Posted on 04/18/2012 4:47:20 AM PDT by Kaslin
"The choice in this election is between an economy that produces a growing middle class and that gives people a chance to get ahead and their kids a chance to get ahead, and an economy that continues down the road we are on, where a fewer and fewer number of people do very well and everybody else is running faster and faster just to keep pace."
That's Obama advisor David Axelrod on "Fox News Sunday," explaining why people should vote for ... Barack Obama.
Odds are this was simply poor phrasing. But it might not have been, given how desperately the Obama campaign wants to turn back the clock to 2008, when the choice was between hope and change or continuing "down the road we are on."
Regardless of the spin, the simple fact is that Obama is the stay-the-course candidate stuck with a team, a record and an economy ill-suited for a stay-the-course strategy.
That's what gives poignancy to Obama's recently renewed love affair with Ronald Reagan, whom Obama invokes these days as a model of reasonableness and bipartisanship. He even wants to rename the "Buffett rule" the "Reagan rule."
Even before he got the nomination in 2008, Obama said he wanted to be a "transformative" president like Reagan had been.
And last year, Time magazine featured a cover story, "Why Obama [Hearts] Reagan," which in Time's words gave the true story behind "Obama's Reagan Bromance."
There were two key elements to Obama's man-crush. The first was the simple hope that history -- or at least the business cycle -- would repeat itself.
The White House's plan was to run for re-election in 2012 with a soaring economy at its back. After an absolutely bruising recession (that was in some ways worse than the one Obama inherited), Reagan got to ride a surging economy to re-election. America enjoyed 6 percent annual growth in 1984: In three of the four quarters before Election Day, GDP quarterly growth was more than 7 percent, while inflation and unemployment plummeted.
At Obama's back is a dismayingly anemic recovery, constantly threatening to get worse. He wants credit for "creating" 3 million jobs but insists he be held blameless for millions more workers who've left the job market entirely.
The other reason the White House admired the Reagan White House? According to Time: "Both relied heavily on the power of oratory." Then-Press Secretary Robert Gibbs added, "Our hope is the story ends the same way."
And there's the problem for Obama. He's sticking to his rhetorical guns on the assumption that he's the great orator his fans have always claimed. It's admirably Gipperesque, I suppose, but the problem is that Obama has never once significantly moved public opinion on domestic issues with his arguments. If he had that power, not only would "Obamacare" be popular today, it would have been popular when he gave more than 50 addresses and speeches on it during his first year.
Obama's out on the stump, embracing Obamacare, doubling down on green energy, on the need for "investments" in government programs, and for the whole hodgepodge of rationalizations for hiking taxes and "spreading the wealth around."
Asking whether Obama is as good a communicator as Reagan is like comparing boxers from different generations; there's plenty of evidence to form opinions but no way to settle the matter.
But what must be very troubling for Obama is the mounting evidence that presidential persuasion is vastly overrated. Political scientist Brendan Nyhan has noted that Reagan's rhetoric had little effect on the polls or his media coverage. Liberal Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein, surveying the academic literature in a recent issue of the New Yorker, found that there's little evidence that any president has really moved the country with his rhetoric.
My hunch is that such findings are overdone and leave out some aspects of presidential persuasion.
Still, what's undoubtedly true is that results matter far more than words. And despite Axelrod's assertions, the fact is that Obama has been leading us down the road we are on for more than three years, and that's what voters will have in mind come Election Day.
Up to now he has always been able to hide his past. Now it is about to eat him.
Obama`s problem: His record
The reason Obama`s record won`t matter: Mitt Romney
“How you say it” is half the battle. It’s WHAT you say, and America ain’t buyin’ what you’re sellin’.
“The choice in this election is between an economy that produces a growing middle class and that gives people a chance to get ahead and their kids a chance to get a head,
Since Obama has DOUBLED our children’s debt why would we give him time to triple it? The economy sucks regardless of what his lapdogs in the media report. Obama has seriously hurt America....
Let’s see if Stretch-a-sketch has the brain power to pick up this gift of a gaffe and do something with it.
Will criticism of his record subject a person to SS investigation?
If Romney is the nominee, (I do not concede that), it matters not a whit to me who wins. If Obama is defeated, that’s nice, if Romney is defeated, that’s nice too. Either way, we are so screwed.
the obam-economy is good for middle class people like David Axelrod, who just bought a $2 million Chicago condo
How hard are you running to keep up, David?
How about your closest friends and neighbors?
Breaking a sweat because of the evil obstructionist
GOP?
Hogwash! 0bama is practically illiterate and can't speak without a teleprompter. Even with a teleprompter he can't say more than three or four words without stopping to read ahead. It sounds like Jonah stuck that in there for PC reasons. He knows better.
It's even beyond deja vu... more like foreboding and dread. Even McCain had something resembling a base of support. Romney doesn't elicit excitement from ANY quarter. Most other GOP candidates could gin up excitement of some level. NOBODY outside the GOP-e bubble seems glad to see Romney at the top of the GOP heap.
They are busy marginalizing themselves merely because not everyone agrees with them. They forget that politics is the art of the possible.
If they don't plan on voting out Obama, why don't they form a circular firing squad and put us out of their misery?
That can be summed up in two words. "Sarah Palin"
She certainly added hugely to it.
How about... we simply don't agree with Romney's stances and don't believe he deserves our vote?
We've made a lot of noise, especially this year, about America's growing entitlement class. Well, I for one don't believe Romney is "entitled" to my vote simply because he sports an "R" after his name. It works both ways.
Oh, I'd say the candidates did a fine job of that during the primaries.
Because nothing would make them happier then to get that arrogant pos occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave reelected and make sure the rats are keeping the majority in the Senate and getting it back in the House
Probably.
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