2012 Tuesday: Obama officially ditches Hope for Fear
New York Magazine has a revealing and worthwhile look at the Obama campaign’s approach to this year’s election and GOP opponent Mitt Romney. Here is the crux of it:
Though the Obamans certainly hit John McCain hard four years ago — running more negative ads than any campaign in history — what they intend to do to Romney is more savage. They will pummel him for being a vulture-vampire capitalist at Bain Capital. They will pound him for being a miserable failure as the governor of Massachusetts. They will mash him for being a water-carrier for Paul Ryan’s Social Darwinist fiscal program. They will maul him for being a combination of Jerry Falwell, Joe Arpaio, and John Galt on a range of issues that strike deep chords with the Obama coalition. “We’re gonna say, ‘Let’s be clear what he would do as president,’ ” [senior White House adviser David] Plouffe explains. “Potentially abortion will be criminalized. Women will be denied contraceptive services. He’s far right on immigration. He supports efforts to amend the Constitution to ban gay marriage. …
Thus, to a very real degree, 2008’s candidate of hope stands poised to become 2012’s candidate of fear. For many Democrats, this is just fine and dandy, for they believe that in the Romney-Republican agenda there is plenty to be scared of. For others in the party in both politics and business, however, the new Obama posture is cause for concern. From the gay-marriage decision to the onslaught on Bain, they see the president and his team as coming across as too divisive, too conventional, and too nakedly political, putting at risk Obama’s greatest asset — his likability — with the voters in the middle of the electorate who will ultimately decide his fate.
Now, this portrait of the strategy — which carries the title “”Hope: The Sequel; For Obama & Co., this time around it’s all about fear” — is not revealing because it’s surprising. Americans routinely tell opinion pollsters they’re underwhelmed by President Obama’s record in the White House and unnerved about the country’ direction, so there’s only so much “Morning in America” the campaign can promote. Fear of the other guy represents most of what they have to sell.
It is revealing, however, to see how open Plouffe and other Democrats are about this strategy. And it is revealing to see how quickly they have to resort to falsehoods to explain it.
To begin, let’s take each of the examples Plouffe gives in his own words:
- “Potentially abortion will be criminalized.”: Not even the reddest of red states have “criminalized abortion” in the 39 years since Roe v. Wade; they have only tried, with mixed results, to place limits on it. The idea that Romney, in just four or eight years, would spend his political capital trying to push a nationwide ban on abortion through Congress — and that the Supreme Court would overturn precedent to uphold said law — is beyond far-fetched. At most, a President Romney might get to replace a liberal justice with a conservative one more inclined to entertain limits on abortion. That is, of course, a possibility in every single administration. And the reverse — that Obama in a second term might get to replace a conservative justice with a liberal one — is just as motivating to conservatives.
- “Women will be denied contraceptive services.” This issue came out of left field when the Obama administration this year tried to force religious entities to violate their consciences to expand subsidies — not legal access — to contraception, and only to a tiny sliver of women. When that maneuver prompted an outcry, the administration doubled down by suggesting Republicans would try to chip away at the status quo.
- “He’s far right on immigration.” During the primaries, Romney described his policies toward illegal immigrants already living in the U.S. as one which would encourage “self-deportation” by making it harder for them to make a living from the shadows. The Obama administration, however, constantly touts the large number of illegal immigrants whom it has deported over the past three years. Does that put Obama on the far-far right on immigration?
- “He supports efforts to amend the Constitution to ban gay marriage.” This is actually true. But, as a senior White House adviser, Plouffe surely knows presidents aren’t involved in the amendment process.
These are just the ones for which Plouffe was quoted. There is plenty of intrigue about the ones the magazine paraphrased. For instance, how’s that attack on “vulture capitalism” working out? (Not well.) How is Obama going to portray Romney as a failed governor, given that a) his advisers claim to have used Romneycare in Massachusetts as a blueprint for Obamacare, and b) his record as president on unemployment and economic growth makes for a poor comparison to Romney’s record on those issues as governor?
