Memories ...
Posted on 09/10/2012 1:38:05 PM PDT by neverdem
How much trouble is President Obama’s re-election campaign in? After watching and then re-reading the President’s convention speech, a writer for the (liberal) New Republic has uttered the most dreaded name in the Democratic lexicon: Carter.
The speech did not exactly thrill TNR’s Timothy Noah:
Watching President Obama give his nomination speech last night, it occurred to me for the first time that he might actually lose.
Rereading the speech this morning, I find that (as Mark Twain once said about Wagner) it wasn’t as bad as it sounded. It lacked poetry, but it managed a reasonable balance between acknowledging that the economy stinks, asserting that we’re on the right track, and pointing out that the Romney presidency would make things worse for everyone but the rich. But the speech still possessed several glaring faults.
So where are we now?
We’re dangerously close to Jimmy Carter territory here. First, there’s the boast (“You elected me to tell you the truth”) disguised as an expression of humility (“I won’t pretend the path I’m offering is quick or easy”). Later, I actually winced when Obama humblebragged, “And while I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved together, I’m far more mindful of my own failings, knowing exactly what Lincoln meant when he said, ‘I have been driven to my knees many times by the overwhelming conviction that I had no place else to go.’” Just because our greatest president was a bit depressive, that doesn’t mean we want the present one to lacerate himself over his failures, and we certainly don’t want to hear him tell us about it.
President Obama is not in immediate danger of retracing Jimmy Carter’s career trajectory. The polls show a still-developing post-convention bounce that has restored the narrow lead he has held for several months. And the Romney camp cannot be indifferent to the reality that even at the apogee of his own small bounce, Governor Romney never managed more than a tie in the RCP average. With the polls in Ohio and other key swing states still pointing toward an Obama win, the President seems to be a relatively strong position and the dynamics of the race would have to change to bring moving vans to Pennsylvania Avenue come January 20.
But signs that the Obama magic is wearing off and that journals who used to gush are now beginning to see what critics saw in him from the beginning (inexperienced narcissistic windbag is how people unimpressed by the oratory used to describe him) do not bode well. There are eight weeks of campaigning still to come, and the Romney camp will be doing everything possible to push the disenchantment meme.
They will need to do that. In our view, the jobs numbers pose less of a threat to Democratic president than they would to a Republican. Unemployment is heavily concentrated among people who are not very likely to vote for a Republican no matter what the economy is doing: unemployment is heavily concentrated among African Americans, Hispanics and the young. Those groups aren’t likely to vote Republican and are less likely than the general population to blame their problems on a Democratic president. The Obama campaign may have to work a little harder to gin up the turnout among these groups than it would in better times, but that is the kind of challenge the Democrats can handle.
But if anything undercuts President Obama’s ability to influence voters by making speeches, his campaign is in much deeper trouble. Oratory was always the heart of Obama’s political strength. The deep, wise voice booming from that slender young and even boyish speaker inspired millions of people. But unless you believe that Obamacare is a historic accomplishment — and whatever the rights and wrongs of the issue, most Americans don’t see it that way — it’s hard to make the case that our current president’s deeds live up to his lofty, soaring words.
An effective Republican attack along these lines would do more than blunt the edge of Obama’s appeal. It would turn his greatest political strength into a source of weakness: the more eloquently he spoke the more vulnerable he would be to the contrast between soaring words and mingy deeds. Each inspiring speech would provide footage for yet another ad pointing out the contrast with the plodding record.
Our political campaigns are getting more Clausewitzian of late: candidates plan their attacks against the opponent’s center of gravity. This summer the Obama campaign went for Governor Romney’s business record, doing their best (and their best was pretty good) to turn his greatest potential strength into a source of weakness. This fall we could see the Romney campaign return the favor: attempting to convert the President’s speech making abilities into a liability by playing on what they see as the chasm between rhetoric and achievement.
Jimmy Carter was still the favorite at this point in the 1980 electoral cycle. His political ghost will be stalking the White House for a few more weeks — even as the shadows of John Kerry (a rich flip flopper who failed to unseat a weak president) and Bob Dole (around whom Bill Clinton ran rings in 1996) loom over Mitt Romney.
He s also not that far from FDR territory
LOL - so the worthless RCP Average of Worthless Polls is now "reality"! What a maroon!
He’s close to Chavez territory. Doesn’t seem to bother the electorate, though.
He’s right, that speech of his was pathetic. No way you’d get a bounce from that.
Is it just me, or does it seem like all these polls were pre-written to follow up a triumphant stadium speech?
Romney needs to quit bouncing up onto the stage grinning from ear to ear. There’s nothing funny about this election. He needs to be pointing out just how deep we’re in it.
I’m worried about the latest numbers from Rasmussen (sp).
Memories ...
as the shadows of John Kerry (a rich flip flopper who failed to unseat a weak president) and Bob Dole (around whom Bill Clinton ran rings in 1996) loom over Mitt Romney.
I’m at a loss as to what John Kerry’s shadow has to do
looming over Romney? Anyone? Buehler?
