A stunning wave of Democratic retirements and defections signals a "tsunami" of voter discontent that will hurt President Obama's ability to deliver on his ambitious legislative agenda, Fox News political analyst Dick Morris told Newsmax in an exclusive interview Tuesday.
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And Morris says the worst is yet to come for the Democratic Party.
"I think that what's going to happen now is a series of [Democratic] retirements," Morris told Newsmax.TV's Ashley Martella. "Next to the H1N1 virus, the most contagious disease in Washington is going to be retiring."
In a single day Tuesday, three Democrats announced they would not run for re-election: Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn.; Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.; and Gov. Bill Ritter, D-Colo.
Their decisions followed closely on the heels of the announcement by Alabama blue dog Rep. Parker Griffith that he would switch parties and become a Republican.
The Democratic setbacks are expected to make it much more difficult for President Obama to persuade skittish Democrats to enact his legislative agenda, including energy cap and trade, pro-union "card check" legislation, and immigration reform.
Yet Morris, who has predicted Republicans will recapture both houses of Congress in November's midterms, says Democrats are just beginning to recognize the political damage caused by their acquiescence to President Obama's initiatives.
"I think that the more they retire," Morris told Newsmax, "the more it sends a message to other Democratic incumbents for them to switch parties or retire, to Democratic campaign donors that the Democratic Party's probably going to lose, to Republicans who are thinking of jumping into the race to challenge Democrats to go ahead and do it because they have a good chance of winning, and most of all it sends a message to Democratic voters that the Democrats they might vote for are basically admitting defeat."
The best-selling author told Newsmax that the retirements also indicate moderates are an endangered species within the Democratic Party.
"I think the tide is just irresistible… this marks the end of the moderate Democrat," said Morris.
Democrats contend that Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, the new Democratic senatorial candidate, actually has a better chance of winning than Dodd did.
Morris agreed. But he adds that he no longer considers any Democrat, incumbent or otherwise, a safe bet to win in 2010.
"When it's the year before a tsunami hits," Morris told Martella, "you can't tell exactly how high the water's gonna go… I don't think it's a healthy time for any Democrat to run."
Turning to national security, Morris predicted that voters will see through the president's apparent attempt to blame the intelligence community for not keeping Americans safe from terror, following the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Northwest Flight 253.
"Obama has the hunters being hunted," Morris said. "The intelligence officers that are supposed to find terrorists, are themselves terrorized by being subjected to the likes of Eric Holder and to criticism within the United States."
Morris says the administration has discouraged CIA officers from taking the intuitive leaps of judgment needed to "connect the dots" and prevent terrorists from striking the United States.
"Now if when you take that leap you're going to be second guessed, and somebody's going to come and say, 'Oh, you shouldn't have done that, you violated that guy's rights.' There goes your job, there's goes your pension -- you're not going to take that leap.
"So when Obama says it's a systemic failure, yeah it is," Morris told Newsmax. "But it's one that he caused by the policies that he's been espousing. It's the logical consequence of all the things he's said ever since he started to run for president."
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