Posted on 07/05/2012 11:08:45 AM PDT by kingattax
A fresh round of Democrats has announced they will not be attending the party convention in Charlotte. Most troublingly for President Obama, several of them are from North Carolina, and not only have they decided not to drop in on a convention held in their own state, they’ve refused to endorse Obama for president in 2012.
The latest round of Democrats fleeing from Obama include North Carolina congressmen Mike McIntyre and Larry Kissell, plus candidate Hayden Rogers.
Additionally, news broke just before the Fourth of July holiday that Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas has decided not to attend the party convention, although he does support Obama for president.
The North Carolina trio hasn’t been particularly talkative about their decision, with McIntyre and Kissell refusing to return calls from the Asheville Citizen-Times.
Rachel Adams of the North Carolina GOP, on the other hand, was quite happy to discuss the situation with the press, saying “Hayden Rogers’ refusal to publicly support both President Obama and attend his own party’s national convention illustrates that North Carolina voters have rejected President Obama’s job killing, big government policies.
If President Obama can’t even capture enthusiasm from his own party, how can he expect to rally voters in November?”
It’s tougher to sell the “too busy campaigning to waste time at the convention” excuse when you’re talking about candidates in the very state where the convention is being held. In fact, Kissell represents the 8th Congressional District, where Charlotte is located. Furthermore, a busy schedule of campaign activities doesn’t explain why these folks refuse to endorse Obama for re-election.
There are some Republicans who have decided not to attend their party’s convention in Tampa, such as George Allen of Virginia, whose opponent Tim Kaine says he will be at the Democrat convention in Charlotte.
But far more Democrats are taking a pass on Charlotte, and some of them are making it clear that they want to distance themselves from an unpopular President while running tough races in red and purple states.
It’s also telling that a key early Obama supporter, Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, is among those skipping the 2012 convention.
It’s tough to say if this is a “record” number of candidates and elected officials skipping a party convention. Both Republican and Democrat candidates skipped their 2008 conventions, generally with the same stated reason of being too busy with campaign activities to attend, but their numbers look to have been considerably smaller, with fewer refusals to endorse.
It also seems, from a review of 2008 news articles, that these announcements tended to come much later in the game, closer to the date of the actual conventions. The media didn’t make as much of a fuss about it as they are today.
Of course, there wasn’t an incumbent President on the ticket in 2008. (In fact, the most widely reported convention-skipping decision in 2008 was George Bush’s announcement that he wouldn’t attend the Republican convention, and he pointedly was not running for office at the time.)
Looking back to 2004, only three Senate candidates made any headlines by announcing they would skip the GOP convention in New York: David Vitter of Louisiana, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
Greater attention was paid to the non-attendance of a non-candidate, Colin Powell. I think it can be said that the number and stature of Democrat candidates bailing on the 2012 convention is remarkable, if not historic.
Will all of this convention-skipping make a difference, once affairs in Charlotte have been concluded? No doubt the Republicans will make some hay of it, reminding presidential voters that candidates from Obama’s own party took pains to distance themselves from him, while the opponents of Democrats in tight local races will portray their refusal to attend the convention as transparent attempts to hide their liberalism and party loyalty.
The effectiveness of those tactics will probably depend upon President Obama’s standing in the polls as the election draws closer. If he’s doing well in the fall, it won’t matter that a sizable number of candidates chose to avoid his convention; if he’s down in the polls, the convention-skippers will be salt in his political wounds.
The tenor of the convention will probably have a lot to do with it as well, as a successful convention largely free of controversy or major political stumbles will go a long way toward erasing the memory of those who chose not to attend.
Re-electing Obama would be like raising the Titanic so it could crash into an iceberg again.
This keeps up, they’ll be able to hold the convention on his tour bus & save a boat load of money!
“...This keeps up, they’ll be able to hold the convention on his tour bus & save a boat load of money!...”
They better not - it was made in Canada.
/s
“...This keeps up, they’ll be able to hold the convention on his tour bus & save a boat load of money!...”
They better not - it was made in Canada.
/s
Hilarious, the little Rats are afraid to be seen with king Rat!
He’ll be a lame duck, with countless investigations against him going on. He’ll have little power even if he wins.
The House is voting on it July 9.
But who will he VOTE for in the privacy of a voting booth??
As interesting as it is to see congressional Democrats seeming to be abandoning Obama, I wouldn’t get too excited. Just as Republicans that are lukewarm on Romney (Jim raises his hand) will still cast their vote for him in November, these Democrat officeholders may not attend the convention or endorse Obama just to play it safe - they see the handwriting on the wall - but they’ll vote for him and if he should pull out a victory (highly unlikely) they’ll be right there cheering him on as he continues his planned destruction of our liberties and our economy. This is simply not as important as we would like it to be. Remember, these people are Democrats and thus, deceitful and not to be trusted in any way.
Bonehead is having a vote in the house to repeal. Reid will kill it in the senate.
It should be interesting to see who defects in the house.
With all this bad news for 0bama, one would think Romney would be showing better in the polls. Kinda’ like a run away freight train...no?
He is not and frankly the GOP should be ashamed. The American people really are not feeling Romney is much better.
So, I think we’ve missed boat for a viable third party.
Thanks for the info.
Wow...I was just going to ping you to this article, and then saw that YOU are the one who posted it in the first place! :-)
The funniest thing about this is that Kissell’s district, the Eighth, encompasses much of the suburban Charlotte metro area, including where I’m sitting now (Cabarrus County, about 25 miles from where the DNC will be held). It’s in his backyard and he won’t attend. That speaks volumes.
Also, apparently Kissell’s district was adjusted to bring in more R voters in the 2010 redistricting. So he’s having to play up his weak Blue Dog credentials. But it says something for how terrible the Republicans are at times that I don’t even *know* the R that’s running against him, so he may well hold on to the seat in November.
}:-)4
“Hillary will fly in on her broom to save the party, the country and the american way
I’ve been saying that for six months.”
Has anything like that ever happened before? I just don’t see the Democratic Party going off-script. Obama and the Democrats will continue to read from the teleprompter.
It depends upon your idea of what constitutes a script. It was when the mediots started turning on commander Zero that I took notice that somebody had initiated a rewrite.
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