Posted on 06/16/2011 6:25:06 PM PDT by rob777
In her first televised interview since declaring her presidential candidacy, Michele Bachmann accused President Obama of having a “shocking" lack of empathy toward Americans victimized by the struggling economy.
“I talk to people. I care about people,” the Minnesota Republican told Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity Wednesday evening. “The president has no understanding of what is happening in real people's lives.”
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Exactly. Obama is a cruel, cold, heartless human being. I can’t believe his personal poll number is still at 49% Someone needs to nail him on how detached he is from the problems this country faces.
“We need to be about clear, unmuddled message. Obama’s personal coldness should help our cause, but we should not incorporate it into our message - it creates confusion.”
I think you’re missing the bigger point. His personal coldness is one thing- but his complete indifference to the millions of Americans that are barely getting by while he piles on more and more job-killing regulations and destructive policies (partying and golfing through it all)- is something else.
The article is total rubbish- just the start of the hack jobs on Bachman, Gaylord Perry couldn’t put spin on it like this!
Like GOPers are “against” empathy, please
Oliphant is a hack
OK, so what should our response and message be?
1) A continual question to the American people: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?"
2) Then we should point out,
“Recession is when your neighbor loses his job.
Depression is when you lose yours.
And recovery is when Obama loses his.”
3) Next we should explain, The best anti-poverty program known to man is a capitalist economy free of government interference and high taxes. Only the free market creates wealth while socialism and big government and its "empathy" creates only poverty. The most compassionate, empathetic thing government can do is GET OUT OF THE WAY and QUIT TRYING TO "HELP" US.
We don't need government "empathy" or a POTUS that "cares" (read Bush's socialist "compassionate conservatism") - we need government off our backs. Otherwise you muddy the water and create confusion, which is what the liberals and big government thrive on.
I keep hearing this on FR. I don’t know the history. Can you fill me in?
I agree with 99% of what you are saying (and no, I don’t mean it to mean stupid, phony, Big Gov “Compassionate Conservatism”).
Limited government with a free-market economy- and an understanding that charity is there to help those in need, and that the family has the responsibility to raise children, and not the amorphous “state”- is the ideal form of government.
The problem that we continually run up against is that the left has been extremely successful (especially considering that only 20% of the people identify themselves as “Liberal”) in convincing the public that it- and not Conservatism- “cares” for the people.
You know the drill: “If Conservatives had their way, six year olds would be working eighteen-hour-a-day shifts in polluting factories to ‘maximize profits’ for greedy dog-eat-dog Capitalists, autistic children would be thrown out into the streets to fend for themselves for health care, all kids in public schools would be forced to pray to Jesus (instead of doing what they are supposed to be forced into... reading about Johnny and his transgendered father), blah, blah, blah”. And the “benevolent”, socialist government is there to protect people from these eeeeevil folks.
For so long many Conservatives (not Reagan, of course) have sat back and allowed the left to position itself this way. There’s no need for this. Once Conservatives claim this mantle- and I absolutely don’t mean by pandering, or by Big Gov programs- through proper communication, the left will largely be finished.
Right. Of course we should tell people that what we stand for is the betterment of all, but it's through freedom not more government. If you go down that "compassionate" road too far, however, you're accused of not caring enough and not enough "empathy" without this or that government program. Freedom, it must be said, is not for the faint of heart. It takes guts and courage. To be the land of the free, we must be the home of the brave. This "empathy" stuff coming from government is really a weak and weakening message IMO.
Reagan won the election but also won his eight years of over-the-top popularity and skewered the Leftists because he clearly communicated directly with the American people all the time (I feel Palin is the one who does this best now). He basically communicated two things:
1) What we conservatives stand for: Freedom to keep your hard-earned money and live your lives the way you choose.
2) What the Liberals stand for: They say "empathy" but don't believe them - they use that to take power and your hard-earned money to rule over you.
By about halfway through Reagan's presidency, the term "Liberals" was pretty much a dirty word and the Leftists ran from the label. Reagan did it by constantly shining the light on who these guys really are and then who we Americans really are. Make this our message and we win. "Empathy" is off point and too "nanny state"-ish.
I'm going on and on but I have to add something. Reagan was smarter than the average bear - he just didn't let on as such. He believed in precision whether is t was precision in the intelligence community or precision in thought and message. We need precision, not vagueness. Libs love vagueness. "Empathy" in government confuses things, is vague, and tends to play into the Left.
