May 30, 2012

"A lot of politicians can go negative without losing too much altitude, but President Barack Obama doesn’t seem to be that guy."

Writes Glenn Thrush in Politco:
Obama’s sag — and it’s definitely more of a sag than a collapse — is a natural function of reluctant Republicans finally coalescing behind Romney, who clinched the nomination Tuesday night with a victory in Texas.

But the president’s enemies, and a few of his friends, think his in-your-face negativity, on display in his attacks on Bain Capital and a snark offensive that included comparing Romney’s statements to a “cow pie of distortion,” have produced a backlash among independent voters who have finally given up the image of Obama as a new-breed politician....

Nowhere has Obama’s slide been more dramatic than in supposedly safe Wisconsin — currently in the throes of a highly contentious gubernatorial recall election — where Obama’s margin over Romney has plunged from as much as 17 points in the early spring to about 3 points, according to Real Clear Politics’s average of the last four polls in the state....
Well, now don't blame the Wisconsin collapse entirely on Obama.  You've got to put some of the blame on the pumped-up protesters who stormed the Capitol last year and banged on drums and chanted for months, until they conjured up of vision of taking down Governor Scott Walker in a recall election. That delusive mission has flooded the people of this state with all manner of propaganda, left and right, and who knows what that does to the precious, all-important independent voters?

25 comments:

Matt Sablan said...

It's kind of good that journalists are finally getting around to realizing that the stenography they did for Obama's 2008 campaign was a total fabrication. He fought just as dirty as anyone else going for the job, he just has enough people saying he wasn't that some people believed it. Good for journalists being four years late to the fact party.

edutcher said...

Walker has made the choice between the Choom Way and anything else pretty stark.

People don't want 4 more years.

PS Glenn Thrush missed his calling.

He could make a fortune teaching women to fellate like that.

Matt Sablan said...

“Nothing, I mean nothing that has happened has been unexpected,” added Axelrod, who says all of Obama’s internal calculations included a tightening of the race into the margin of error.

-- Oh, Axelrod. It's so beautiful that he thinks we believe that.

Methadras said...

Wisconsin leftards are and were sound and fury signifying nothing. Literally.

Matt Sablan said...

“One of the refreshing changes when the president was elected — he talked about hope and change,” Schieffer said. “Whatever happened to hope and change? Now, it seems he’s coming right out of the box with these old-fashioned negative ads.”

-- Poor Schieffer. He, too, missed most of the 2008 campaign, it seems. I think it would be charming to be so naive and so well-paid and loved.

edutcher said...

BTW, where was this guy 4 years ago when Zero was telling his droids to, "Get in their faces."?

Slightly OT: Interesting result in TX. Looks like Sarah Palin's endorsement counts for a lot more than Zero's.

Comanche Voter said...

Cowpie of distortion indeed; the headline on that advertisement is "Mitt Romney and Bain Capital drove the profitable company into bankruptcy".

Give me a break. Whether you want to call it vulture capitalism or not, private equity companies make their meat and potatoes on turning weak companies around. If it wa a "profitable" company Bain probably wouldn't have shown up. And if it was a profitable company it wouldn't be in bankruptcy.

Axelrod and Ploufee specialize in the Huey P. Long kind of bamboozling. They sell low cockahirum out of the left side of their mouth, and high cockalowrum out of the right side of their mouth.

It is true that you can treat effectively 55% of the population as low grade morons and feed them this sort of pap. But the rest of us can figure it out. And you can't count on everyone of those 55% showing up at the polls.

An electoral victory is within Romney's reach, but you can't count out the GOP's tendency to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

traditionalguy said...

Obama won by using his loving smile and a persona of a meek black man who could not be denied a vote from a nation where MLK had so recently captured the minds of living folks with guilt.

That is up in smoke now. He is seen as he is for a petulant, antisemitic, surrender monkey that conjures up mythical wars on women and mythical wars on the 99% while selling Crony Capitalism out the back door to his Green Energy Cabal paying them a million dollars per temporary job while the coal electrical generation of the USA has actually been outlawed by Dictat.

