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Obama
Aaron Klein is reporting that some senior
personalities in the Democratic Party have discussed with Obama's
advisers the possibility of him not running for re-election in 2012,
according to an influential Democratic Party operative speaking on
condition of anonymity.
The operative, who is close to the
Democratic leadership, did not indicate whether Obama was undecided
about running again.
Any such decision would need to be made at
a later date based on a number of factors, such as any change in poll
numbers after the midterm elections, the operative said.
There
are some within the Democratic leadership who believe at this point it
would be best for the party if Obama did not seek re-election in 2012,
and more than one discussion has been held on the matter with Obama's
top advisers, according to the party operative.
The gambit
will be that Michelle begged Obama not to run, for her sake, and the
sake of the children.
Should Obama Quit After One Term?
Byron York
asks, would Obama be a stronger
president if he announced today that he will not run for re-election in
2012? Democratic strategists Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen say the
answer is yes.
"If the president goes down the reelection road,
we are guaranteed two years of political gridlock at a time when we can
ill afford it," Caddell and Schoen write in Sunday's Washington Post.
"But by explicitly saying he will be a one-term president, Obama can
deliver on his central campaign promise of 2008, draining the poison
from our culture of polarization and ending the resentment and division
that have eroded our national identity and common purpose."
You
might think that by announcing he will not run, Obama would be telling
the world that he is too weak even to try for re-election. Not so,
say Caddell and Schoen. "Forgoing another term would not render
Obama a lame duck," they write. "Paradoxically, it would grant him
much greater leverage with Republicans and would make it harder for
opponents such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell -- who has
flatly asserted that his highest priority is to make Obama a one-term
president -- to be uncooperative."
Do you believe that? I
don't. If Obama were to announce he is not running in '12,
Republicans would react precisely the way Democrats would react were the
parties reversed. They would take it as a sign of fatal weakness
and would attempt to run over Obama on matters big and small. And
if they couldn't run over Obama on a given issue, they would wait him
out, knowing that there will soon be a new president. Obama's
would be a dead-in-the-water presidency. (Of course, it might be
already, but it would definitely be if he passed up the 2012 race.)
What political strength Obama has now stems from the possibility -- to
Republicans, the threat -- that he can come back and win re-election.
Give that up and he has nothing except the institutional powers --
executive orders, commander-in-chief, etc. -- of the presidency.
Surely Caddell and Schoen, two veterans with a deep understanding of
politics, know that. Assuming they do, and in light of recent
election results, it seems more likely that what they are really saying
to Obama is: Please leave before you destroy the Democratic party.
It's a reasonable request, but they're not going to get what they want.
"He’s A Con Man"
Ed Morrissey
says no good progressive rebellion would be complete without hearing
from Ralph Nader, and the two-time presidential candidate and notorious
spoiler finally weighed in on the tax deal Barack Obama cut with the
GOP. Needless to say, Nader is less than impressed with Obama, and
demanded a primary challenge from the left to defeat the "con man"
currently in the White House. And if one doesn’t step forward,
well, Nader might pull his campaign out of mothballs and give it one
more go himself:
"He has no fixed principles," Nader said, of
Obama. "He’s opportunistic -- he goes for expedience, like
Clinton. Some call him temperamentally conflict-averse.
If you want to be harsher, you say he has no principles and he’s
opportunistic."
"He’s a con man," Nader continued. "I
have no use for him."
Nader urged a progressive candidate to
challenge Obama for the presidency in 2012, and said that while he
wasn’t altogether disallowing the possibility of running himself, it
was time for a new progressive leader to step forward.
"Obama’s position has been that the liberal, progressive wing has
nowhere to go, therefore they can’t turn their back on the
administration. But a challenge will hold his feet to the fire
and signal that we do have somewhere to go," Nader said.
"I’m
not foreclosing the possibility [of running]… There are just other
things to do," he continued. "And it’s time for someone else
to continue. I’ve done it so many times. When I go
around the country, I’m telling people they need to find somebody."
Could Republicans get this lucky? Yes, we
can! Seriously, though, the progressive wing of the Democratic
Party isn’t likely to back yet another step along the Harold Stassen
road for Nader, and Nader himself seems to realize it. If Nader
ran, he’d be the Maytag Repairman of presidential candidates with very
little chance of impacting the results.
As an activist, though,
Nader could have plenty of impact. He’s likely to serve as a
rallying point for angry progressives at the moment, and the era of
Republican control of the House will provide plenty of opportunities for
even more anger. Instead of being king, Nader could easily play
kingmaker for someone on the inside of the party to step up against
Obama. Nader thinks that a primary is a given, "[j]ust a question
of how prominent" the challenger will be. Can he recruit someone
with enough credibility to run against Obama? Russ Feingold’s
looking for work, but Obama did a lot of campaigning for Feingold in a
desperate attempt to rescue his job. Howard Dean has insisted he’s
not interested. Who’s left? Wes Clark?
Dems Circle the Wagons Around Obama
NewsMax.com
is reporting that while general public support for Barack Obama
seemingly shrinks by the day, Democrats apparently see no alternative
and are circling the wagons. A new CNN/Opinion Research survey
shows that 78 percent of Democratic voters want to see Obama nominated
for president again, the highest level of support for him this year.
That 78 percent reading represents a rise from 73 percent just two
months ago. And it compares quite favorably to the 57 percent of
Democrats who wanted Bill Clinton renominated shortly after Republicans
slaughtered Democrats in the 1994 midterm elections.
"The level
of support suggests a primary challenge against the 44th president is
likely to fail," The Hill states. So far no Democrat has expressed
an interest in challenging Obama.
What will happen to Obama's 2012
campaign if even one of the
7 states that are
telling Obama, that if you want on 2012 ballot, pass a release the
records or don't run bill?
To Win, Obama Has To Fool Some Folks All
The Time
Michael Goodwin
says The hot-stove league in national politics is in a tizzy about
whether Obama will move to the center in the next two years. Most
in Washington say he will because he must.
I say he won't because
he can't. You have to be a centrist to really move to the center,
and if the last two years prove anything, it is that Obama's definitely
not a centrist.
The yes-he-will crowd has concluded that GOP
control of the House forces Obama to make compromises. They point
to the income-tax deal that kept rates fixed for two years, even though
Obama pledged to raise rates on families earning above $250,000.
In truth, he had no choice. Because Republicans were united and
Dems divided, he could either go along with the deal or risk a tax hike
on everyone. The risk wasn't worth the fight.
But few other
issues have such immediate consequences, so Obama will be able to pick
and choose and use the bully pulpit to declare victory when it suits
him. As he said himself, he is "itchin' for a fight" with the GOP,
which is music to the liberal wing of his party.
Of course,
rhetorically, he will sometimes suggest he's a centrist, as he did in
the 2008 campaign, but that will be just for show.
His
re-election depends on getting just enough independents to believe he's
a centrist while letting lefties know he's still with them. In
other words, he has to fool some of the people all the time.
Related:Obama’s campaign organization
begins laying off Obots as the first phase of a restructuring before the
official kickoff of Obama’s 2012 re-election bid.
In other words, he'll lie his lyin'
ass off -- as he usually does.
Reelecting Obama An Enormous Challenge
Michael O'Brien
says Obama's reelection in 2012 won't be easy, the chairman of the
Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) says.
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver
(D-Mo.), the new chairman of the CBC, told the group
IMPACT to expect a
bruising fight to secure the president a second term.
"It's
realistic for our party to understand the enormous challenge we're going
to have, to get him back in the White House in 2012," Cleaver told the
group, as reported on Monday by NBC's Washington affiliate.
"It
will not be a landslide or an easy victory," Cleaver added. "We're going
to have to scrape and battle for every vote we get."
The CBC
leader's remarks underscore the uncertainty surrounding Obama's
political footing going into 2012. While he was swept into
office in 2008 with Democratic headwinds, the GOP's win in the 2010
elections suggest Obama could be vulnerable to a strong Republican
challenger.
