Posted on 06/15/2011 7:47:16 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
And so the great machinery of the Obama-Biden campaign has slowly begun now to turn. Consider the following:
A. The president is in Puerto Rico on a visit so obviously political that Bloomberg can't keep it out of the lede:
President Barack Obama made the first official presidential stop in Puerto Rico in a half-century today with a message aimed more at an audience on the U.S. mainland.
“When I came here to campaign, I promised that I would return as president of the United States,” Obama said at an airport ceremony in San Juan. “I promised to include Puerto Rico not just on my itinerary, but also in my vision of where our country needs to go. And I am proud to say that we’ve kept that promise, too.”
B. Earlier in the week Obama was in North Carolina, pushing jobs:
President Barack Obama visited the Triangle on Monday with some of the nation's leading corporate executives in tow, pledging to find ways to accelerate job growth in an economy where high unemployment continues to be a drag on the recovery.
The president heard from a high-powered business group that recommended a series of steps designed to create a million more jobs during the next two years - from deregulation, to speeding up tourist visas, to encouraging construction for energy-efficient projects.
C. And the Obama team is already offering up "strategy memos."
Expect to see more of this stuff over the next year. Lots and lots more. And, of course, it will be accompanied by sychophantic media accounts that talk up just how powerful his campaign is, how weak the Republican opposition is, and so on.
Yet I can promise you one thing: none of this is going to make any difference. It is the kind of stuff politicians, campaign professionals, and media types believe are "game changers," but it isn't. To borrow a phrase from the Carter era, we might call it all "blue smoke and mirrors."
It was at about the same point in his administration that Jimmy Carter gave the so-called "malaise speech," which was originally meant to be a game changer for the administration. Carter had invited scores of party leaders up to Camp David to seek their advice on how to rescue his troubled presidency. Inflation had clocked in at 10.3 percent over the previous year. The price of a barrel of oil had increased by about 50 percent. While the unemployment rate was relatively low (under 6 percent), inflation was eating away at real incomes, leaving people extremely pessimistic about the future, and about the president, whose job approval was by that point in the low 30s. Meanwhile, a tax revolt was brewing on Carter's right, and, on his left, Ted Kennedy was sounding more and more like a presidential candidate.
Carter wanted to get back to what had made him such a political success three years earlier--forging a connection with people who had grown tired of party politics. This was one of the major goals of the "malaise" speech, although he never used the word "malaise" in it. Instead, Carter bemoaned, "the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our Nation." It was classic Carter: part politician, part therapist, part preacher.
Initially, reaction to the speech was very positive. But in the long run, it didn't do a lick of good. Part of the reason why was that Carter followed the speech up by sacking a handful of cabinet secretaries, making him (again) seem erratic and not in control. However, the bigger problem was the state of the union, which no amount of rhetoric could fix. As Jack Germond and Jules Witcover wrote later on:
(Jimmy Carter) and his band of political technicians couldn't alter the record of his performance, so they tried to alter the public perception of where the blame should be placed. "It was," one of the participants in those meetings said later, "all blue smoke and mirrors. What was needed was fundamental change."
This is exactly what Team Obama is offering up right now--blue smoke and mirrors. President Obama lost public confidence in the first two years of his tenure, and Americans responded by filling Congress with dozens of new Republicans, ending the (short) era of liberal governance. Obama does not have the disposition to meet Republicans halfway, and, at any rate, his political advisors seem to have convinced him that demagoguing the GOP is the better approach. So, the president is emphasizing political theater, endeavoring to create the impression that the economy is in better shape than it is (or at least that he is not to blame), that he has a realistic plan to handle the deficit, and that he is in strong shape for reelection.
