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Three top Democratic politicians have thrown in the towel, inviting comment that they are running scared, sure of a drubbing in November's elections.

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Its not all bad news for the Democrats. by bowing out.

After two decades in the Senate, the Connecticut senator won't go for a sixth term.

He says that he loved his job but the events of the last year had made him take stock of life. He was very aware of his current political standing but that wasn't the reason to go. But it was time to step aside.

What's this about?

As chairman of the Senate banking committee he declared that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were "fundamentally strong". Then the ethics committee cleared him of wrongdoing over a cheap mortgage deal but said being put on a bank's VIP list should have raised "red flags".

The Democrats can't afford to have a toxic link in the public's mind running from "Big Government" to "Big Banking". Who can hate Wall Street the most will surely be a feature of these elections.

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal will have a better shot at holding the seat.

But and Governor Bill Ritter in Colorado must make it easier for Republicans to win.

In Radio 4's look-ahead to 2010, I tipped Colorado as the place to be as it had tight races for Governor, Senate and House. It just got tighter.

The party that wins the White House can't be surprised if it loses seats in the midterms. That's the way it goes.

The danger for President Obama is that some of his most active supporters during the election will feel disillusioned. While they won't vote against their party, they may not turn out, or not campaign with great enthusiasm.

I just don't buy the line that after last year's election people are flooding back to the conservative cause. But the people who lost the election feel like rebels with a cause.

The President's intention to focus on jobs and the economy this year is well known, but there are at least a couple of problems.

First "events, dear boy, events". After the Detroit plot part of Obama's focus, and all of the media's, has been on national security. Of course, politicians can deal with more than one issue at a time. But the media can't, and voters get their impressions through us.

There is an even more fundamental problem: what does he do about jobs and the economy? There are no new measures in the pipeline, no new narrative to tell. Sure he can talk about it al lot but that won't always get headlines. New Labour's one-time tactic of repeatedly re-announcing the same policy is not a good one to follow. There will be a Democratic fight-back but it hasn't started yet.

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