Whatever happened to "white-hating Alinskyite post-colonial Communist racist dictator-for-life-wannabe" and "trumped up affirmative-action-hothoused, jihadi-sympathizing, undocumented ringer and creature of Wahhabist plutocrats"?
Those were pretty popular among the unensorcelled.
Google could only find a dictionary for ensorcelled!
FWIW, Mead is registered as a rat.
Obama explicitly called for another New Deal in his convention speech. This is really dangerous stuff , scary stuff, it’s not a weak or timid agenda, its an agenda to do a LOT more damage to our freedom and prosperity than he has done already.
while the liberals rewrote history to make FDR the hero, in fact he lengthened the depression and turned America permanently in a more Big government direction, increased union power (they were at their height under him), and destroyed our Constitutional framework (he threatened to pack the Supreme Court, then when that didnt work, got his way by appointing political cronies who simply ruled the way he wanted - bye bye constitution.)
Sadly, FDR, our most dangerous President, gets treated as one of the ‘great’ Presidents. He did right in WWII, but then that’s kind of like Obama taking out Osama - it’s obvious what was needing to be done. And yet, on the news today we hear that the news of Stalin’s murder of 18,000 Polish officers in the Katyn forest in 1940 was known to the US Government, but news was suppressed because FDR didnt want Stalin’s reputation harmed in America. Imagine that! FDR covered for the commies. And he had a Soviet spy as one of his top aides.
Anyone reading this needs to understand that we have NO IDEA what mischief allowing Obama 4 more years can do. But he will be unrestrained by the need to run again. So it will be A LOT.
Government also took control of industries and set max prices, profits and such. That part was later overturned I think.
Price controls on agricultural products became a legacy of the new deal for decades and we still have those pork ‘farm programs’.
on other stuff, they did in wwII. fortunately, we got a GOP Congress in 1946 which undid the worst things, and gave us Taft-Hartley, which gave us the ‘open shop’ and right to work states. Without that, America would be a far different place. The south would have the politics of Michigan.
It’s bad -
We have had the worst, slowest, weakest, and feeblest ‘recovery’ since WWII, with more long-term unemployed now than in a generation. And household income has dropped $4000 per family under Obama, while Obama racked up another $100,000 in debt per family. Dont fault people for thinking we are still in a recession because for far too many Americans, we still are. It is sad that 23 million good Americans of all races and creeds dont have jobs in Obama’s economy. We need to fire Obama for his mismanagement of the economy, lack of leadership, and incompetence in November.
to Democrats who blame Bush for the spending:
Democrats in Congress that ran Congress since 2006 passed the budgets, Obama was in the majority and voted for TARP, bailouts, and signed the FY2009 budget, stimulus and hundreds of billions of spending addons as President.. The last Republican budget deficit (2006) was $200 billion, the Democrats quintupled the deficit to over $1 trillion. Blaming Bush for the $6 trillion that Obama and the Democrat racked up on Obama’s watch is beyond pathetic. Failures have nothing but excuses.
to Democrats who talk about Democrats are diverse and Republicans are bigots:
African American Republicans like Congressman Tim Scott, Allen West, Mia Love would agree that GOP is about core values that crosses ethnic boundaries; hispanic Republicans like Gov. Susanna Martinez, Senate candidate Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, who spoke at the Republican convention, agree as well. They and other ethnic minority Republicans like Gov Nikki Haley and Gov Bobby Jindhal disprove ignorant claim that the GOP lacks diversity.
bump
Of course. He's a board-certified intoleckshual .... even accidentally registering as 'Pubbie would result in loss of tenure, possibly of position and income.
“I don’t really think Obama wants to win”
Of course he wants to win.
he gets the power, celebrity status, Moochelle gets her glitzy vacations .. and most important, whatever happens, he can spike the ball and say for the rest of his life that he was FDRII.
“What I think he’d love more than anything is to hit the speaking circuit, write another book and be the love God to his kool aid guzzling acolytes. He really just wants to play golf the rest of his life and bask in the brilliance of his own ego.”
Yes, and doing all that on the taxpayer dime for the next 4 years is a win/win for him. He cant get to bask and be adored if he is a loser like Carter.
This election is NOT about him. It is about US. Do we want a Eurosocialist welfare state or an America that restores its constitutional limited government footing. We are heading over the cliff right now and Obama’s reelection seals our fate - Obamacare made permanent, his higher tax/higher spend welfare state affirmed - and progressives runnign the courts, the bureaucracy and our lives.
We have less than 8 weeks away. The nation hangs in the balance. Can we focus on kicking Democrats out of the Senate and House and Obama out of the white house?
I agree with you! Why else would he stick with gaffey Biden and tick off a significant portion of the population by omitting God and Palestine from his political platform (not to mention demonstrating his own counting gaffe this past week). Like the Clintons, pretty much everything he does from here on in in his lifetime will be a freebie, courtesy of the ignorant sychophants he's accumulated who buy in to communism 100% - especially the so-called celebrities).
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