Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The Obama Albatross
National Review ^ | 7/18/2014 | John Fund

Posted on 07/18/2014 4:09:53 AM PDT by markomalley

With less than four months to go until Election Day, Democrats increasingly have no confidence in the Obama White House’s political instincts. As a result, more and more Democratic candidates are avoiding the president when he comes to their neighborhood. Senator Mark Udall famously avoided showing up with Obama at a fundraiser in the senator’s honor in Colorado last week. John Foust, the Democratic congressional candidate in a suburban Virginia district just outside Washington, D.C., snubbed the president this week by failing to show up for a presidential event in his area.

Representative Henry Cuellar of Texas was flabbergasted by Obama’s petulant refusal to visit the Texas border last week, calling him “aloof” and “detached” and his decision “bizarre.”

The Virginia Progress PAC, a Democratic committee supporting Senator Mark Warner, issued a list of talking points for potential donors that laid out the challenge the Obama albatross represents for Democrats this fall: “The 2014 midterm elections are shaping up to be similar to the wave elections of 1994 and 2010, particularly with an unpopular President and an unpopular piece of major legislation that will serve as a referendum on the sitting President. . . . A difficult political climate coupled with the rising unpopularity of President Obama could affect the Democratic brand as a whole and hurt Senator Warner.”

Bob Beckel, a former Democratic campaign consultant, said on Fox News this week that he spoke with a Democrat “intimately involved in [Obama’s] campaigns, both of them.” The message was sobering: “He said you have to know what it’s like to get through [presidential counselor] Valerie Jarrett and Michelle Obama, and I think that’s a tough deal for anybody on a staff to do. . . . [Obama] lives in a zone that nobody else goes to.”

Indeed, Democrats are becoming increasingly vocal about their concern that their president is isolated and not connecting with the political reality around him. “The Democratic party is like a wedding party with the common goal of getting to the ceremony on time,” a former Democratic congressman told me. “There is a caravan of cars, but the lead car is driven by a guy who is weaving in and out of traffic and is dangerous to the other cars behind him. Do you follow the guy you agreed to follow, or do you make your own way to the wedding? More and more people are leaving the caravan.”

All of Washington is talking about our detached president — one who would go to two fundraisers in New York last night after a plane carrying 23 Americans was shot down over Ukraine. In 2012, Obama famously flew off to fundraisers in Las Vegas the day after the Benghazi attack killed our ambassador to Libya and three other Americans.

“Obama does not appear to relish being chief executive,” writes liberal journalist Edward Luce in the Financial Times. Luce notes that Obama has headlined 393 fundraisers since he took office, double the number that George W. Bush had attended at this point in his presidency. Veteran journalist Patrick Smith writes, “I can think of two names for this. One is outmoded arrogance. The other is asleep at the wheel. Whatever the moniker, some measure of incompetence lies behind it.”

Democrats are happy for the president to raise money, which he can still do by appealing to the fat cats in the party’s environmental, gay, and feminist bases. But they increasingly don’t want to appear with him in front of ordinary voters or follow his lead on policy. For example, more and more Democrats in swing districts or states are looking for a way to separate themselves from the Obama White House’s chaotic border policy. Much of the grumbling is private for now, but it is increasingly seeping into public discourse.

And the grumbling goes beyond politics. A disengaged, petulant president who gives the impression that someone else is minding the White House store isn’t good for the country.

One presidential historian says that if the president’s bizarre behavior deepens, people will start making jokes comparing Obama to President Woodrow Wilson, who was debilitated by illness during his last two years in office, with decisions increasingly made by his aides and his wife, Edith. “The comparisons of course wouldn’t be fair, but they don’t have to be to have elements of truth to them.”


TOPICS: Editorial; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 07/18/2014 4:09:53 AM PDT by markomalley
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: markomalley

“And the grumbling goes beyond politics. A disengaged, petulant president who gives the impression that someone else is minding the White House store isn’t good for the country.”

Other that that, Barry is workin overtime to rise above the legendary James Brown as the hardest workin man in show bidness.