I have no doubt that fear will the watchword for the Obama 2012 campaign — and, to be fair, that Romney will engage in much the same kind of discussion about what a second-term Obama, facing no more need to win over voters, might do as president. But Obama’s supporters better hope this isn’t the best the campaign has to offer.
– By Kyle Wingfield
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220 comments Add your comment
Finn McCool
May 29th, 2012
3:45 pm
Look, there it is again!
Conservatives moan all day about inefficient use of tax dollars and then someone points out a PROVEN inefficient use of tax dollars (for-profit colleges)!
What do they do? Pooh-pooh it!
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
May 29th, 2012
3:45 pm
Who was having none of it? Obozo! He got an earful from Congressional Democrats and torpedoed his own deal, which Speaker Boehner had agreed to.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 29th, 2012
3:46 pm
sands, you need to separate “Romney’s” position from the “GOP’s” position.
As Kyle rightly points out, do you think ROMNEY would waste political capital on such a thing?
Based on his record, he fights the fights he can win, and he focuses on actual problems that need to be solved, and right now that’s the economy.
stands for decibels
May 29th, 2012
3:50 pm
As Kyle rightly points out, do you think ROMNEY would waste political capital on such a thing?
Hey, that’s a great slogan:
Vote for Mitt! he probably won’t be able to criminalize abortion!
Michael H. Smith
May 29th, 2012
3:51 pm
The only thing America has to fear is four more years of under Dear Marxist Leader Comrade “obumer” and his Fascist-Socialist Democrat unionized Worker’s Party.
saywhat?
May 29th, 2012
3:52 pm
Kyle @ 1:49. Thanks for attempting to put words in my mouth. I have referred to the teatards as many things, but not terrorists, sorry.
Re: “I won”, the simple fact is that he did. Overwhelmingly. Two years after an overwhelming Congressional Democratic victory The Republicans should have respected the choice of the American people and made the effort to work with the President vs making the deliberate and conscious choice to oppose and/or obstruct every initiative with the intent to make him a one term President. Do the phrases “I have a mandate” and “political capital- and I intend to spend it” ring any bells, or are they lost in the fog of time from the period of He Who Must Not Be Named?
Re: the beer summit, I apparently don’t feel the same outrage? disgust? whatever it is you feel regarding the whole incident. The President’s initial reaction to the incident certainly reflected that of a large number of Americans, if not you. He made a mistake in his public statement, but I think he patched things up rather nicely. Overall, it was better to get it resolved than let it fester.The whole event ended up being inconsequential in the long run, thanks to the Presidents actions.
But tell me again- when is Obama coming for our guns?
saywhat?
May 29th, 2012
3:56 pm
Tiberius – Banned from Bookman’s and proud of it!
May 29th, 2012
3:46 pm
sands, you need to separate “Romney’s” position from the “GOP’s” position.
As Kyle rightly points out, do you think ROMNEY would waste political capital on such a thing?
Based on his record, he fights the fights he can win, and he focuses on actual problems that need to be solved, and right now that’s the economy.
______________________________________________________
Hmmmmmmm. Sounds alot like President Obama, focusing on actual problems that need to be solved, and fighting the fights he can win. Economic stimulus- check. Auto company bailout-check. Healthcare insurance reform-check. Kill Bin Laden- check.
MarkV
May 29th, 2012
3:57 pm
Tiberius @3:16 pm
When you are appointed the manager of this blog, I will consider your requests.
JDW
May 29th, 2012
3:59 pm
@Tiberius…”Funny how decreasing spending a few percentage points a year for 20 years is now considered by the uninformed to “Social Darwinism”.”
It’s not so much the “decreasing spending a few percentage points” as it is the gutting of Medicare, maintaining Military spending while cutting every social program and the decreasing revenue bit. Now if he/they would like to chat about reasonable revenue increases, halting the Military budget conflagration and adjusting social programs to the demographics of today I am sure we could have a chat.
Kyle Wingfield
May 29th, 2012
4:00 pm
stands @ 3:36: And yet…abortion remains legal.
What has changed that Romney, considered (by everyone but the Obama campaign) as not so socially conservative, would suddenly do what born-again Christian George W. Bush didn’t?