But those third rate myths do not begin to replace the 2008 demand to be the first African-maybe-American, President.

MayBee said...

Obama had kind words for the Wisconsin protestors at one time, did he not?

You can't blame the WI slump on Obama, but you can see he's in a slump by observing he isn't there fighting for the Democrat or the unions now.

Has he even cut an ad for Barrett?

kjbe said...

...and who knows what that does to the precious, all-important independent voters?

What, all 6 of them?

Original Mike said...

"Oh, Axelrod. It's so beautiful that he thinks we believe that."

If Axelrod didn't think this was going to be a tough election for Obama, given the condition his guy has left the country, then he's not worth his paycheck.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Romney took on risk in the private market. Obama risks and loses tax payer money every day, makes his cronies and donors rich, blames everyone else for the mess, then heads out for another round of golf.

MayBee said...

"Some of what I've heard coming out of Wisconsin, where they're just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain generally, seems like more of an assault on unions," Obama told a Milwaukee television reporter on Thursday, taking the unusual step of inviting a local TV station into the White House for a sit-down interview. "I think everybody's got to make some adjustments, but I think it's also important to recognize that public employees make enormous contributions to our states and our citizens."

Obama's people helped organize some of those protests.

Original Mike said...

"Cowpie of distortion indeed; the headline on that advertisement is "Mitt Romney and Bain Capital drove the profitable company into bankruptcy"."

Profitable??????? I've read the history of that company. How the hell can he claim that???

Christopher in MA said...

"Whatever happened to hope and change?"

Hell, whatever happened to Randolph Scott?

As Insty is wont to say, another rube self-dentifies.

MayBee said...

Poor Axelrod. Life was so much easier when he could just kick poor people out of Michelle and Val's emergency rooms and label it community affairs.

Zach said...

Is Obama really that likeable? I mean, Clinton, I could see -- the man was garrulous, extroverted, smiled a lot, empathized with people. But Obama always strikes me as snide, inappropriately competitive, blame oriented. When he had a majority in Congress he was overbearing; when he had a minority he whined and quit trying to do things.

Maybe I'm just detached from things from living overseas. But the Obama campaign often seems to think that it's going to be another coronation, with Obama as a beloved figure and Romney as little more than a joke candidate. And frankly, I don't see where that's coming from.

Matt Sablan said...

"If Axelrod didn't think this was going to be a tough election for Obama, given the condition his guy has left the country, then he's not worth his paycheck."

-- But, nothing that has happened has been unexpected! Did Axelrod see Obama losing to Romney on *women* in at least one poll? Did he see Romney having a counter-Bain ad literally in the bag ready to go as soon as Obama stepped into the cowpie of distortion?

That's the laughable part.

Shanna said...

included a tightening of the race into the margin of error.

I'm pretty sure races usually tighten close to the election, not in May.

eelpout said...

Poll shows dead heat. Looks to be a barn burner!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/dem-poll-walker-recall-battle-is-a-dead-heat/2012/05/30/gJQAqnso1U_blog.html

edutcher said...

Zach said...

Is Obama really that likeable?

From about the '10 elections (or maybe as far back as the Skippy Gates press conference), Little Zero's viewership when he speaks on TV has been steadily dropping. That says to me people are tuning him out and, no, that didn't happen to Reagan.

PS Don't know that Willie was all that likable, either, but the media had everybody snowed on the idea we had peace and prosperity with him and some people seemed to be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt (I think the polls highballed him the way the do Zero) until L'Affaire Monica.

Original Mike said...

"Is Obama really that likeable?"

I've never understood it, even from the beginning.

Unknown said...

Lots of presidents were fighters -- I, in my naivete, cringed when Reagan called the USSR "the evil empire" -- but Obama's mistake is that he always punches down.

It just makes him look small.

Fen said...
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Fen said...
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