Posted on 08/23/2010 5:29:20 AM PDT by Kaslin
Like many Democrats over the past 40 years, Barack Obama has hoped that his association with unpopular liberal positions on cultural issues would be outweighed by pushing economic policies intended to benefit the ordinary person.
In his campaign in 2008 and as president in 2009 and 2010, he has hoped that those he characterized to a rich San Francisco Bay area audience as bitterly clinging to guns and God would be won over by programs to stimulate the economy and provide guaranteed health insurance.
At least so far, it hasn't worked, as witnessed by recent statements by some of the Democrats' smartest thinkers.
The 2009 stimulus package is so unpopular that Democrats have banned the word from their campaign vocabulary. "I'm not supposed to call it stimulus," Rep. Barney Frank told the "Daily Show's" Jon Stewart. "The message experts in Washington have told us that we're supposed to call it the recovery plan."
"I'm puzzled by that," Frank went on. "Most people would rather be stimulated than recover." The problem is, the economy has neither been stimulated nor has it recovered.
As for the health care bill, Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg, who has been pondering Democrats' standing with working-class voters since his perceptive 1980s studies of Reagan Democrats in Macomb County, Mich., has pretty much thrown in the towel.
In a leaked report for Democratic insiders, Greenberg and fellow pollster Celinda Lake concede that "straightforward 'policy' defenses fail to be moving voters' opinions about the law" and "many don't believe health reform will help the economy."
"Women in particular," they add, "are concerned that (the) health law will mean less provider availability -- scarcity an issue." In other words, people have figured out that government rationing may mean less supply for a product for which there is great demand.
Greenberg and Lake recommend using personal stories to highlight the law's benefits. But "don't overpromise or 'spin' what the law delivers" and don't "say the law will reduce costs and deficit."
Do say: "The law is not perfect, but it does good things and helps many people. Now we'll work to improve it." (emphasis theirs)
This amounts to an abandonment of the claims that the Obama Democrats have been making about the health care bill they jammed through five months ago. It's an admission that they messed up when they had supermajorities and will do better when they have fewer votes. It's a retreat from framing the issue as support versus oppose to revise versus repeal.
So much for the economic issues that were going to provide the underpinnings of what Greenberg's associate James Carville predicted would be 40 years of Democratic Party dominance.
As for cultural clashes, Democrats can claim to have quieted down debates over abortion and other issues that, as Obama said in his 2004 convention speech, unduly divided Blue America and Red America. But others have taken their place, to the Democrats' discomfort this legislative season. The Obama Justice Department stepped in and got an injunction against Arizona's law authorizing law enforcement to ask people stopped for other reasons about their immigration status.
Never mind that other states do this routinely without getting sued. The real problem is that about two-thirds of Americans support the Arizona law. Why couldn't the administration let it go into effect and see if it assisted the efforts they assure us they are making on border and employer enforcement?
Then there was Obama's iftar celebration comments on the mosque proposed for a site two blocks from the World Trade Center ruins -- comments that were taken as an endorsement, until the president proclaimed himself a day later as agnostic on whether it should be built there.
A large majority of Americans, according to a Fox News poll, believe the advocates have a right to place a mosque there, but even more believe they should not do so. Now we have been watching as Democrats from Harry Reid and Howard Dean on down scamper to say they agree with both these views, while Obama endorses only the first.
The Arizona law and the ground zero mosque issues are not likely to be dispositive issues in most congressional races this year. But they are additional baggage for the Obama Democrats who find themselves, as the economy languishes, on the defensive on the issues they thought would win over the bitter clingers.
Do we really want to go back to the days of George W Bush, when more people were employed, when the debt and deficits were smaller, when houses were worth more, when your portfolio had value? /s
I think more than anything, people will remember that Congress followed its own agenda and did not listen to the wishes of the people they represent. True, health care and the bad economy are major issues and they can run around touting the stimulus and “health care reform” as positive achievements, but it will be their disobedience to the voters who hired them that will doom a number of candidates.
What personal stories? The law doesn't even go into effect until 2014. Are they supposed to tell personal stories from the future? LOL!
What a complete meltdown. It is going to be very stressful for democrats to campaign this year, they have no saleability at all.
How can they get away with saying Bush was worse?
Good! They deserve at least four times as much stress as they are going to get for their antics....
By way of a complicit media that is too stupid to realize theirs will be the first heads on the chopping block if Obamalamadingdong is able to push through and realize his Marxist wet dreams. The level of stupidity on display in American media outlets is stunning....
Let me summarize this - all politicians lie; Democrats just tell bigger, more outrageous lies!!
The problem with the current Congress (besides being controlled by Democrats) is that they ALL forgot who they work for!!
In November, we will send them a reminder.
Democrats’ smartest thinkers. LOL so hard ribs hurt.
Stimulus and Health Care Have Democrats on Defensive?....Why?...They should be proud of their handiwork. They created this whole new system of things. They should be trumpeting their achievements! They should be proclaiming their triumphs and victories! If they are ashamed of what they have accomplished, why in hell did they do it in the first place?.............
How can they get away with saying Bush was worse?
Easy. A media that is not only complacent, but complicit............
RATs have no defense for their treason.
We needed both of those bill so badly, they had to be rushed through Congress so quickly that come election time the democrat playbook says to not run on their tremendous “success.”
Classic liberals
If the MSM doesn’t report it, it didn’t happen.
If the MSM does report it, it will be spun as a positive, if it pertains to a (D), negative for a (R).
Many people across the country have only the ABCNNBCBS News as their source for information. FOX NEWS has no news service for its affiliated stations, they are cable only.
You, me and the many FReepers are exceptions to the average person. We stay informed.
The average (D) does not, just votes (D) over and over and over again “hoping” things “change”.............
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