Dumb
and Dumber ...
Posted on 10/06/2014 4:55:00 AM PDT by LeoMcNeil
President Obama recently said, in a speech to Democrats, “I’m not on the ballot this fall … but make no mistake, these policies are on the ballot — every single one of them.” This is a colossal blunder for a second term President heading into the midterm elections. Obama’s poll numbers are in the low 40’s, Obamacare continues to be opposed by nearly 60% of the country. For the President to declare his policies are on the ballot does nothing but throw Democrats under the bus. If the election is framed as a referendum on Obama, the Democrats are going to lose and probably lose big. This line wasn’t off the cuff, which means the White House must think framing the election around Obama is a good idea. One wonders why.
According to Gallup voter opposition to the sitting President is at an all time high heading into the midterm election. Essentially Gallup finds that more people plan to use their vote to send a message of opposition to the President than using their vote as a message of support. Around half of voters plan on using their vote to send a message, the other half don’t intend to send any message to the President. Not surprisingly a majority of Republicans plan on sending a message of opposition to the President. Only 38% of Democrats plan on sending a message of support for Obama with their vote.
What the Gallup poll tells us is that Republicans are motivated to vote in the election while Democrats are less motivated. It isn’t exactly surprising that Republicans are motivated to vote against Obama’s policies. Republican opposition has been clear for six years, just like it is for the the Democrats whenever a Republican is President. What’s interesting about the Gallup poll is that Democrats are increasingly less supportive of Obama. This usually translates into voters who are less likely to vote on election day. Both parties can always count on hardcore ideologues to vote. They cannot, however, count on all of their voters to show up without motivation. For the party of a sitting President, if they can’t get their voters excited to vote for him and his policies they’re in big trouble. It’s nearly impossible to gin up fear of the other party in apathetic voters who figure the President can take care of whatever the other party proposes.
With Democrats unmotivated to vote for Obama, it’s utterly foolish of him to frame the election as a referendum on himself and his policies. All Obama did was motivate Republicans, who have grabbed hold of Obama’s comments and run wild with them. Democrats have to be furious with the White House, especially Democrat Senators running for re-election in red states. Mary Landrieu and Mark Pryor have to be furious that the President is framing the election around him. If there’s one thing those two don’t want it’s to be tied to Obama during the last six weeks before the election. They’re running from the President, he’s toxic in their states. Those two, and a number of other Democrats, want this election to be strictly about local issues. Unfortunately for them, the President nationalized the election.
You have to wonder what the White House is thinking putting such a line in a speech. This isn’t as simple as blaming Obama for being a narcissist. This goes beyond Obama. That line comes from his speech writers and advisers, who apparently are completely tone deaf. All of them need to get out of the White House once in awhile. The allure of Obama is gone, people don’t like him anymore. At Michigan State’s football game last Saturday the school played a ridiculous anti-sexual assault ad on the stadium video board during a timeout. The end featured 5 seconds of Obama. He was lustily booed, the loudest boos came from the student section. Yes, this is anecdotal evidence that the country is moving hard against Obama. However one of Obama’s core constituencies is young people. If typical young people at a typical left-wing university have turned on the President, you have to wonder why the President’s advisers are nationalizing an election. He’s losing his base and no one in the White House realizes it.
This doesn’t mean that the Republicans are heading to victory next month. They have done a terrible job nationalizing this election. In fact, they’ve played right into Obama’s hand by not nationalizing the election. The GOP should consider itself very fortunate that the President was foolish enough to ruin Democrats by nationalizing the election. Republicans should have come out with a strong 5-7 point conservative plan that all Republicans running for Senate could have supported. It should have focused on all of Obama’s weak points, health care, the economy and foreign policy. The plan didn’t need to be elaborate, all it had to do was unite Republicans and offer independent voters a positive Republican vision for the future. Instead the GOP did nothing, hoping they would win because people oppose Obama. The establishment may end up winning despite themselves, Obama is making their job easier. If they win, one wonders how many more seats they would have picked up had they offered a plan for the future. If anything, this election is going to produce evidence that no one in either party should listen to their advisers.
...and in a related story:
Rove and the Establishment REFUSES to nationalize elections.
Sidenote: The GOP has done everything it can to alienate the base.
Obama’s Open Borders Policy has just led to the death of a 4 year old by enterovirus and to the death of that Liberian by ebola yesterday.
Millions are exposed to the illegal entry diseases: enterovirus, ebola, renewed tuberculosis, measles, chickenpox, and I recall one saying, polio.
Obama’s Open Border Policy Opened US to Disease!
Okay. Fine. So Republicans can run against "these policies" without worrying about being called racists.
HA! Riiiiiiiight.
And there's some idiot on FNC this morning claiming that shutting down our borders and instituting a travel ban would make the situation worse. He looks like an Obama lacky (he actually looks like he could be Reid's brother)
Also, I heard there was a case of polio as well.
Maybe no one wants to take responsibility for what happens next...
He’s trying to turn out the blacks and low-fos, who would vote for him even if he ate live kittens on prime-time. We’ll see if it works.
Because A)it’s all about him B)he is a fool.
Sadly, a viral trend in America these days.
Dumb
and Dumber ...
Let’s roll... time to tell King Obama to STFU...
Foolish?
The only fools are the one that believe that it’s foolish.
In military terms it would be called a strategic retreat.
You retreat and allow your opposition to take what you know is a non defensible position then ambush your opposition.
There is no way possible the republicans with just the house and senate can turn the Obama economic failures around in 2 years. You can go a long way in destroying an economy in 2 years the way the dems did in 2006, but you can’t turn it into prosperity in 2 years.
Not to mention Obama’s foreign policies are spiraling out of control.
With republicans in control of the house and senate the failures of the Obama adm. can also be laid at their feet for the 2016 election.
With a republican win you will start hearing a lot of “shared responsibility” for the failures of the Obama years.
Hillary is positioning herself to blame both for the failures.
News Flash: Obama Tells Truth.
No kidding. Only recently have I seen ads nationalizing the election here in VA, which is late, but a good thing. Same thing needs to be done in NC and KS. They have been doing it for a month now in places like CO, hence all the GOP leads.
But Priebus ... milquetoast talking points probably penned by Rove ... is a complete Eunuch ...
If [IF?! WTF?! IF?!] Barack Obama is on ballot and his policies are on the ballot, it’s going to be a pretty bad ['pretty bad' SRSLY?! 'pretty bad' is all you can come up with Reince?!] year for Democrats ...
It’s the usual story. It’s a contest between the Evil Party and the Stupid Party.
There’s a piece at Breitbart now indicating that Rove is more “Tokyo Rove” than dumb and dumber. The premise is that Rove doesn’t want to retake the Senate.
Not sure I agree, I can believe the dumber part, but interesting piece.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/10/04/Does-Karl-Rove-Want-the-GOP-to-Capture-the-Senate-Or-Help-a-Bush-Restoration
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