Admin’s cliff offer presents a challenge for centrist Democrats

Democrats hold 20 of the 33 Senate seats up for up for grabs in 2014 — many of them in red or purple states. And just like in 2012, many of the moves Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., makes will be with his most vulnerable Members in mind.

Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, for example, said he could consider changes to the debt ceiling voting procedure, but said he’s uneasy about ceding all power to the executive.

“If it’s just, ‘Get rid of it,’ without any future oversight, I get a little nervous about that,” Begich said of reconfiguring the law guiding debt limit votes. “But at the end of the day, the people who do have control over the deficit and the debt is us, by our votes and our actions. So the debt limit [vote] is just another procedure that may not be necessary.”

Another potentially vulnerable Democrat, Sen. Kay Hagan of North Carolina, demurred when asked whether she could support a permanent solution to raising the debt ceiling, saying she was still reviewing the specifics of the president’s proposal.