Barack Obama’s new strategy of blaming House Republicans for blocking any of his initiatives relied on Senate Democrats to pass his bills — a strategy that fell apart almost instantly, and disintegrated completely yesterday when Harry Reid blocked consideration of Obama’s jobs bill. One might have thought that Obama and his team would have worked with Senate Democrats to get the strategy set before rolling out those proposals, but as The Hill reports, Obama seems almost as intent on alienating his allies as much as his opponents:

There have been recent flare-ups between the White House and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and his deputies. This comes 13 months before the 2012 elections, when control of the Senate is up for grabs.

The proximate causes of friction can seem slight, such as a recent breach of protocol, which left Senate Democratic leaders grumbling.

Obama left his party’s top senators, who had assembled for a conference call, hanging on the phone for nearly 20 minutes before National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling came on the line with a seemingly vague notion of what the call was supposed to be about, Democratic sources said.

Wow! Sounds a little bit like … an Obama press conference.

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