Posted on 09/01/2012 6:20:21 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
Obama's new challenge: Disappointment By: Jonathan Allen September 1, 2012 07:07 AM EDT
The watchword of the Republican National Convention in Tampa was disappointment — as in President Barack Obama has been one.
You can hammer Obama on health care. Mock his golf outings. Demand to see his birth certificate and Harvard transcript, and call him a European socialist bent on turning the American Dream into a Belgian nightmare. He’ll throw his head back and laugh at you like a Bond villain.
But tell voters he’s not the man America fell in love with in 2008 — and pine, however disingenuously, about his unfulfilled potential — and a shiver runs through his Chicago campaign headquarters.
Obama’s team was spinning the convention as a complete miss, arguing that Republicans didn’t lay a glove on their man. Yet what emerged from Tampa was a subtle, clever shift in GOP messaging, a much more dangerous strategy for Obama than the kitchen-sink attacks that preceded the gathering. Republicans posed — rhetorically — as Obama 2008 voters, lamenting his unfulfilled expectations as if they had been with him all along instead of trying to block him at every turn.
Both sides recognize the power of the disappointment theme: that the hope Obama offered for mending the economy, transforming the political process and even saving the earth has faded.
“President Obama promised to begin to slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet,” Mitt Romney said in accepting the Republican presidential nomination Thursday. “My promise is to help you and your family.”
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
He makes a fine objective journalist. /s
I give the guy credit for honesty, but if he sided with Dems, it won’t be reasonable to expect him to easily discharge that bias.
Eastwood is no fool. He knew exactly what he was doing. I have to hand it to Romney/Republicans...they got an audience that probably would NOT have tuned in, hooked them and a lot stayed around to hear rock star Rubio and a very decent Mitt Romney tell them he was not going to heal the world but help their family. Fantastic plan that paid off in spades.
As the added bonus? I think Clint and the RNC knew that the Rachael Maddows’s and Hissy Chrissy's would make the “doddering old fool” comments. That the "embarrassing" Eastwood clips would be played...over and over again. Each time it's played, Mr. Obama gets a little blacker eye. He is diminished. And... All those old people that might have been swayed by the “Granny being pushed over the cliff”...Check mate.
Eastwood wasn’t faltering. He’s spent his life as an actor and director of human emotion.
It isn’t faltering when you lean into the microphone to emphasize the points you want heard. It isn’t faltering when you can bring an empty chair to life to the point it becomes a well understood symbol. It isn’t faltering when you can point out with good humor the solid fact that Biden is the most intellectual of the current administration. It isn’t faltering when you have that big of an audience hanging on to every word you say.
The man is brilliant, not just a stellar actor.
I’m using the empty chair as my personal photo on FB. The meltdown from my liberal “friends” has been epic. I have been accused of racism, being a lemming, responsible for the economic collapse, etc., etc., etc.
Looks like it’s working. :-)
This is a key to understanding--everyone has biases but few actually believe they are biased. And as ego involvement increases, self-awareness decreases. It is desperately important to liberals to see themselves as morally superior, so their ego involvement in their views is sky high. Liberals truly believe they have the lock on revealed truth, and are oblivious to discrepant realities.
To be clear however, you can see exactly the same pattern with extremists on the right, such as some posters here, who cling with a stranglehold to rigid and narrow opinion.
Don't worry about "those old people." In 2008 they were the only age group in the country smart enough to give a majority to McCain instead of Obama. All the young bright boys, and boomer einsteins, from 18 to 65, went for Hopenchange.
And Ryan’s masterful line about college graduates in their childhood bedrooms starring at fading Obama posters and wondering when they can start their lives was devastatingly effective...one of the classics, very Reaganesque.
Too true!
The reason Rush is successful is because he makes his points with humor and he is a very funny guy. Steyn is great for that reason as well.
Eastwood understands that. Yes, he was faltering but he knew what he was doing and he was very funny. I listened on the radio and I laughed out loud several times.
Romney will disappoint some people because his strategy is not to go for the jugular. The PACs will do that.
Romney (and his campaign) need to show those voters that he understands where they’re coming from, that Romney will turn things around, and that there’s an army of people out there who are disappointed and they’re welcome into the fold.
Millions of people are on the fence now. I know one personally who is a die hard Democrat and was extremely juiced about Obama. She is very disappointed and really torn. What’s interesting is that she’s a die hard Dem and feels this way! So you can easily believe that many of the wishy washy emotional independents are already over on the Romney side of the fence.
If Romney can get even 5-10% of the die hards to hop on over, it will be a landslide.
His ads now will target those Indies who are leaning toward him. Once he’s done that, he can go after the folks like my friend, who are on the Obama side of the fence still, but have very long faces. Depending on the state of his internal polls, he can either try hard to convert them, or push the disappointment angle so much that even if they can’t bring themselves to pull the lever for Romney, they’ll just stay home.
Sorry all, I asked the mod to remove the second post!
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