For months, Republicans have been pointing out that Democrats in Congress continue to push bills that are designed to fail: legislation crafted with the knowledge that it has significant opposition, advanced solely to score political points. Now, news reports show that Democrats are openly discussing how they’ll continue this strategy for another year.

On Friday, National Journal reported that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) told “a gathering of about 40 House Democrats” that “the party is positioned to dictate a congressional agenda designed to get most of its congressional members—and President Obama—reelected. Working with the White House, Senate Democrats are plotting a 2012 floor agenda driven by Obama’s reelection campaign and the fight for control of Congress. The year will see an intensified version of the course Democrats pursued this fall through votes on the president’s jobs bill. Senate floor action will be planned less to make law than to buttress Obama’s charge that Republicans are obstructing measures that would benefit the economy, leadership aides said. Assuming that Republicans will block most of their efforts regardless of what they do, Democrats will push legislation that polls well and dovetails with Obama’s campaign, the aides said. Democratic staffers said they hope that effort harms not only congressional Republicans but the GOP presidential nominee. Democrats will try to move legislation that the nominee and congressional Republicans oppose. By doing that, Democrats hope, he will yoke himself to the unpopular Congress. ‘The Republican candidate will have to own whatever the issue is,’ a Democratic leadership aide said.”

And Politico writes today, “Forget about landmark legislation or even a budget deal. And all those votes on the floor? Most will be meant to influence the November elections. Welcome to the second session of the 112th Congress, when a divided and unpopular group seems poised to ignore the basic aspects of governing and turn the House and Senate chambers into full-time campaign stumps. . . . Senate Democrats are already talking about scheduling votes to put the eventual GOP nominee in an awkward spot, forcing him to choose between the unpopular congressional wing of his party and more moderate, independent voters.”

Clearly, Democrats are planning more of the same for this year: pushing bills created only with polling and electoral politics in mind, designed not to create jobs, ease the debt burden, or foster energy independence, but to provide talking points for Democrats and President Obama on the campaign trail.

Back in October, when Democrats were pushing President Obama’s designed to fail stimulus, Leader McConnell blasted their cynical maneuvering, saying, “Democrats have designed this bill to fail—they’ve designed their own bill to fail — in the hopes that anyone who votes against it will look bad for opposing a bill they misleadingly refer to as a ‘jobs bill.’  That’s not just my interpretation. The Senior Senator for New York has been out there telling reporters that what Democrats are going for today is ‘contrast.’

“It doesn’t seem to matter that this bill won’t pass, or that even if it did pass, American businesses would be stuck with a permanent tax hike. Forget about all that. What matters most to the Democrats who control the Senate, according to the stories I’ve been reading, is that they have an issue to run on next year. This whole exercise, by their own admission, is a charade that’s meant to give Democrats a political edge in an election that [is] months away. Well, with all due respect to the Senior Senator from New York, the American people don’t want contrast. They want jobs.”

“The President’s advisors have said they’re counting on a do-nothing Congress,” Leader McConnell said, That’s why we’ll be voting on legislation . . . that’s designed to fail. If you ask me, this is a pretty sad commentary on the state of Democrat party in Washington.”

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