Cleaver said Obama has been the a victim of
impossibly high expectations for his first two years in office.
"The majority of Americans placed inflated expectation on candidate
Obama and some even placed all of their hopes and dreams in him," the
Missouri Democrat said. "No human being could have performed at the
level of expectation in such a short period of time."
Polls have
suggested that some potential Republican challengers are within striking
distance of beating Obama, if not enjoying a slight lead. But
with the 2012 campaign only beginning to get off the ground, those
numbers are fluid.
Some of Obama's advisers are expected to
begin formally setting up his reelection operation in Chicago some time
in the first half of the year.
Obama Begins Gearing Up Re-Election Bid
Democratic officials say an early start is
needed in part to commence the fund-raising campaign for a contest
that's expected to cost $1 billion.
Jonathan Weisman and Laura
Meckler report the White House will announce as soon as this month the
creation of Barack Obama's re-election campaign, with fund-raising
likely to begin in March or early April, said officials involved in the
planning.
The looming departure of three top White House
officials has brought into early focus the contours of the election
effort -- and has surfaced concern from some Democrats that Obama is
beginning too soon.
Democratic officials said the re-election
campaign needs an early start to establish Obama as a formidable
candidate and begin raising money for a bid expected to cost each party
around $1 billion.
White House officials declined to discuss
re-election efforts.
After a disastrous midterm election for his
party, Obama recently has been seeking to re-establish himself as a
unifying figure who can appeal to independent voters. Now, some
Democratic strategists close to the White House fear the return of Obama
as a candidate could harm the repositioning effort.
Moreover,
some of these Democrats, who at times advise Obama's inner circle, worry
that the establishment of a campaign office in Chicago will create two
power centers that may clash.
White House press secretary Robert
Gibbs, presidential adviser David Axelrod and Deputy Chief of Staff Jim
Messina will all leave Washington in the coming weeks to form the core
of a re-election campaign, with Messina directing the effort.
Obama's announcement that he is establishing a re-election campaign will
be low-key, possibly just an email to supporters or a written statement,
said a Democratic official familiar with the planning.
Paul A. Rahe
says one thing is now clear. Barack Obama very much wants to
be re-elected, and he is willing to do whatever it takes.
As I
have already pointed out, he could not hire William M. Daley as his new
White House Chief of Staff without eating a substantial helping of crow.
Among Democrats, no one was as critical in public of the course chosen
by Obama, Nancy Pelois, and Harry Reid in 2009 as was Daley. The
op-ed he published in The Washington Post on Chrismas Eve, 2009 -- just
a few hours after Harry Reid jammed through the Senate a bill burdened
with provisions known as the Cornhusker Kickback, the Connecticut
Compromise, the Louisiana Purchase, and the Florida Flim-Flam --
predicted that, if the Democratic Party followed through on what it had
already done, it would not only be routed at the midterm elections in
November, 2010; it would lay the foundations for "electoral disaster . .
. in many elections to come." I doubt that Obama will step forward
and publicly admit fault. That, as far as I can tell, he does not
have in him. But before Daley took the job, he must have heard
Obama whisper the familiar words that this son of one Chicago mayor and
brother of another first learned as an altar boy: "Mea culpa, mea culpa,
mea maxima culpa."
In practice, this means that Daley will wield
far more authority than was ever accorded to Rahm Emanuel. There
are signs the he is already doing so. Reports indicate that Robert
Gibbs' departure is Daley's doing and that Valerie Jarrett's wings will
be clipped. In these matters, Obama is utterly cold-blooded.
As William Ayers and the Reverend Jeremiah Wright learned not so long
ago, when circumstances change, this would-be Messiah is not loath to
dispense with those hitherto near and dear. One aide is quoted as
describing him as "the most unsentimental man I've ever met."
Daley's arrival at the helm also means that Obama has decided to pivot
and reposition himself as a budget-cutter and a friend to big business.
The left within the Democratic Party is now in an uproar, which will
help the Obama far more than it will hurt him. If he is to present
himself as the Comeback Kid, he will have to ditch his party in much the
same manner as Slick Willie from Arkansas. John Boehner and Mitch
McConnell will have to be ready to do business with one hand -- while
they are investigating malfeasance on the part of the administration
with the other. Politically, we are in for a battle royal.
To a considerable degree, the outcome will turn on contingencies.
The stock market is up, business leaders seem sanguine, and investor
confidence is high. As I argued in an earlier post, however, there
are storm clouds on the horizon. Housing prices are dropping, and
some observers believe that they are still overpriced by twenty percent.
If they continue to fall, more homeowners will find that they owe more
than the house is worth -- and many of these will default on their
mortgages. Moreover, almost all of the states and a great many of
the municipalities in the country have large unfunded obligations which
will soon at least in part come due, and some of our most populous and
wealthy states -- Illinois, New York, and California among them -- have
massive deficits in their current operating budgets. They will
have to cut jobs and services, and they may be forced to raise taxes.
Neither expedient will speed the recovery. We could easily slip
back into recession -- and if we do or if, as is highly likely,
unemployment remains high, Obama will get the blame.
To the
discontent derived from the economy, we can add that attendant on
ObamaCare -- which grows more unpopular with every passing month.
If the Republicans in the House vote to repeal the bill and if the
Democrats in the Senate block the bill, Obama and his party will be made
to pay. If the bill passes both the House and the Senate and Obama
vetoes it, he alone will bear the blame. The situation favors the
Republicans. Obama is vulnerable.
Memorial Or Political Rally?
Not since Democratic Sen. Paul
Wellstone's funeral have we seen such a cynical political display.
Last night, at what was billed as a "memorial," Barack Obama began
Campaign 2012. Of course, for a proper campaign, you'll need tee-shirts with slogans.
Socialists are good with slogans. This is a beauty, "Together we
thrive." Ahhh! The collective.
The president of the University of Arizona
(and master of ceremonies) set the tone by
reminding the cheering crowd how lucky we are to have Barack Obama
as our president and Janet Napolitano as our homeland security chief.
AAnd, just listen to the this crowd of "mourners," as they greet the
person responsible for our homeland security. I almost fell out of my
chair. Napolitano thinks she's Springsteen. "Thank you!" "Thank you
Tucson!" "Thank you Arizona!"
This was more
like a sporting event than a memorial service. The wolf whistles,
the whooping and hollerin' for Obama? For Big Sis Napolitano?
And, then the big guy delivers the big speech
-- straight from TOTUS -- causing the San Francisco Chronicle
to gush -- "he's back: Barack Obama's Tucson speech signified Obama's
return to that full-power greatness we'd not seen in a long while."
And this supposed "journalist"
continued with this:
When I first heard the Obama Tucson Speech,
I'd just walked in and turned on the TV set. The President was in
the middle of his speech, and the crowd at the University of Arizona
was just plain into it. So much so, that I was drawn in, in just
seconds. The American Family was at the TV set, listening to our
leader of the free World.
Obama spoke with such coiled
emotional power it seemed as if he was trying to avoid crying. That
feeling came through the TV set and into my living room. If you
weren't moved by that speech, you were either not human or jealous
that Obama didn't pick you to be in his administration.
Just wow!
You decide. Was this a fitting
memorial for 6 dead and 14 injured?
Obama's 2012 Cash Challenge
Jeanne Cummings is reporting that Obama’s
advisers, bracing for a half-billion-dollar onslaught of outside GOP
cash in 2012, are quietly working to bring back together the major donor
base that produced a record-breaking fundraising haul in his first run
for president.
In the past few months, Democratic National
Committee aides have contacted several of Obama’s earliest financial
backers to brainstorm about when and where to host the first
money-raising events. Several big donors said they expect the
Obama 2012 operation to open its doors this spring, with a string of
fundraisers to generate the early cash needed to rebuild Obama’s
high-tech campaign operation.
But already some of Obama’s top
financial backers are warning the White House: Raising money won’t
be as easy this time around.
