The Administration came up with a jobs plan with two goals in mind – one, to get something through Congress to keep the recovery from turning negative, and two, because the Democrats had nothing to run on in November. The problem with the latter is it assumes that whatever the White House came up with would be well-received by the Democrats on the ballot. As you see above, Blue Dogs and corporate Dems are making a sport out of running away from the President and his policies. And now, in Colorado, Sen. Michael Bennet has rejected a key plank of this recovery package.

Democrat facing tough reelection fight in Colorado comes out against the president’s $50 billion public works proposal.

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) broke with President Obama on Wednesday, saying he would not support any additional stimulus spending.

Bennet, who was endorsed by the president in Colorado but is facing a tough reelection fight, rejected the $50 billion public works program proposed by Obama earlier this week.

“I will not support additional spending in a second stimulus package,” Bennet said in a statement.

Bennet cited “unused funds” in the stimulus bill that could be diverted to fund transportation, sounding mostly like Mitch McConnell in the process.

By the way, infrastructure spending is incredibly popular nationwide, even in Colorado. Bennet thinks he can’t come out for the dreaded “spending” during campaign season, but as I understand the White House’s proposal, it’s NOT new spending, merely front-loaded spending that will be offset in the out years. So like Ben Nelson and Republicans, Bennet is distorting a policy idea, the soundest one in the entire package, to show his constituents that he’s “fighting spending.” Maybe he’ll come out next for the John Boehner policy of extending the Bush tax cuts and capping spending at “2008 levels.” I know that would increase the deficit by trillions, but hey, at least it’s not new spending.

The reason that this Obama proposal won’t go anywhere in Congress has mostly to do with Republicans. But with everyone looking out for short-term interests, the Democrats have scattered in all directions, and are in no mood to take any tough votes themselves. This is in total contrast to recent pre-election maneuvers by Republicans, when they passed little things like the Iraq war authorization, the Department of Homeland Security and the Military Commissions Act. And they didn’t have to worry about wayward members of their coalition, either.