DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Absolutely.
And -- and what's striking, Wolf, is how many Democrats are moving away from national themes. They're trying to localize these races not nationalize them. You know, ordinarily, if you're the incumbent party, you want to go to the country now and say, look at the three things we've done for you. Politico is reporting now that not a single Democrat in the House who voted for the national health care reform plan is running any advertisements on health care. Isn't that striking?
BLITZER: It's very striking since it's the signature achievement if you listen to the White House. They don't talk a lot about it, but it certainly one of their signature achievements over the past year and a half.
And one of the major decisions will involve money and the national Democratic leadership is going to have to decide where to send money in and where to send money out. In other words, which Democratic lawmakers who are in trouble will live and who will die? These are not easy decisions, David.
GERGEN: They're not easy decisions. They're going to be a decision in the House will be made largely by the Democratic National Congressional Campaign Committee that's run by Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.
And in this case, Wolf, what they're -- what they're trying to do by all accounts is they'll take a certain number of people, the next two weeks they'll decide basically, here are the ones we think we can't save. They'll pull their money out of those campaigns and redirect it to campaigns where they think it's very close.
For example, there's a now -- there's a rising star in the Democratic Party by the name of Tom Perriello, who's running from Southeastern Virginia. He's in a fairly conservative district. He had the courage to go and vote for health care reform, for financial reform, for the bailout, and now is getting killed on that. He's about -- he's like 15 or 20 points behind. That's a district where they may pull the money even though he is a rising star and put it in that -- in that district where Dana Bash is that was didn't seem close before but now is close. They want to save that seat and they've got a real fighting chance there.
BLITZER: These are going to be really tough, wrenching decisions for the Democratic Party.
GERGEN: Very hard decisions. Because when you go (ph) with Tom Perriello, you know, he had the future written all over him. He is -- and he'll come back in politics I hope somewhere, but that's the kind of person you want to see stay in politics.
BLITZER: Yes. All right. Well, we'll see what happens.
All right. David, thank you.
Transcript from The Situation Room aired September 6, 2010