In a front page article yesterday, Mark L. Andler of the New York Times reported that
President Obama is heading into his re-election campaign with plans to step up his offensive against an unpopular Congress, concluding that he cannot pass any major legislation in 2012 because of Republican hostility toward his agenda.
Andler fails to report that Republicans won a majority in the House while picking up six seats in the Senate (and coming close to winning two more) because of popular hostility toward Obama’s agenda. That said, the article is reasonably fair. (Do wonder if the paper would so accurately report the campaign plan of a Republican incumbent — or candidate.)
Indeed, Andler acknowledges the risks of “Mr. Obama’s confrontational approach” and takes note of something conservative bloggers (and pundits) have been highlighting since the early days of this administration:
However the White House chooses to frame Mr. Obama’s strategy, it amounts to a wholesale makeover of the young senator who won the presidency in 2008 by promising to change the culture of Washington, rise above the partisan fray and seek compromises.
Emphasis added. Of course, Mr. Andler’s paper didn’t report the Democratic Party and legacy media’s wholesale makeover of the left-wing activist/politician into a post-partisan new kind of leader. In short, the Democrat will attempt to win reelection through the politics of division, by attacking his ideological adversaries.
This represents another risk for the man who ran, in 2008, on the upbeat themes of hope and change. As As Salena Zito observed in studying Obama’s faltering support in Iowa:
Yet with guys like Allen Anthony [a “furloughed employee at a “green’ technology firm where Obama once spoke], Barack Obama still lacks a persuasive reason for them to turn out and vote for him.
Emphasis added. Via Instapundit.
He didn’t offer any valid reasons to vote for him four years ago either. Vapidity and smoke and mirrors (and no doubt his skin color) won the day.
Obama wore a “halo” as he waxed on about “hope and change”. But, he rammed Bush in every conceivable way and painted McCain as more of the same.
This round, the Republican candidate has two choices: 1) Explain what he will do to fix things; 2) Keep hammering Obama and keep him on the ropes defending himself and pleading for more time.
Obama will not campaign on anything more than two things: 1) the do-nothing Republican Congress that has ruined the soup at every turn; and 2) attacking any plan by the Republican candidate as a one-way ticket to what got us into this mess.
Unfortunately, the Republican candidate will have to run a campaign that keeps battering away at Obama the man while promoting the image of what a real president of all of the people is required to do. The Republican candidate will have to defy the conventional wisdom that the sacred independents will not vote for a Republican candidate who attacks the man.
The Democrats fight dirty as an art form. We can count on Obama to amp up his Chicago style and shift and twist to stay on the offensive. He is counting on the Republican candidate to get punch drunk and have to defend himself and the Bush years.
The New York Times will not report anything that looks like The Won is getting treated to his own game. That partisan rag will join with their candidate and gang-bang the Republican candidate.
Nothing I have written above is remarkable insight in any way.
Obama this…. Obama that….
Yawn.
Funny. One aspect that no one is looking at right now that will be a factor…. Anything Obama is boring now.
Three years ago, there was a level of excitement surrounding this guy! Even opponents at the time could not deny it. You might not have liked him, but, man, there was “buzz” all over that candidate. I haven’t seen anything like it since I was first able to vote in 1983! And I would be lying if I didn’t admit that, in some recess of my reptilian brain, I felt compelled to vote for him!!!!!
I didn’t of course. I don’t vote for a candidate based on “feelings”.
This time around, that “magic” is gone. He is no longer the miraculous outsider (of course, he never was, but they were able to whitewash that) who can run a platform of opaqueness, on smoke and mirrors, and promising that he will make everyone’s dreams come true! Now he must face the reality of having a record that, despite the numerous assists he’ll no doubt get from the MSM, he can’t run from.
Sonic,
You are correct. However, the electoral college vote is mapped and studied in the same way that Congressional redistricting in studied and carefully drawn out.
Both sides are studying up the votes that count and working for the magic majority of the electoral college. If it is close, the Democrats are pros at cheating and can create all manner of mayhem. Florida 2000 is a great lesson in how they play the game.
So, Obama may have lost his luster, but that does not mean that the Democrats are stuck with losing the White House. I know that Obama is beatable, but only if it isn’t close enough for the Democrats to go into endless recount mode. As you must know, the more recounts the Democrats get, the more Democrat votes are “found”. They have bushels of “overlooked” ballots they can get their hands on in key precincts. They just need to see the numbers to know exactly where to find the “lost” ballots.
President Obama is making a critical error in his 2012 campaign: He will have to run against 1 Republican candidate for President of the United States; given Obama’s negatives & toxic accomplishments, Obama will have to try NOT to make 2012 about him. With Obama’s narcissism, this will be impossible. He must defend his record & run against 1 Republican candidate for president–not Congress.
But…..but…..but….. IT’S BUSH’S FAULT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In fairness, there is no compelling reason to vote *for* any of the Republicans except that they are not the SCOAMF.
Heliotrope, you are right the Dem will find “lost” ballots if the count is close. They have had plenty practise at it. Sixty some years ago I was a pole watcher. A mole in the city Dem party gave us names to watch for. They showed up but they didn’t vote. The dem Congressman lost that time.
I’m salivating in anticipation of genl election debate zingers:
GOP nominee: “The audacity of WHAT, Mr. President? The audacity of a monstrous and degrading federal deficit? The audacity of apologizing for this nation’s greatness – apologizing, pointedly, to the most modernistically-challenged of humanity’s great civilizations? The audacity of accepting an entirely unmerited Nobel Peace Prize? Audacity, Mr. President, is all about courage. And what you have displayed, Mr. President, is not courage but complacency….”
Something like that. And I only hear the voice of Newt Gingrich delivering it.