Posted on 04/24/2012 12:26:37 PM PDT by raccoonradio
(snip) The bad news for Obama four years later is that the first weeks of the general-election campaign have demonstrated that Mitt Romney and his top staff are not going to play by the same rules as the McCain campaign. On April 11, Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen appeared on Anderson Cooper’s CNN program and scoffed at Ann Romney’s value to her husband in helping assess the economic challenges of women voters by declaring that “she never worked a day in her life.”
Some campaigns might have questioned how much they could do with an off-key insulting comment from a talking head. But the Romney camp made sure a YouTube video of the comment was distributed to hundreds of blogs, and less than two hours after Rosen’s comment, Ann Romney set up a Twitter account. Her first message was, “I made a choice to stay home and raise five boys. Believe me, it was hard work.” Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, and campaign manager Jim Messina were quick to assert that they disagreed with Rosen’s comment, and the next day, Michelle Obama, DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and the president himself followed suit.
Rosen’s extensive ties to the White House (35 visits, more than some cabinet members have made!) became the issue the following day, and on the third day Ann Romney joined her husband on stage at the NRA convention to roaring applause and saluted stay-at-home moms — and stay-at-home dads as well. Rosen’s stray comment kept the Obama campaign on the defensive for three days, with reporters insisting that Obama’s people confirm that they think stay-at-home moms should be credited as hard workers, too.
The following week brought an even more vivid example of the Romney campaign’s opportunism. The tale of Mitt Romney putting the carrier containing the family dog, Seamus, on the roof of his car is one of Democrats’ favorite knocks on the all-but-certain GOP nominee. The idea is that Romney is a terrible monster to man and beast alike.
On April 17, Jim Treacher, a mostly comedic columnist and blogger for the Daily Caller website, asked if Democrats really wanted to talk about what each candidate had done to a dog decades ago, pointing out that Obama’s autobiography tells about how as a child in Indonesia he “was introduced to dog meat (tough).”
Within a few hours, Twitter was full of jokes about “Obama dog recipes.” At 10:11 p.m. Eastern time that evening, Romney aide Eric Fehrnstrom tweaked David Axelrod about a photo of Obama and Bo riding in the presidential limousine, which Axelrod had put on Twitter back in January with the comment, “How loving owners transport their dogs.” Fehrnstrom linked to Axelrod’s tweet and wrote, “In hindsight, a chilling photo.”
The message was subtle. There was no direct mention of the president eating a dog; Fehrnstrom said just enough to get people who were unaware of the emerging story line to wonder why a picture of Obama with his dog now seemed chilling. The Obama campaign could have laughed it off or ignored it, but instead they went with indignant outrage. Campaign press secretary Ben LaBolt tweeted back, “What’s the next attack [Fehrnstrom] and the RNC will surface on a 6-10 year old?”
With representatives of the two campaigns publicly sparring over this, it became legitimate for a major newsman like ABC’s chief White House correspondent, Jake Tapper, to offer a quick summary, headlined “Obama as a Boy Ate Dog Meat.” Probably not the headline Axelrod had been hoping for that day.(snip)
Perhaps as the campaign progresses, the electorate will see Romney as a joke as well. But for now, a lot of people are laughing at jokes about the grumpy mood of President Obama’s dog, Bo — and what possibly could be eating him.
When I realized that Romney wasn’t going to go all McCain on us and tell us that dog eating doesn’t matter, I finally become interested.
“They treat me like I’m a dog”—Barack Obama
...which can be good, depending on the sauce.
I think most people know that the best way to handle a narcissistic person (Obama is the obvious choice) is with ridicule. It absolutely drives them nuts.
Obummer doesn’t kbow the difference between Pa-goggy and Ka-goggy.
Juan reserves those tactics for conservatives.
Oh goodie. Socialist #2 can run an effective campaign. I’m so excited.
Did you hear about when Obama was living overseas?
A guy goes walking by his house while he was playing out front with his 3 legged dog.
The man says “Son why does your dog have 3 legs”?
Obama says “Mister don’t make fun of my dog. It saved my Life” and added “That dog pulled me out of our house that was burning”
The man replied “Sorry I didn’t mean to make fun of your dog, but why does it have 3 legs?”
Obama answered, “What? a great dog like that...you wouldn’t want to eat him all at once”.
Pretty tame stuff, really.
If and when Romney goes after Obama as the power-grabbing Kenyan Commie that he is, wake me up.
Rapid response is absolutely necessary in fighting off the wealth destroying, dependent creating, narcissistic Muslim from Kenya. McCain was a disaster from the word get go.
One big difference between McCain and Romney’s campaign...Carl Rove is helping Romney. Whatever you want to say about Rove, and his strategy after W. won in 2000...he knows how to win executive elections. In fact, he is a master at it.
McCain decided to run a “gentleman’s campaign”. He never discussed (at least to my knowledge) Obama’s connections with Ayers, Wright, Rezko, socialism, marxism, and all the rest.
Look where that got you McCain!
Hot Dogs
Cur-eed rice
MRE's (Mutts Ready to Eat)
Tail Wagginyu Beef
German Shepard's Pie
Lap-it-up Apso
Mutt-on
Chowhuahua
Great Danish
Chocolate Lab
Weiner-maraner
Favorite Restaurant: The Kennel Club
Graded USDA AKC Prime
Either way the socialist wins.
“Either way the socialist wins.”
But it will be a severe gentile aborting socialist, not a slack homeboy aborting socialist!
Thank God. McCain was a disaster. I swear he was working for the Obama campaign.
I think McCain was so impressed with himself, he thought all the libbies were too. HA! His ego was huge and I am sure he believes all the lies that big ole’ thing tells him to this day. His daughter is as ignorant and ego filled. Both tools.
Another Romney zinger when asked what he would like to say to obama, he responded “START PACKING YOUR BAGS”. That should be the rally cry of the election this year.
Wow. Heady stuff.
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