continued.
But Israel denied that he was rooting for impeachment. He said the idea was “horrific.”
According to Israel, since House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) announced a lawsuit against Obama, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has raised $7.6 million online. The DCCC, Israel said, also got 74,000 new donors with an average contribution of $19 each.
Israel’s comments came the same day that Boehner said that talks of impeachment were really coming from Democrats.
“Listen, this whole talk about impeachment is coming from the president’s own staff, and coming from Democrats on Capitol Hill. Why? Because they’re trying to rally their people to give money and to show up in this year’s election,” Boehner said Tuesday.
Over the weekend House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) refused to rule out trying to impeach Obama. In an interview on Fox News Sunday Scalise was asked if he would look into impeaching Obama. Scalise tried to dodge the question multiple times.
“The White House will do anything they can to change the topic away from the president’s failed agenda,” Scalise said. “The president isn’t solving the problems. We’re going to try to solve the problems for everyday people. I would like to see the president engaged in that, too, that’s his job, but he wants to change the topic, talk about things like this.”
In June, Rep. Lou Barletta (R-PA) said efforts to impeach Obama “probably could” pass the House of Representatives.