"They are getting organized in
Chicago to start a massive two-year campaign, which I believe will be
successful, but has extraordinarily large challenges in some of the
major states," said Philadelphia philanthropist Peter Buttenweiser, who
hosted one of the first Obama presidential fundraisers in 2007 and is in
talks to organize an early one for the re-election.
Obama’s team
is running into resistance in at least one key fundraising hub -- New
York City, where some of Obama’s biggest 2008 backers have bitterly
protested last year’s passage of financial reform legislation, and what
they perceived as an unfair bad-mouthing of bankers during the debate.
Jon Stewart on Thursday again jumped to the
defense of Barack Obama,
slamming those who questioned the cheering at Wednesday's memorial
for the Arizona shooting. After playing a clip of Michelle Malkin
complaining about the event, he derided the conservative: "You're not a
primitive nematode, capable only of autonomic response to outside
stimuli. You have a choice."
The White House
blamed the "Pep Rally" on the University of Arizona, and even
said they were "surprised at the celebration."
The university
said it did the
planning with minimal input from the White House. The school
paid for the event, including $60,000 for
20,000 tee-shirts bearing the words "Together We Thrive," which were
handed out for free. The money will not come from student tuition,
fees or tax dollars. Well, somebody, or something paid for them.
The fact is, the "Pep Rally"
was
organized by Organizing for America (OFA), Obama's campaign organization.
And it was OFA that
encouraged applause from the boisterous crowd.
The
theme, "Together We Thrive," was a recycled Obama campaign
slogan from 2008.
The
word was spread throughout the network. The Daily Kos had a page
urging
Kossaks to, "Host a SOTU 'Together We Thrive' PROGRESS PARTY! It's
time to Network For Progress!"
The cluster-flop in Tucson may
have been a lot of things. It wasn't a memorial.
Obama 2.0: The Reinvention Begins
Ed Lasky says the year 2012 looms large in the
mind of Barack Obama. After two years of decline in the number of
those who view his policies, his performance, and his personality
favorably, Barack Obama has begun yet another process of reinvention on
the road to reelection.
Will he succeed in bamboozling voters
once again?
The policy shifts following the November shellacking
the Democrats received from voters are clear.
Foremost among
these shifts to the center is the tax deal reached with the Republicans.
There will be others to come, as renewed attention is devoted to
transforming the tax code itself to make it simpler and fairer.
There will be more feints to the center.
Barack Obama will adapt
even more, altering his image so he can again appeal to the great center
of American voters: the jackpot that every candidate must win to enter
the White House. Will Obama be able to connect with voters, as
every politician must, on a personal level?
Conservatives should
not count Obama out yet. He may be cold-blooded, but he is a
chameleon who can change the way people perceive him.
Indeed, he
has already begun to do so. The premiere of Obama 2.0 took place
in Tucson, where his speech was warmly received and a new, more
emotional Obama was on display (the voice cracking brings to mind the
lip-chewing of a thoughtful Bill Clinton). And the road show has
only just commenced.
A clue to Obama's ability and willingness
to adapt can be found in the words of his book Dreams from My Father.
There he mentioned only one book, Malcolm X's autobiography, and wrote
that Malcolm X's "repeated acts of self-creation spoke to me."
Therein lies the clue to Obama's plan to rebrand his own image. A
man who can fake a Southern accent, the story of how his father came to
America, and the story of his parents' being inspired by the Civil
Rights march in Selma to conceive him has no problem morphing for
political purposes.
We are about to watch the extreme makeover of
Barack Obama in real time.
Jim Hoft
says if you thought turning a memorial
for six victims of mass murder by a left-wing pothead who hated Bush
into a pep rally was weird, you won’t believe this.
"Together We
Thrive" bus benches are popping up in Tucson.
This bench was spotted near the corner of Speedway
and Tucson -- near the university.
Maybe the benches were
included in on the T-shirt package? Obama's pep rally lives on.
Just
think Tucsonians, you could be sitting on the next "Yes We Can!" can.
Is Obama’s Fate Already Sealed?
Yes, it's sealed alright. It was sealed
the minute he took the oath of office and began to ram through his left
wing, socialist, big government domestic agenda and his apologetic,
weak-kneed, feeble foreign policy.
He is destined to become a one
termer because his actions on the domestic front are fundamentally at
odds with American history, values, politics and the Constitution and
have diminished the lives of ordinary Americans and because his actions
on the foreign policy front have emboldened America’s enemies and made
Americans much more vulnerable, not to mention alienating her friends
and allies, seriously eroding her role as leader and protector of the
free world and in the main making the earth much more dangerous and
volatile.
From the farce that is ObamaCare, to the ruinous
economy, to the massive and growing debt, to increased tetrorist attacks
on the American homeland, to Afghanistan, Iran, the Middle East, the Far
East, and international relations in general, to his prevarications,
omissions and extravagances there are failures of competence and
character everywhere, with every indication that things will get worse
not better. Because everyone has taken the measure of the man and
found him wanting, and because he cannot change his personality, and
ideology there is virtually no chance of mitigation in any of these
areas or others too numerous to mention in the next two years. Two
years is not enough time to undo the damage anyway, especially since no
one takes him seriously anymore.
American’s will
correct their
mistake in the next election and the process of renewal will begin.
As for Obama, he will go down in history as a colossal failure who very
nearly presided over the demise of the United States and Western
civilization. In keeping with his exalted intellectual status
he’ll probably end up writing books and teaching in some Ivy League
institution, all the while revising history and blaming everyone else
for his transgressions. He certainly won’t be running anything
because he is not capable of doing so.
True enough, but there is a caveat.
Obama's supporters, in the Democratic Party, the unions, SEIU, ACORN,
Black Panthers, and the rest of the Political Left, have demonstrated
that they are willing to subvert the electoral system to achieve their
political goals.
It ain't over till it's over.
Chicago Political Experts Believe Obama
Will Not Seek Second Term
Kevin DuJan says various political types here
in Chicago have been talking about all this. It kept coming up
that many of them don’t think Obama is running for a second term,
despite what the Media keeps insisting. They think he will use
"family reasons" for not seeking re-election, either making up something
about wanting his daughters to grow up outside the limelight of the
White House, or even using grandmother Robinson as an excuse, saying
she’s sick and Michelle Antoinette wants the family to relocate to
Hawaii for their health.
I still think he’s going to use his
Parkinson’s as his excuse, like LBJ and his heart condition, so that he
can leave the White House with immense sympathy and start his book tours
and lecturing. This is why he wanted to be president by the way,
so that he would never have to work a real job for the rest of his life.
He just wants to write books, the way Jimmy Carter does, that impugn and
attack America, while making millions of dollars traveling the world as
a former US president who can always be counted on to trash our country.
He is quite looking forward to this, and Michelle Antoinette is thrilled
to be looking at mansions in Hawaii to move to. No one here on the
ground in Chicago expects these people to live here ever again.
Why should they? They took everything they could get from
Chicagoans, never giving anything back or helping the black community in
the slightest, and now that they have achieved everything they ever
wanted, they are looking forward to the post-presidential perks that
will be afforded to them in Hawaii.
Where, clearly, his
presidential library and museum will indeed be located, right on the
water, with as spectacular a view as possible for this new center to his
cult of personality.
It might seem incredible that Obama would
just walk away from the presidency, leaving Democrats in the lurch for
2012, but I was told, repeatedly, to watch what David Axelrod and
Michelle Antoinette have both been doing in recent weeks…they give no
signs whatsoever that they are engaged in a re-election campaign.
Axelrod was recently on a Chicago Sunday political show and kept
dodging all talk of the re-election campaign, which is like Oprah
Winfrey turning down a large supreme pizza or a sandwich bigger than her
head. It’s unheard of.
Axelrod’s favorite topic in the
world is how he got Obama elected, which means Axelrod’s second favorite
topic in the world should be how he is going to re-elect Obama in 2012.
He left the White House claiming that’s why he was moving back to
Chicago, to focus on the re-election bid, and when given the perfect
opportunity to wax on about that, and praise himself and his efforts, he
completely dodged the topic, wanting nothing to do with it. Why?