It will do no good. The president can visit as many green companies as he likes. His team can put out as many strategy videos as it likes. It can organize its ground game in Virginia all day and all night. None of this is going to change the fundamentals of this upcoming election, which are:
1. The economy is substantially weaker for Obama than for other previous presidents who won reelection.
2. The deficit is now substantially higher than before.
3. His major domestic reform--Obamacare--is substantially more unpopular.
4. The American people are substantially more pessimistic.
That's the state of the nation at this point. Nothing the Obama campaign can do at this point will affect any of these fundamentals--the hope is that its efforts will alter the public's perceptions of these fundamentals, but it won't. If we've learned anything in the last 50 years of the modern campaign, it's that the billion dollar efforts of campaign technocrats, who now dominate our politics, cannot convince people that the sun rises in the west.
So, when we peel back the spin, the boasting, and the partisan hyperbole, we get the following: The president is going to need real improvement on at least one of those four items, or he is going to lose next year, and the race will be over before midnight on the East Coast. And there won't be a single thing David Axelrod, Jim Messina, or David Plouffe can do to stop it.
Smoking isn’t going to help get to 2102 neither, tell you what.
:)
And the riots will spread westward like wild fire in every major city. Prepare for them.
Even if we get rid of the little rotter in 2012, the damage is already done, and like Clinton and Carter, He will keep turning up like a bad penny for the next 40 years propagating his clap trap poison on us.
We are so screwed.
There is a difference now though. Hussein's economy is arguably far worse than Carters, yet Obama's approval rating is in the mid to upper 40's (with an absolute floor of about 42%).
We are not the same America as we were in the 70's. Demographics have changed, identity politics have taken over. The Hispanic voting block is exploding while white people are barely making enough babies to break even. If we reach a day where the Democrats win the Hispanic voting block by even near the same margins as they win blacks, there is almost no way the GOP can win any national election (and we will start reliably losing states like Nevada, NC, Colorado and eventually even places like Texas). There just aren't enough white people moving to the Republican party fast enough to offset the massive growth in Democrat voting minorities.
Dunno what the answer is, but I am guessing whoever our nominee knows this all too well and will look to add someone like Marco Rubio or Susana Martinez to the ticket.
Yup, a 3rd party would be an absolute disaster. Unfortunately, even some Perot voters haven't learned their lesson. Some would gladly waste their votes again to make a statement and end up feeling really good about themselves as Hussein sweeps in for a 2nd term.
Thinking it was a joke Prez Vacation was in Puerto Rico but see he is. Good grief, the guy can’t stay in DC three days without needing a break.
If all it takes is for the economy to stay in the dumpster a couple more years, then I’m ready to dumpster dive.
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I voted for McCain. It’s obvious I wasted my vote.
And from what I’ve read there are only a few candidates that I’m “allowed” to vote for. I’m constantly being told it’s either Romney or Pawlenty. None of the others can win. Well, I can say right now I will not vote for Romney or Pawlenty if either is the GOP nominee.
It often feels that way.
i’m with you..No one will tell me who to vote for. If “they’ pick the wrong candidate its their problem (but hopefully we do get it right this time)
He didn’t have a “good campaign” in 2008!!!!
He had a “fraud campaign” in 2008 and wishes to revisit that.
Too much is known, now. Won’t work a second time.
He’s gonna have a sh*tty campaign in 2012.
Manchelle may be looking for new living conditions in Africa end of this month. Somewhere where he can be king.
Obama has clearly lost his mojo. Short of a sudden, serious, and radical implementation of conservative fiscal policies, there’s no way he’s going to get it back.
Anyone willing to bet that’s going to happen?
secession
The trouble for us peons is that nothing the GOP candidates have articulated to date will turn the situation around.
Oh, and none of them are taking on the entitlement spending that will bankrupt us, either.
So far, if I had to sum up the GOP campaign strategery for 2012 in one slogan, it would be this:
“Vote for us, because we promise to suck a *little* bit less!”
What a coincidence. He told the Puerto Ricans 2-1/2 years ago “I shall return.” Considering that the bum hasn’t studied history a day in his life, I wonder how managed to channel MacArthur.
Needs more ammo.
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