2 posted on 07/18/2014 4:15:39 AM PDT by Artie (We are surrounded by MORONS)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: markomalley

“Democrats are happy for the president to raise money, which he can still do by appealing to the fat cats in the party’s environmental, gay, and feminist bases.”

Guess there isn’t much money to be made in the “unassimilated minority” base...


3 posted on 07/18/2014 4:18:12 AM PDT by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: markomalley
I would change the an analogy...it's more like after a funeral service, when all the cars follow each other, like a caravan on the way to the cemetery, often driving past the deceased's home en route.. Usually it all falls apart..traffic lights...maybe a school bus...somebody takes the wrong route..

The Dems are heading to a funeral in November..their own..and it's of their own making..

4 posted on 07/18/2014 4:19:07 AM PDT by ken5050 ("One useless man is a shame, two are a law firm, three or more are a Congress".. John Adams)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ken5050
The Dems are heading to a funeral in November..their own..and it's of their own making..

Never underestimate the capacity of the feckless GOPe to snatch defeat from the claws of victory.

5 posted on 07/18/2014 4:20:28 AM PDT by markomalley (Nothing emboldens the wicked so greatly as the lack of courage on the part of the good -- Leo XIII)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: markomalley

If we had a Republican Party that believed on fighting, they wouldsn’t let Dems get away with it. The Dems own their Marxist Messiah who they sold to the LIVs as the best thing since sliced bread.


6 posted on 07/18/2014 4:23:17 AM PDT by Unam Sanctam
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: markomalley
Sadly, all too true, my friend..

Watching the IDF invade Gaza.. I am reminded of the quote from Abba Eban, former Israeli Foreign Secretary..."The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.."

7 posted on 07/18/2014 4:27:14 AM PDT by ken5050 ("One useless man is a shame, two are a law firm, three or more are a Congress".. John Adams)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: markomalley
“The Democratic party is like a wedding party with the common goal of getting to the ceremony on time,” a former Democratic congressman told me.

There is no "we" in the vocabulary, thoughts or concerns of a narcissist, i.e. Obama.

8 posted on 07/18/2014 4:29:59 AM PDT by IamConservative (If fighting fire with fire is a good idea, why do the pros use water?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: markomalley

“Veteran journalist Patrick Smith writes, “I can think of two names for this. One is ‘outmoded arrogance.’ The other is ‘asleep at the wheel.’ Whatever the moniker, some measure of incompetence lies behind it.”

But we were told he was “brilliant”. It is very disturbing that the majority of the media couldn’t see the “measures of incompetence” much sooner.


9 posted on 07/18/2014 4:41:07 AM PDT by Artie (We are surrounded by MORONS)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: markomalley

“...no confidence in the Obama White House’s political instincts.”

Clearly, a mistake; Obama is actively seeking to destroy America, and he’s doing an excellent job.


10 posted on 07/18/2014 4:47:15 AM PDT by Jack Hammer
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: markomalley

11 posted on 07/18/2014 4:58:09 AM PDT by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: markomalley
What a shame it's taken six years for these folks to finally begin admitting nobama as president was/is a serious mistake.

Our country has been changed for the much worst for at least the coming two generations, assuming we put some adults in charge.

Otherwise?

12 posted on 07/18/2014 5:02:47 AM PDT by upchuck (The country is being billed for its own execution. ~ h/t: SpaceBar)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: ken5050

It will be interesting when their 90 per cent black vote does not show up.
Also War on women is so last election cycle. Working single women are realizing that free healthcare is not free.


13 posted on 07/18/2014 5:29:07 AM PDT by CPT Clay (Follow me on Twitter @Clay N TX)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: upchuck

IDIOCRACY is really a documentary you know. The names have been changed to protect the guilty.


14 posted on 07/18/2014 6:15:38 AM PDT by RipSawyer (OPM is the religion of the sheeple.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: markomalley

hmmmm....somebody using Beckel to toss Moochelle and ValJar under the bus? Very interesting!


15 posted on 07/18/2014 6:15:51 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson