Posted on 10/02/2009 3:45:41 PM PDT by canuck_conservative
One can understand an American presidents lobbying for an American city to obtain the Olympics, but the blitz by the Obamas proved a PR nightmare. Let us count the ways:
1) Obamas brand is trans-nationalism and an America is not exceptional multiculturalism. According to his worldview, it makes sense that a South American country especially a powerful, ascendant country such as Brazil should at last have its turn at hosting the Olympics. It did not seem consistent that a politician who had reached out to the Castros, Chávez, Morales, and Ortega, in parochial fashion, would lobby for his own hometown over a yes, we can Latin American initiative, especially one involving an exciting city such as Rio.
2) The Obama lobbying speeches were counterproductive. The world has its own inspirational narratives and is not impressed that much by the Obamas Chicago sagas. It was accidental but unfortunate that the global viewers had seen some horrific YouTube clips of street fighting in the Windy City, and then were told by Michelle that her father had taught her how to land a right hook, and that it was a sacrifice for her to fly to Denmark to make the case for Chicago.
3) The Chicago bit was overdone. Obama should remember that there is a perfect storm brewing: The more we hear about Valerie Jarrett, Rahm Emanuel, Bill Ayers, and all his old Chicago friends, along with rumors about Tony Rezkostyle backroom deals to cash in on Chicago real estate involving the Olympics, and continuing stories about Chicagos street violence and corruption the more it hurts the president to be identified as a Chicago politician who tries in heavy-handed fashion to implement change through the Chicago way. To a younger Obama, Chicago was the romantic can-do town of Reverend Wright, Michael Jordan, Oprah, and the Daley machine; to the world at large, it is something quite different, and far more unappealing.
4) Obamas messianic appeal is wearing thin, both at home and abroad. I think that once Sarkozy essentially said to the world, The emperor has no clothes, the Obama facade crumbled. And here we are.
I agree. Also watch for him to start lashing out at everyone but himself as the ship continues its plunge to the bottom. Narcissists NEVER take responsibility for their own failings because they don't believe that they have any. They just blame and retaliate against others who surround them.
As a sidenote: If I were Bo (the dog, not the narcissist who named him after himself) I'd be looking for a good hiding place before Air Force One lands.
The answer is in this article:
http://www.suntimes.com/special_sections/crime/37624,cst-nws-gang22.article#
Candidates lean on gang members to get out the vote
Comments
December 22, 2002
BY FRANK MAIN AND CARLOS SADOVI STAFF REPORTERS
Come Election Day, gang members across the city will likely trade their baseball caps and street colors for white shirts and ties.
On Feb. 25, they’ll take a holiday from the round-the-clock drug dealing that fuels Chicago’s billion-dollar narcotics trade. Instead, they’ll be selling candidates.
Fanning out into the neighborhoods, they’ll hand out palm cards, shuttle elderly voters to the polls, tally the votes and—on the less admirable side—tear down opponents’ signs, intimidate opponents’ supporters and maybe pick a few fights.
And then, when their candidates win, the gang-bangers will step up and ask, “Where’s mine?” In at least 10 of Chicago’s 50 wards, a Sun-Times investigation has found, gang members are expected to work in next February’s elections as political foot soldiers, a practice loaded with dangerous ethical conflicts for the candidates. Just as no politician in Prohibition Chicago ever cracked down on Al Capone after accepting his money, the fear is that no politician today will stand up to a street gang after accepting its manpower. Though no one could offer proof of a gang engaging in wholesale thuggery on Election Day—or of an alderman coddling a gang in return—the potential for corruption is evident.
“If you think about it, if the gangs get an alderman elected, is he beholden to them?” asked Joe Sparks, a Chicago cop who spent most of his 32 years on the police force going after the gangs. “I think it has a pretty big effect. An alderman is a heck of a guy to step up on your behalf. If you’re a gang member, he carries a lot of clout and weight.”
On Saturday, Mayor Daley weighed in with a similar view, saying, “Gangs and drug dealers are really the enemy of society.... If they are dealing with those individuals, they are dealing with destroyers of life.”
Gangs—from street punks to mobsters—have been involved in Chicago politics since immigrant youths rousted voters to the polls 100 years ago. They’re “part of the fabric of the community,” said U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, the former 26th Ward alderman. “I’ve seen evidence in every aldermanic campaign, at some level, of gang members.”
On Nov. 5 in Humboldt Park, a gang leader halted drug sales and ordered gang members to get out the vote for the Democrats, said a police investigator who asked not to be identified.
“These guys passed out palm cards for $5 an hour when they could have made $40 an hour selling dope,” he said.
Some candidates say they are simply reluctant to turn away enthusiastic volunteers, gang members or not. Other candidates openly court gang members.
“I try to use them in every election,” said Ald. Shirley Coleman (16th), who estimated a fourth of her workers in the November election were gang members. She paid 40 to 50 gang members $25 each to get out the vote, she said, and plans to recruit gang members for the Feb. 25 aldermanic election.
(excerpt)
Once in a while I come up with goodies ... you should hear me on the radio sometimes talking with the tower ....
Executive Office of the President
Same thing with Americans really, if you don't live in the region. I can't think of anything except the mafia and the "Sears" tower, but having a building isn't enough. Or maybe that it is a big city that people fly past when going between Los Angeles and New York. For a city of world class size, it doesn't have a world class identity.
l had a relative vist from Englnd a few years ago.We told him we would take him anywhere he would like to go.Chicago was the place of his dreams.He wanted to see where Al Capone lived and he wanted the kind of hat worn by Al Capone We found the city but not the hat.
What a demonic sell out.
Another thought I had today was: why was Oprah Winfrey par tof the lobbying effort? Oprah may be well-known here in the states, but she a virtual unknown outside this country. So her influence is very nil, imho. It wwas a thoughtless decision to include her, imo.
Oh no, they say she's got to go
Go go Godzilla, yeah
Oh no, there goes Rio de Janeiro
Go go Godzilla, yeah
The whole family will leave the WH in disgrace soon. They'll walk out to Marine 1 and be finished.
Well, there was the stockyards? Mmmmmm Hmmmmm. Nice appropriate smell.
I couldn’t listen to Rush today because of work.
I can only imagine how he played this.
I agree, this is an unmitigated train-wreck for Obama, just one of a continuing series. The SRM has got this guy’s balloon so overblown, the pop is going to be a doozy to watch. I just hope not too many decent Americans are hurt in the collateral damage.
As I understand it, some of the smarter SRMers are already heading for the exits.
5) Politically naive. They failed to count the votes before heading over there. Rio was virtually a sure thing from the start, but the Obamas ignored all the signs.
thanx
I credit Joe Wilson and Officer Crowley for pulling off the mask of this poseur.
That's because they're drunk, absolutely blotto stinking excrement-faced with hubris and arrogance. They believe their own PR, which, history has shown over and over, has a very limited time horizon as a strategy.
Stockyards have been closed down for decades. And my experience sometime in the ‘90’s was that people from outside Chicago associated it with Michael Jordan, not Al Capone.
The Obamas have dissed the US for 2 years.
They should not be surprised that the IOC decided to go elsewhere.
As amazing as it sounds, I don't think it's such an unthinkable scenario. Obama's obviously a world-class self-absorbed narcissist, and narcissists only stick with something so long as they are receiving praise and adoration. Well, it's safe to say that the praise and adoration phase is now officially over and I just can't see Obama sticking it out for over three more years while he becomes the target of more and more derision and ridicule.
I think he'll hang on through the 2010 elections and will continue to try to ram through his Marxist agenda till then, but assuming that the leftists get shown the door in 2010 I can't envision him sticking it out for two more years as a lame duck. When it comes to someone who exhibits Obama's personality defect you only have to ask one question to determine what choice he will make in a given situation: What's in it for him?
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