Pressed by the reporter, Axelrod apparently said "the president’s
re-election is just one of the interesting projects I am working on."
What could be peer, in terms of being interesting, to re-electing a
president if you are a political consultant? Chicago political
veterans picked up on this and saw it as a sign that those in the Obama
ranks either do not believe he will win in 2012, or that he won’t even
run, largely because of the former.
The LA Times is reporting Obama's reelection
campaign fundraisers are crisscrossing the country to visit big donors.
Some predict he could raise more than $1 billion.
Obama has said
he will have plenty of time to campaign for reelection in 2012, but his
fledgling campaign team is wasting no time.
Days after leaving
his post as White House deputy chief of staff, campaign manager Jim
Messina spent the last week hop-scotching across the country to hold
sessions with prominent donors in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York
and Boston.
His outreach is part of an intense push to rebuild
the finance operation that helped Obama raise a record $745 million in
2008. Republican campaign finance lawyers have predicted Obama could top
$1 billion in 2012.
The donor gatherings come weeks before the
campaign is expected to register with the Federal Election Commission
and set up a mechanism to accept contributions. The goal for now is
simply to reengage with the party's big financial backers, emphasizing
the administration's focus on building the economy.
Obama aides
are keen to lock in the support of well-connected donors who bundled, or
collected, contributions in 2008 -- more than 500 wealthy individuals
who together raised at least $75 million, according to data from the
nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
While many bundlers
are already enthusiastic, some said that Obama could not assume that
those who played a major role in 2008 will step up again.
"My
sense is they will need to work very hard and almost start from scratch
in recruiting those people," said Philadelphia education consultant
Peter Buttenweiser, who raised at least $500,000 for Obama in 2008.
Nile Gardner
says that if you read America's dominant liberal press, the
conventional wisdom is that Barack Obama is launching a stirring
comeback after his party's drubbing in the midterms, and is making
strong headway towards re-election in 2012 in the face of a fragmented
Republican opposition that lacks a clear leader at present. They
point out that Obama has seen his political fortunes rise in the first
weeks of 2011, with his overall approval rating now scraping 50 percent,
after a low in November of around 44 percent. His speech in Tucson
following the Arizona shootings was widely praised on both sides of the
political aisle, and Obama's supporters are claiming a renewed sense of
self-confidence on the part of their leader, with a noticeable spring in
his step after a disastrous 2010.
But is America's Left being
bullishly overconfident in the wake of their biggest midterm defeat
since 1948? Definitely, if a series of new polls are anything to
go by. A CNN/Opinion Research survey released on Tuesday showed
that 51 percent of Americans believe Barack Obama will lose the
presidential election in 2012. The poll found that only 26 percent
of registered voters will definitely vote for Obama, as opposed to 37
percent who definitely won't. And despite a rising personal
approval rating for Obama, according to RealClear Politics the American
public still overwhelmingly feels the country is moving in the wrong
direction, with over 60 percent of Americans taking this view.
Economic issues are likely to dominate the political landscape in the
lead up to November 2012, and here Obama is already at a distinct
disadvantage. Gallup's latest poll released on February 9 showed
that a mere 27 percent of Americans approve of Obama on the deficit
(down from 32 percent in November), with 68 percent disapproving.
On taxes, Obama has 42 percent approval as opposed to 54 percent
disapproval, and on the economy as a whole 60 percent of Americans are
unhappy with Obama's handling of the issue, with just 37 percent in
favor. And on healthcare policy, another major voter issue in
2012, only 40 percent of Americans back Obama, with 56 percent against.
As Gallup concludes:
Obama has failed to build public support in
recent months for his handling of major U.S. economic matters, despite a
generally well-received State of the Union address in which he proposed
a federal spending freeze to help put the brakes on deficit spending.
His approval rating on the economy is no better than it was last fall,
and his approval rating on the federal budget deficit -- a top issue for
Republicans in Congress since the midterm elections -- is even worse.
His broadest support on the issues comes on foreign policy matters, most
notably the situation in Egypt, but even on these, his approval ratings
register just below 50%.
It is of course far too early to be
making concrete predictions for the outcome of the 2012 presidential
race, and a great deal depends on the fortunes of the US economy as well
as who the Republicans pick as their candidate. But with good
reason, Obama and his supporters should be nervous about their prospects
21 months from now. The November mid-terms were not a flash in the
pan but part of a broader political change in the United States away
from liberalism towards conservatism, as well as an emphatic rejection
of the Big Government policies that continue to be promoted by Obama in
the face of intense public opposition.
Obama may be
experiencing a temporary bounce with his own personal ratings, but much
of his agenda remains hugely unpopular, and the next item should give
him a Xanax moment or two.
Fatal Flaw In Obama's 2012 Re-Election
Strategy
Mark Tapscott
says one reason why Obama
Democrats are now backing away from their earlier enthusiasm for the
public employee union protestors chanting in the streets of Madison,
Wisconsin, against Republican Gov. Scott Walker and the newly-elected
GOP majorities in the state senate and house may be their realization
that they're on the losing side.
Too bad they didn't consult with
Richard Pollock before filling the busses with protestors headed to
Wisconsin. Pollock is Pajamas TV's Washington editor and is a former Fox
News and ABC Good Morning America producer. He is an insightful analyst
of Washington's never-ending insider politicking.
Pollock thinks
the Madison protests represented the second of a two-track Obama 2012
re-election strategy. The first track, of course, was the effort to
portray Obama as the moderate guy willing to compromise with the new
Republican sheriffs in town following their 2010 election sweep.
Compromising with the newly resurgent GOP to extend the Bush tax cuts
for a couple of years was the first major manifestation of the first
track and predictably earned Obama widespread praise among Democrats and
the mainstream media for emulating President Clinton's successful 1996
re-election strategy.
But Pollock argues in his latest Pajamas
Media column that Wisconsin was the flawed beginning of the second track
and Obama and his advisors got it all wrong:
"The decision by the
Democratic Party and its allies to draw a line in the sand in Wisconsin
was the wrong strategy, in the wrong state, at the wrong time, on the
wrong issue, and executed in the wrong way.
"The White House,
which for the last two years seemed so tone deaf over health care, jobs,
and the economy, may again be displaying a stunning political
miscalculation. Unless the Democrats pull the plug on their
ill-conceived Wisconsin campaign, the statewide and national backlash
now beginning to emerge may continue to resonate all the way to the 2012
presidential elections."
The tip-off was Obama's giving an
interview to a Wisconsin television reporter at the height of the
Egyptian crisis. Why would Obama, allegedly engrossed with managing
the crisis in the Middle East, suddenly pull back to blast the budget and
labor policies of a newly-elected GOP governor in a safe Democratic
state?
"The Wisconsin political blitzkrieg on Gov. Walker was not
a spontaneous eruption. It is now clear that it was a highly organized
operation planned in Washington, D.C., to unleash a national
counterattack on the gains made by Republicans and Tea Party activists,"
Pollock said.
"Getting Organizing for America and the president
to act in close coordination was itself no small feat. The plan included
busing in thousands of government employees, arranging for Democratic
lawmakers to flee to an adjoining state, flying speakers and political
organizers into Madison, organizing thousands to leave their jobs in
public safety and in classrooms, and staging rallies inside and outside
the statehouse. They even enticed sympathetic doctors to draft bogus
doctor excuses for government workers," he said.
"It all worked
like a charm. Except that it struck all the wrong notes and portrayed
all the wrong images."
Pollock knows a little something about
images. Go
here for the rest of a must-read column.
Team Obama Realizes 2012 Will Be Harder
Than 2008
Jim Geraghty
comments on this item from the Wall Street Journal:
Barack Obama’s advisors are telling
potential donors that he is in a weaker position heading into the
2012 election than he was in 2008 and are detailing potential
vulnerabilities of likely opponents, according to people who have
seen their presentation.
Is this surprising? The Obama of 2008 ran on
promises. The Obama of 2012 will have to run on a record, and a
record that is significantly less appealing than the gauzy
hope-and-change vision of his promises. It was one thing to be the
blank slate and to be simultaneously be the preferred candidate of
Markos Moulitsas and Colin Powell, of Barbara Streisand and Warren
Buffett. But the slate is not so blank, and after taking a leap of
faith during the tumult of the 2008 financial meltdown, a significant
number of independents are recoiling from their decision…
The donor meetings and the recent hiring of
several senior campaign staff members are among the early moves
Obama aides have made before the official launch of the president’s
re-election effort, which Democratic officials say will come shortly
after April 1.
April Fool’s Day. Insert your own joke here.
Part of Mr. Messina’s presentation is to
caution donors that while Mr. Obama has recovered after the
trouncing his party took in the 2010 elections and is
well-positioned for 2012, he will face a tough re-election fight
that will require substantial donor support, according to people
familiar with the presentation. The slide show cites Michigan
and Pennsylvania as places where Mr. Obama’s standing has dropped
since 2008 while GOP support has gone up. Using bureaucratic
short hand for President of the United States, the slides warn:
"POTUS maintains clear but narrowed support" and note there is
"significant work to do to increase support among key demographics."
Either of those states would be fantastic for the
GOP to win, but neither are necessary. In fact, if Obama loses
either of those, his reelection bid is all but finished. It’s
interesting that the slide show doesn’t mention keeping any of his
surprising wins from 2008 -- Indiana, North Carolina, or Virginia -- and
that they’re not focused on traditional swing states Ohio or Florida.
Obama Will Not Be Reelected
Timothy Naegele says, like former Presidents
Jimmy Carter and Lyndon Johnson before him, in 1980 and 1968
respectively, Barack Obama will not be reelected in 2012. The twin
pincers of a domestic economy in the throes of the "Great Depression II"
-- which economic historians will describe as such, or by using similar
terms 20-40 years from now -- and his failed Vietnam-like Afghan war
will seal his political fate. Other factors will contribute
mightily too, such as the perception that he is "out of touch" just as
Jimmy Carter was; and that Obama is a silver-tongued, narcissistic
"foreign born" demagogue who is un-American. Perceptions often
become reality, certainly in politics.
We are witnessing the end
of Obama as a politician now. The zenith of his presidency
occurred with the enactment of ObamaCare, just as Hillary Clinton’s
health care efforts marked the "high water mark" of her influence during
Bill Clinton’s presidency. Obama’s nadir is yet to come, but the
2010 mid-term election debacle represented an important milestone on the
slippery downward slope of his presidency. The domestic economy
will get far worse; his Afghan war is a morass that seems unwinnable and
inescapable; and national security issues loom -- such as North Korea
and Iran -- which may prove "hazardous" at best.
Barack Obama is
a failed politician whose "magic" has come and gone. He is not
merely a bad president. He may have the distinction of going down
in history as one of the worst presidents that America has ever had, or
perhaps the worst depending on what happens during the remainder of his
term in office. That he is presiding over a failed presidency is
not in dispute. The only question becomes: how bad will things get
for the American nation, its people and for him, before he leaves public
office? It is fair to surmise that we have only seen the tip of an
enormous political, economic, social and national security "iceberg" --
or nightmare -- reminiscent of the one that the RMS Titanic struck in
1912.
It is not beyond the pale to believe that scandals will
engulf Barack Obama as more and more is learned about who he is and how
he has governed, and what he and others in his administration have done
during the time they have been entrusted with the presidency.
Barack Obama is no Bill Clinton: a "cat" with seemingly nine lives
politically. He is a "mix" between Carter who was perceived as
cerebral and out of touch, and Johnson who was viciously maligned and
prevented from running for reelection.
When I was a young Army
officer stationed at the Pentagon, before working on Capitol Hill, I
remember bumper stickers on cars in the District of Columbia that asked:
"Where is Lee Harvey Oswald now that we really need him?" -- a reference
to John F. Kennedy’s killer. Johnson was hated, and such implied
threats were real. There are rising negative sentiments about
Obama today, involving large numbers of Americans who are not racially
prejudiced or merely disillusioned.
Henry Reske and Ashley Martella
say Barack Obama’s re-election chances are imperiled by the
combination of rising food and gas prices, Democratic political analyst
Doug Schoen tells Newsmax.TV.
Regarding another volatile issue,
Schoen said the public opinion battle over collective-bargaining rights
in Wisconsin is in a stalemate but could break for Republicans.
"The combination of rising food and gas prices could pose grave peril to
President Obama’s re-election," Schoen said in an exclusive Newsmax.TV
interview. "Not only would it be inflationary, it literally hits
people where they live. And we saw with Jimmy Carter in the late
'70s the impact of stagflation. If we had a period of stagnant
economic growth, inflation and potentially increasing interest rates it
could be particularly perilous for our president."
With recent
poll numbers showing only 22 percent of likely voters think the country
is headed in the right direction, there is every reason to believe that
the 2012 presidential election will be more competitive than 2008’s,
said Schoen, a political strategist who has worked for both Clintons.
"That being said, the Republicans are divided, there’s no obvious
front-runner for the nomination. And then, come to presidents,
particularly those who can raise a lot of money, have to be taken
seriously, but it’s always a very serious warning sign when the right
direction number for the president drops below 25 percent," he said.
Similarly, he said, the 23 Democratic senators up for re-election in
2012 are in danger because the "circumstances that make Obama unpopular
make them equally, if not more, unpopular."
In Wisconsin, the
battle between Walker and public-sector unions over
collective-bargaining rights and budget deficits is a draw when it comes
to public opinion, with both sides garnering strong support.
"Democrats are certainly mobilized by what they regard as an assault on
the right of labor to organize and bargain collectively," Schoen said.
"But if, as we’ve seen in states like New Jersey and Indiana, there is a
good economic result given the fighting that we’ve seen in the
legislature and in the streets, then I think ultimately it could well
work to Governor Walker’s advantage."
One level where the
Democrats are succeeding is in energizing their base, he said.
"I
think Democrats have shown an unprecedented level of mobilization," he
said. "One-hundred-thousand people in the streets last weekend,
the most since the Vietnam War, that’s huge, that’s really significant. But whether that translates into broad based across the board support
for the Democratic Party remains to be seen."
Obama Close To Announcing Re-Election Bid
David Jackson says, rest assured. He's
running again.
National Journal's Marc Ambinder reports that the
formal announcement is "fewer than three weeks away," and will likely be
made public "with an online video his aides will post on his new
campaign website, Democratic sources familiar with the plans said."
The Obama team plans to let supporters know by text message and
e-mail, Marc adds, and he notes that Obama's hometown of Chicago will be
the site of a Democratic National Committee fundraiser on April 14.
"Democratic donors are being told that it will coincide with the
announcement," National Journal reports. "Obama will attend the
event."
8
million jobs and $3 trillion later,
Obama's 2012 Campaign launch
video was released this morning. It's pretty weak. I'm
surprised at how weak it is.
Here are some of the
Obot's quotes:
Alice -- Unfortunately, Obama is one person,
he cannot go. Plus he got a job!
Ed -- I can't not be
involved. There's just too much that is fundamentally
important right now that is going on... I don't agree with
Obama on everything, but I respect him and I trust him.
Gladys -- There are so many things still on the table that need to
be addressed, and we want them to be addressed by President Obama.
Katherine -- I had this perception that politics was all show,
that it was all sound bites. But "politics" is how we govern
ourselves.
Oprah Won't Back Obama in 2012
Digital Spy
is reporting that Oprah Winfrey reportedly does not plan to publicly
support Barack Obama in the 2012 US presidential election.
Winfrey supported Obama's campaign in 2008, holding a highly publicized
political rally for him during his presidential challenge.
According to a Gallup poll conducted before the rally, Winfrey's
favorable ratings fell from 74 to 66% while her unfavorable ratings
jumped from 17 to 26%.
Her TV show ratings also fell following
the event.
A source has told PopEater that Winfrey doesn't want
to do anything to alienate viewers now that she has launched her OWN
network.