“I have to add something. Reagan was smarter than the average bear - he just didn’t let on as such. He believed in precision whether is t was precision in the intelligence community or precision in thought and message. We need precision, not vagueness. Libs love vagueness. “Empathy” in government confuses things, is vague, and tends to play into the Left.”
You make good points throughout, and I think we’re essentially getting at the same things. I just think in Bachmann’s case (being the most representative of the Tea Party movement currently in the race, along with Herman Cain), there is a separate element. The left- especially recently- has demonized the Tea Party as a purely “slash-and-burn” movement designed merely to dramatically cut the size of Federal government, “making millions of Americans needlessly suffer in the process.”
Making massive cuts to bloated government, however, is predicated on the assumption that we will follow Reagan’s successful, and repeatable, model of creating 21 million jobs (and not the piddly amount “created” under Obama- which is actually a net loss of millions of jobs)- and this is where “precision” is needed. I’m ok with calling it “empathy” for understanding the concerns of everyday Americans, but I think your concerns with the term are certainly valid, especially if the term starts morphing into social policies.
You know what Reagan did? He’d talk about a real Average Joe, Mr. or Mrs. So and So in Such and Such Town, what their aspirations were, what their dreams were. He would show what they did and how they didn’t want government hand outs, just to be left alone to live their dreams. Then he would talk about all Americans everywhere with similar dreams of owning their own homes and working hard to provide for their futures - that America was about THEM and their freedom not government. In doing so, he demonstrated what we’re all about. More effective, clearer than vague Leninist “empathy” (”to the masses”) or “compassion.”
compassionate conservatism part II?
this is recover for Obama supporters at the expense of American Taxpayers.
Yeah I was just wondering what the switch part meant.
“You know what Reagan did? He’d talk about a real Average Joe, Mr. or Mrs. So and So in Such and Such Town, what their aspirations were, what their dreams were. He would show what they did and how they didn’t want government hand outs, just to be left alone to live their dreams. Then he would talk about all Americans everywhere with similar dreams of owning their own homes and working hard to provide for their futures - that America was about THEM and their freedom not government. In doing so, he demonstrated what we’re all about.”
But what you’re describing is... empathy (even if wasn’t called that at the time).
Plus, you have a POTUS in office who I, and many others, believe is a narcissist (along with a lot of other narcissistic Weinercrats), and the biggest thing narcissists completely lack is empathy. They view their smothering Big Gov programs as “brilliantly” helping everybody (because they are the ones in charge of them, unlike those “anti-intellectual” types)- completely oblivious to the misery and pain they cause in everybody else. Obama can’t understand this misery- despite all the talk from the media about his growing up with a single mother, his supposed poverty (while attending an elite private high school), etc.- because there’s nothing there underneath for him to feel.
Good for her promoting herself.
But it sounded too much like some coded words (signaling to whom/which group or for what purpose?).
At this point, she is not presidential material.
Unfortunately it fits in all too well with a 3-term congresswoman with hardly any legislation passed and zero executive experience in or out of government but longtime rties to Karl Rove would choose to run for president, hire Ed Rollins to immediately trash Palin and then refuse to lay a hand on Romney for Romneycare. She’s in it to try to stop Palin and give the nomination to a personality-challenged RINO purely to satisfy her own ambition.
The only person getting it confused here is you. Go look at her voting record. She has the same empthay for the people Reagan had. Her solution is the Reagan solution "Get the Goverment out of the way".
Good, then that should be the main message that gets repeated and hammered home. Fine to follow up with WHY this is more compassionate or "empathic" approach than the liberal approach, as long as it's kept in the context of less government.
IMO, it's VERY important to keep the emphasis on the right syllable - freedom, not "empathy". That was my whole point here - not how "uncaring" Obama (many read "government") is.
You worship a Ronald Reagan that never existed. Despite being the greatest President of the 20th Century, Reagan was a flawed, fallible human. He was not God.
The Reagan you presume to lecture us about signed 6 tax hikes. He signed an illegal alien amnesty. He ran away from a Muslim terrorist threat in Lebanon. He doubled Federal Spending and the Federal Deficit in 8 years.
So instead of lecturing all of us who KNOW far more about the political records of both Reagan and Bachmann, I suggest you try READING a whole lot more and POSTING a whole lot less.
I made an initial comment and people engaged me in discussion and we took it from there. Don’t know what your problem is but I’m not interested in finding out. Hasta la vista baby.
You know almost nothing about either Reagan or Bachmann. Your arrogance in lecturing all of us here who know far more about both is childish.
This site can be a great resource of those who are willing to learn. It is a nightmare for any self obsessed political missionaries on a crusade to spread their supposed enlightened message to the unwashed.
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