Who is the White House fooling?

It wasn’t long ago that President Obama and his team made it clear that he was focused on winning the House for Democrats in 2014 (see here). In fact, our friends over at the DCCC have been singing it from the rooftops.

Steve Israel said this just a couple of weeks ago: “In 2012, President Obama was completely focused on his own re-election, as he should have been. But for 2014, he will be able to focus on Congressional races, and he has already made early commitments that are unprecedented and transformational. President Barack Obama has agreed to eight events just in 2013 for House Democrats…”

But now there’s some serious Monday morning quarterbacking.

After Steve Israel said over the weekend that “to have a legacy in 2016, (Obama) will need a House majority in 2014,” the White House freaked.

“The White House was very nervous about that story,” Chuck Todd reported this morning.

And then today, Jay Carney told reporters that winning the House for Democrats is “not a focus of his, particularly, at this point.”

So which one is it?

Maybe this: Could it be that the White House has figured out that not only is President Obama not particularly popular in the districts they want to win, but voters of all stripes might be a little sick of the never-ending campaign?