"For 2012, much has changed for Oprah. She now has
her own cable channel called OWN that has been struggling to find an
audience -- she isn't going to do anything to alienate them," the
insider said.
The source added: "Unlike in 2008, when a drop in
ratings didn't matter as much for the queen of TV, Oprah is now fighting
every day to get people to tune into OWN."
The source continued:
"Helping a friend keep the most important job in the world is great, but
making sure her OWN network thrives is now her priority."
Four More Years?
John Hinderaker
says
the conventional wisdom inside the Beltway is that Obama has tacked to
the center following the Republicans' sweep in November, and that his
more moderate approach, exemplified by yesterday's budget deal, is
positioning him favorably for re-election, much like Bill Clinton in
1996.
Perhaps. November 2012 is, in political terms, a very
long way off, and predictions are more or less useless. But Obama
faces some serious challenges in persuading voters to give him another
term. Those challenges are exemplified by current polling data.
Only 28 percent of likely voters say that they share Obama's
political views, while 57 percent say Obama is more liberal than they
are. Of course, that might not be fatal if voters believe that
Obama's policies have been successful. (I haven't tried to dredge
up the old poll data, but I'm pretty sure that in 1983, most voters said
President Reagan was more conservative than they were, yet he won
re-election in a landslide because it was obvious that his policies had
been successful.)
Here is Obama's problem: in addition to
disagreeing with him in principle, a large majority of voters don't
believe his policies have worked. Currently, only 9 percent of
American adults (not voters) rate the economy as excellent or good,
while 56 percent say it is poor. This explains why Obama's approval
ratings are falling among Hispanics and African-Americans.
There
is still quite a bit of time for Obama to convince swing voters that he
is a moderate and that his policies are effective, but he has a high
mountain to climb.
As A Senator I Voted To Help My Career, Not
The Country
Ed Lasky
says the GOP has just found a campaign sound bite for the
presidential campaign of 2012 and it came from the world's greatest
orator himself: Barack Obama.
Here is what Obama told ABC News
George Stephanopoulos regarding his Senatorial vote in 2006 opposing a
debt increase:
I think that it's important to understand
the vantage point of a senator versus the vantage point of a ...
president. When you're a senator, traditionally what's
happened is, this is always a lousy vote. Nobody likes to be
tagged as having increased the debt limit for the United States by a
trillion dollars. ... As president, you start realizing: 'You
know what? We -- we can't play around with this stuff.
This is the full faith in credit of the United States.' And so
that was just a example of a new senator, you know, making what is a
political vote as opposed to doing what was important for the
country.
Senator Obama only cared about his own political
prospects and not what was important for the future of the country.
Is there any clearer and more honest statement regarding Barack Obama's
priorities?
This is yet another example that the narcissism of
Barack Obama is what has always motivated him. His excessive use
of the personal pronoun "I"; his omnipresence on our television screens,
his stream of inaccuracies, his promises that all come with an
expiration date, his claims, his position on the Iraq War while a
Senator...all geared towards not for the good of the nation but to boost
his own political career.
Did he care about this country when
Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's dictator, slandered America? Instead of
proudly defending our nation, Barack Obama lamely just said that he was
glad Chavez had not blamed him personally for things that had happened
before he was born. Again, it is all about him and not about us or
our nation.
Are we seeing yet another Obama gaffe that the media
will obscure or overlook entirely -- as they have so often the past few
years? Jay Cost of the Weekly Standard noted various mistakes that
Barack Obama has made that, were he a mere mortal or just a Republican,
would have tarnished his image but for the connivance of the media .
This also puts into perspective why Obama "clings" to the
teleprompter. On his own, he stammers and searches for answers or
reveals his antipathies and prejudices (the bitter clingers) and his
lack of empathy (worried about gas prices..hey, dump that gas guzzler
and buy a hybrid SUV).
His handlers -- and perhaps Obama (himself
though he does not seem to be a self-reflective or self-critical man) --
know that to speak from his heart or mind would reveal to Americans the
true Barack Obama behind the image that has been packaged and peddles to
us.
And that would not help him win a second term.
After Pinocchio-on-the-Potomac We Need To
Vet All Candidates
Michael Oberndorf
says
whether the voters like it or not, and whether they care or not,
politicians have declared that the coffee break is over and the campaign
for the presidential election, to be held in November, 2012 -- over 600
days from now -- has officially begun. Thus, since the fool who
currently occupies the White House is already using our tax dollars to
pay for his campaign appearances, it is time to remind voters who this
guy really is.
Despite the claims of the Ministry of Propaganda,
aka, the "mainstream" media, that we don’t really know who Obama-Soetoro
is, anyone who has paid even the slightest attention knows exactly who
he is. He has told us, in proud, arrogant detail in his two
self-aggrandizing supposed autobiographies, and his campaign speeches.
These have been augmented by a great deal of research by patriot
investigators, published in books of their own and on websites such as
this one.
The simple truth is that Obama-Soetoro’s father was an
anti-colonialist (read: anti-capitalist, anti-white) communist, and
Barry states in his first book that the dreams of his father are his
dreams, too. Many believe that this book was ghost-written by Bill
Ayers, an unrepentant communist terrorist. His mentor as a teen
was Frank Marshall Davis, a communist. His mother and her parents,
who raised him, were socialists, and probably communists. When
(if?) he was in college, he, by his own admission, sought out radical
leftist professors and communist students for his companions. He
thought of himself as a disciple of extreme radical communist, Saul
Alinsky. And for 20 years, he attended the "church" of Jeremiah
Wright, who preached Marxist black nationalism, and hatred for whites
and America. Wright presided at his wedding and baptized his
children, and was described by Obama-Soetoro as his "Uncle."
Though he may not be a practicing Muslim, he was raised as one as a
child, and has an obvious preference for Islam over Christianity.
Given these facts, the notion put forth by the Ministry of Propaganda,
the radical leftist Democrats, and the running-dog RINOS, especially in
the Senate, that this fraud is a moderate of any kind is a bald-faced
lie.
A word or two about the New Left that Saul Alinsky was a
part of is necessary to put these ideas that the current administration
holds so dear into their proper perspective. The New Left saw
itself going beyond the traditional communism of Stalin and Mao.
They believed their version to be ideologically pure, unsullied by any
materialism, cult of personality, or lust for power. Whether this
was cynical sleight of hand or incredible naiveté is debatable, but led
to a "true believer" mentality. It was they who picked up the term
"political correctness" from Mao’s brutal Cultural Revolution, and made
it a permanent part of our modern vocabulary.
At the heart of New
Left thinking was the fundamental concept of revolution by destruction
of the existing system. Capitalism, private property, and
individual freedom must be destroyed, completely, for the revolution to
really begin. They had no real idea what they would put in its
stead, just amorphous pie-in-the-sky ideas of some sort of utopian,
communitarian society that would perfect itself and obviate the need for
any government at all. Amazing how many "intellectuals" bought
into this childish, half-baked nonsense to the point of being willing,
like Obama-Soetoro’s dear friends and mentors, Bill Ayers and his wife
Bernadine Dohrn, to murder innocent people.
I have seen no
actions, nor heard any words from the Prevaricator-in-Chief to disabuse
me of the notion that these are still his prime, driving, ideological
beliefs. While he is indeed incompetent, those who write the
speeches for, and pull the strings of the Pinocchio-on-the-Potomac, like
global neo-fascist George Soros, are less so, and every destructive
policy, executive order, and piece of legislation emanating from this
administration has been aimed at damaging the capitalist,
constitution-based culture, and republican form of government that has
kept us free for well over 200 years.
We need to recognize that
the Democrat Party has been taken over by like-minded extreme Marxist
radicals and neo-fascists. And we need to recognize that far too
many self-proclaimed conservative Republicans have no problem "reaching
across the aisle" and "compromising" with these enemies of America and
freedom. With what is likely to be the most important election in
the past 150 years coming up, we need to rid our country of those who
would sell us out to totalitarian, global
socialism/communism/neo-fascism, and greedy self-interest.
Look
carefully at those who are putting themselves up for election.
Check their records. Find out where their money comes from.
See what organizations they belong to, and were members of in the past.
Be thorough. We cannot afford any more mistakes.
Surprise! Obama's ACORN Thugs Are Alive And
Preparing For 2012
Matthew Vadum says ACORN is far, far worse than
everything you've heard. It celebrates and promotes the worst
pathologies in society in an effort to kill the American experiment in
self-governance.
And the rumors of ACORN's death have been
greatly exaggerated. The radical group declared bankruptcy at the
end of 2010, but its leaders acknowledge that they are building a new
network of activist groups to continue ACORN's work undermining
America's free institutions.
ACORN chief organizer Bertha Lewis has created a group called the
Black Institute whose agenda is essentially identical to ACORN's. ACORN
founder Wade Rathke is spreading the gospel
of Marxist social justice around the world through his offshoot group
ACORN International (also known as Community Organizations
International).
State chapters have incorporated themselves under
new names. New York became New York Communities for Change. California
became Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment. Texas became
Texas Organizing Project. ACORN's vote manufacturing division, Project
Vote, still operates under the same name and small-c communist
Frances
Fox Piven still sits on its board, and on the board of
Project Vote, another
ACORN entity. ACORN's housing bubble generator,
ACORN Housing, changed its name to Affordable Housing Centers of
America. It's the same people in the same offices and it just goes on
and on.
ACORN insiders have admitted that the "new" groups will
re-federate under a new name soon.
ACORN is a "boiler room"
operation. Once the authorities get wind of it, it moves and assumes a
new name while it seeks out fresh victims. Long before two conservative
activists captured ACORN employees on video offering to assist in the
creation of a brothel for pedophiles, ACORN insiders knew the game plan. They knew the day would come when the ACORN brand was so tarnished it
was time to go underground. After the videos revealed what ACORN was
really about, its leaders set about laying the groundwork for ACORN's
rebirth.
ACORN has been subverting the
electoral system for years. It's what they do.
Click this link, cursor down
the page and read the titles.
Classic Alinsky
Pamela Geller
asks, "did you see these tee-shirts on Obama's 2012 campaign site?"
Methinks he dost protest too much. Imagine an incumbent having
to do this -- is it supposed to be funny? I mean, really. It's pathetic.
Can't he at least pretend not to hold us in complete contempt? Could
any other candidate for the office run a tee like this and not get his
ass handed to him? And the ObamaMedia wets itself for this usurper.
RULE 5:
"Ridicule is man's most potent weapon." There is no defense.
It's irrational. It's infuriating. It also works as a key
pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.
RULE 6:
"A good tactic is one 'my people' enjoy." They'll keep doing it
without urging and come back to do more. They're doing their
thing, and will even suggest better ones.
RULE 8:
"Keep the pressure on. Never let up." I keep trying new
things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition
masters one approach, I hit them from the flank with something new.
RULE 10:
"If I push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a
positive." The public sympathizes with the underdog.
And the
campaign is making money to boot!
Poll Numbers Are Politically Lethal For
Obama
Peter Wehner
says that two recent polls have
come out measuring the mood of the nation, and the results should give
David Axelrod nightmares.
One
poll, sponsored by The Hill
newspaper, found that almost half of American voters (46 percent) say
they feel worse off than they did a year ago. That’s almost three
times as many as the 16 percent who feel more affluent today than a year
ago. (Around one-third of voters -- 36 percent -- say their
economic situation has remained essentially unchanged from 12 months
ago.) "Almost two years after the recession officially ended,
pronounced pessimism about the economy lingers," according to the
accompanying Hill story: "It’s worrying for President Obama that voters
are especially bleak when asked about their personal circumstances."
Then there’s a new Fox News
poll, which found that by wide margins
Republicans (82 percent) and independents (71 percent) think the country
is weaker now than it was five years ago. Only 4 percent of
Republicans and 9 percent of Democrats say America is stronger today
than it was five years ago. Among Democrats, 47 percent say
weaker, only 27 percent say stronger, and 25 percent say the same as
before. Now to be fair, five years ago was 2006, before the Great
Recession hit. (It was also before the Obama presidency hit.)
Taken together, the two polls reinforce what others have said: the
American people, by large numbers, are pessimistic, anxious, and believe
the trajectory of the nation is downward rather than upward. We
are in the midst of what they perceive to be an American decline.
And that is the kind of thing that can be politically lethal for an
incumbent presidentusurper.
Does Anyone in the GOP Want to Beat Obama?
Wayne Allyn Root
says Republican Presidential contenders are melting like tourists on
the Vegas Strip, without sunscreen, on a 117 degree day in July.
Doesn’t anyone in the GOP actually want to run against the worst
president in modern American history?
It can’t be Obama’s record
that’s scaring Republicans. Obama is overseeing the worst economy
since 1929…contributed heavily to the worst sovereign debt crisis in
history…presiding over the worst collapse in real estate ever…helping to
ensure the highest gas prices in history by refusing to allow oil
drilling until recently…the list goes on and on. You’d think the
Republican contenders would be licking their lips at running against
that record? Instead they are falling by the wayside.
Let’s
examine the carnage. This analyst and political pundit predicted
Donald Trump’s political career was over three weeks ago when "The
Donald" played casino pit boss and F-bombed his way through a Vegas
speech. Have you ever heard of multiple F-bombs in a major
political speech in by a presidential contender? Unimaginable.
Forget the birth certificate controversy. Trump was still
sitting high in the polls even after Obama released his birth
certificate. But there was no escaping using multiple F-bombs on
the biggest political stage. Not in a GOP filled with evangelical
Christian voters, and parents who wash their children’s mouth out with
soap for using that same word. Donald "F-bomb" Trump’s political
career ended that day in Vegas.
What about Huckabee? A
presidential frontrunner, this former man of God couldn’t turn down fame
and money. Huckabee proves even the presidency isn’t as lucrative
as a TV show on Fox News.
Then there’s Newt Gingrich. I
winced as I heard Newt’s words on Sunday. It’s tough to watch a
political career implode on national TV. Newt’s career is over.
Forget president. I mean any future political career.
Senator. Governor. Dog catcher. Newt was electrocuted
on the third rail of GOP politics. He supported big government
control of our lives, backed the central tenet of ObamaCare, called the
GOP proposal for cutting Medicare spending "radical right wing social
engineering," and back-stabbed GOP Congressional hero Paul Ryan.
All in one day. Goodnight Newt. You and your third wife can
go home now.
And then there’s Mitt Romney. Mitt had the
White House for the asking. One speech apologizing for RomneyCare
and promising to never allow it to happen again, and Romney is the next
President of the United States. Here’s the speech that Mitt should
have given:
"I made a big mistake. States can act
as laboratories for new ideas. We tried an experiment with
government-directed health care in my state. It didn’t work.
Costs are up. Waits are up. Doctors are leaving the
state. The experiment failed. I was wrong and I
apologize. But good things can come out of failure, if you
learn a lesson. Here’s what I learned. Big Government
cannot manage the nation’s healthcare system…or anything else.
Government drove a brothel into bankruptcy in Nevada.
Government ran gambling (Off Track Betting) into bankruptcy in New
York. Big Government has given you a $14 trillion national
debt -- $100 trillion if you add in unfunded liabilities. Your
children and grandchildren face a bleak future because of Big
Government. Big Government is a failure; I proved it in
Massachusetts. I won’t let it happen again. I’ve learned
from my mistake. I will not allow Obama to destroy our
healthcare system by putting the government in charge. You
have my word." Insert: STANDING OVATION.
But no, Mitt didn’t deliver that speech. He
delivered the only speech that could possibly snatch defeat from the
jaws of certain victory. He defended the disaster he created in
Massachusetts. Really? Could anyone be that blind, deaf and
dumb? Who wrote his speech -- the Chicago Cubs?
Then we
come to Libertarian legend Ron Paul. When it comes to economic
issues, Paul is a visionary. This trailblazer warned America and
the GOP about the dangers of big government, overspending and the Fed
long before it was hip. If he ran as a Libertarian or independent
third party candidate, Paul might actually have an opportunity to win
the presidency, or at least build a serious third party movement.
Unfortunately his views on war, military spending, and Osama will make
it highly unlikely he can win a GOP primary. But I see an ideal
role for Congressman Paul in any Republican administration -- Treasury
Secretary or Federal Reserve Chief. Now that would have an impact.
Doesn’t anyone want to beat Obama? Who’s left? Tim
Pawlenty and Mitch Daniels? Two boring middle-aged white guys with
the charisma of Al Gore? That’s the best the GOP has?
Watching wet paint dry is more exciting, than watching Pawlenty or
Daniels deliver a speech. Sorry, boys, but wet paint drying isn’t
going to defeat Obama. Not if he has his teleprompter working
properly.
Yes others could yet become the dark-horse for the GOP
nomination -- Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Gary Johnson, perhaps even
Sarah Palin.
But someone in the GOP had better hope that Chris
Christie is having a change of heart. Then get down on your knees
and pray. Pray hard. Then ring the doorbell of the New
Jersey Governor’s mansion and start begging. Because without a
Christie miracle, the worst president in modern history just became the
favorite for re-election.
The Vanishing Barack Obama
Kevin "Coach" Collins
says that clear eyed observers recognize Barack Obama will not have
an easy road to reelection. A steady stream of poor, and outright
suspicious, decisions has become the hallmark of his administration. He
stands exposed as a man overmatched by the demands of his office.
Obama’s well documented failings will provide ample material for
whomever the GOP nominates. Nevertheless, the worst enemy of Obama’s
reelection chances may be inexorably building without much notice.
The worst calamity a candidate can face is being laughed at, but the
second worst is being ignored. Evidence that the voting public may be
ignoring Obama is building and this portents great danger for his
reelection.
There was a time not long ago when people stopped
whatever they were doing to hear an American president’s speech. This
was the case at the beginning of Obama’s administration. In December
2009 almost 41 million people stopped whatever they had going to watch
Obama’s speech about Afghanistan. Last June, when he spoke to us about
the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico those who viewed his speech numbered
32.1 million. His August 2010 talk on Iraq had 29.2 million viewers
which was bad enough, but substantially better than the alarmingly low
25.5 million who tuned in for his speech on Libya.
Since the
beginning of Obama’s term of office, the Rasmussen poll has reported on
the difference between the percentages of likely voters who strongly
approve of Obama and those likely voters who strongly disapprove of
him. On his first day in office, Obama enjoyed a huge PLUS SIDE
advantage of about 30 points. He stayed in plus territory until the
middle of August 2009 when the spread fell into the negative where it
has stayed ever since. While this negative spread has held at about 12
points on average with a low of -22, finding the real significance of
these numbers requires a closer look.
Not only have Obama’s
strongly approve numbers slid ever downward, his strongly disapprove
numbers are sliding in virtual lockstep as well. Both are now at levels
showing nearly 60% of likely voters have made up their minds about
Obama, and 61% of them don’t care what he says.
Obama and his
advisers must recognize the dark shadow of apathy engulfing his
presidency. Why else would they release a putatively genuine birth
certificate so early in this cycle? Why would they execute bin Laden
now when they were obviously sitting on certain knowledge of his
whereabouts for months? Why else would Obama try to convince us he is
ready to drill all over the country?
Why would Obama be "burning
the furniture to stay warm"? Could it be because he is feeling ignored?
Obama Heading For Electoral Disaster In
2012
Nile Gardiner
says on a recent visit to London I was struck by how much faith many
British politicians, journalists and political advisers have in Barack
Obama being re-elected in 2012. In the aftermath of the hugely
successful Special Forces operation that took out Osama Bin Laden and a
modest spike in the polls for him, the conventional wisdom among
political elites in Britain is overwhelmingly that Obama will win
another four years in the Oval Office. Add to this a widespread
perception of continuing disarray in the Republican race, as well as a
State Visit to London that had the chattering classes worshipping at the
feet of the US president, and you can easily see why Obama's prospects
look a lot rosier from across the Atlantic.
But back in the
United States, the reality looks a lot different. Many political
leaders in Britain fail to understand the degree to which the American
people are deeply unhappy with Obama's poor handling of the economy.
Nor have they grasped the epic scale of the defeat suffered by him in
the November mid-terms, and the emphatic rejection by a clear majority
of Americans of the Big Government Obama agenda.
Just seven
months ago, the United States was swept by a conservative revolution
that fundamentally transformed the political landscape on Capitol Hill,
and gravely weakened the ability of Obama to pass legislation.
This revolution is not in retreat but gaining ground, led by charismatic
figures such as Paul Ryan, the Reaganite chairman of the House Budget
Committee, entrusted with reining in out of control government spending.
And as a Gallup poll showed, America is unquestionably a conservative
country ideologically, but one that is ironically led by the most
left-wing president in the nation's history.
Ultimately, the 2012
presidential election will be decided by the state of the economy, and
new data released this week makes grim reading for the White House.
In fact you cannot watch a US financial news network at the moment, from
Bloomberg to CNBC to Fox Business, without a great deal of pessimism
about the dire condition of the world's biggest economy. 66
percent of Americans now worry the federal government will run out of
money in the face of towering public debts.
To say this has been
an extremely bad week for the Obama administration on the economic front
would be a serious understatement. As The Wall Street Journal
reported on Wednesday, home prices in the United States have sunk to
their lowest levels since 2002, falling 4.2 percent in the first quarter
of 2011. At the same time, employment growth is stalling, with
only 38,000 Americans added to the workforce in May, the smallest
increase since September. This compares with 179,000 jobs added in
April. There has also been a steep slowdown in the manufacturing
sector, and a downturn in the stock market on the back of weak economic
news.
Bill Clinton's labor secretary Robert Reich summed up the
grim mood in a hard-hitting op-ed in The Financial Times, which took aim
at both the administration and Congress:
The US economy was supposed to be in bloom
by late spring, but it is hardly growing at all. Expectations
for second-quarter growth are not much better than the measly 1.8
per cent annualized rate of the first quarter. That is not
nearly fast enough to reduce America's ferociously high level of
unemployment… Meanwhile, housing prices continue to fall.
They are now 33 per cent below their 2006 peak. That is a
bigger drop than recorded in the Great Depression. Homes are
the largest single asset of the American middle class, so as housing
prices drop many Americans feel poorer. All of this is
contributing to a general gloominess. Not surprisingly,
consumer confidence is also down.
Unsurprisingly, the polls are again looking
problematic for Obama. The latest Rasmussen Presidential Tracking
Poll shows just 25 percent of Americans strongly approving of his
performance, with 36 percent strongly disapproving, for a Presidential
Approval Index rating of minus 11 points. In a projected match up
between Obama and a Republican opponent, Obama now trails by two points
according to Rasmussen -- 43 to 45. The RealClear Politics poll of
polls shows just over a third of Americans (34.5 percent) agreeing that
the country is heading in the right direction, with nearly three fifths
(56.8 percent) believing it is heading down the wrong track. That
negative figure rises to a staggering 66 percent of likely voters in a
new Rasmussen survey, including 41 percent of Democrats.
There
is no feel good factor in America at the moment. But there is a
great deal of uncertainty, nervousness, even fear over the future of the
world's only superpower. This is hardly a solid foundation for a
presidential victory for the incumbent. Even though we don't know
yet who he will be up against, Barack Obama could well go into 2012 as
the underdog rather than the favorite he is frequently portrayed as.
On balance we're likely to see a very close race 17 months from now.
But there is also the distinct possibility of an electoral rout of Obama
if the economy goes further south. "Hope and change" might have
played well in 2008, but it is a message that will likely ring hollow in
November 2012, with an American public that is deeply disillusioned with
the direction Obama is taking the country.
, ACORN
is restructuring in time to help re-elect Obama in 2012. Obama
used to work for ACORN and represented the group in court as its lawyer.