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 29th, 2012
4:04 pm
“When you are appointed the manager of this blog, I will consider your requests.”
I accept your surrender, MaryV.
Please return to your incessant whining now.
Darwin
May 29th, 2012
4:05 pm
You dumped all that stuff in here to state that the incumbent runs a different styled campaign from 4 years ago?
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 29th, 2012
4:06 pm
“It’s not so much the “decreasing spending a few percentage points” as it is the gutting of Medicare, maintaining Military spending while cutting every social program and the decreasing revenue bit.”
And if Ryan’s plan actually did that, I might agree with you, JDW, but while you are entitled to your own opinion (no matter how wrong it may be) you are not entitled to your own facts.
JDW
May 29th, 2012
4:06 pm
@Kyle…”JDW: Which “regulation of sex” did you have in mind?”
Just a few of the campaign promises/talking points…
If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.”
-Rick Santorum
More from Rick Santorum
A promise to defund birth control on the grounds that contraception is “a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.” …
Ron Paul is no better
He believes that the birth control pill did not cause immorality but that immorality creates the problem of wanting to use the pill.
Mitt Romney has vowed
“to see a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage” and “to overturn Roe v. Wade.”
All that doesn’t make you fear sex regulation? It does me.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 29th, 2012
4:07 pm
Kyle, your 4:00 reply is spot on!
Kyle Wingfield
May 29th, 2012
4:09 pm
saywhat @ 3:52: Yes, he did win. Overwhelmingly. So overwhelmingly, in fact, that he didn’t need any GOP cooperation — and didn’t seek it in earnest — until Scott Brown shocked everyone from Massachusetts, the filibuster was back in play, and Obama-Pelosi-Reid suddenly had to reap the partisan ill-will they’d sown. The left-wing revisionism about the “obstructionist” Republicans, with their 40 seats in the Senate and <200 in the House, is simply ludicrous.
Jefferson
May 29th, 2012
4:09 pm
Until the GOP finds middle ground they should be rejected as not effective legislators. One day they may find their way back to being productive.
MrLiberty
May 29th, 2012
4:10 pm
I remember hearing once during the horrible Bush years “the only thing Republicans have to fear is the end of fear itself.” Looks like Obama has officially become a true Neocon republican.
Obama=Romney=Bush. Really, why would america want another 4 years of this kind of crap?
Ron Paul 2012.
Kyle Wingfield
May 29th, 2012
4:11 pm
As for the Gates incident: “it was better to get it resolved than let it fester”? Do you remember why it was festering? Because Obama chose to wade into the incident in the first place, speaking without the facts to boot. I’ll give him credit for managing to clean up his own mess, for the most part, but I recognize that the mess was largely of his own making.
JDW
May 29th, 2012
4:11 pm
@Tiberius…”you need to separate “Romney’s” position from the “GOP’s” position.”
Silly me when a candidate promises to “to overturn Roe v. Wade” as Romney did I stop worrying about how to interrupt his intentions and go with the simplest explanation…he means what he says.
Michael H. Smith
May 29th, 2012
4:11 pm
Oh yeah, cutting 500 billion out of Medicare isn’t called gutting, right? War spending wasn’t a big deal until a Republican got us into one that lasted for more than three months then again what one war compared to getting us into four wars two them world wars that lasted for years within one century?
Any day of any week brucie a Republican spends less on making war than your warmongering Democrats!
You can plant that in your Flanders field, wilcox.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
May 29th, 2012
4:12 pm
The Republicans should have respected the choice of the American people and made the effort to work with [Obozo]
———
Obozo didn’t need GOP support to get anything passed. Obozo got everything he wanted (except when his own party blocked him) and look at the results–total failure.
Americans, aided by some Democrats, will fix the problem in November.
JDW
May 29th, 2012
4:12 pm
@Kyle…”And yet…abortion remains legal.”
So we should give them credit for failure?
I demand to see Cheesy Grits Birth Certificate- Long Form Please
May 29th, 2012
4:14 pm
Politics is a nasty business.
Say it aint so.
At least when the Dems tear somebody down there actually might be some facts close by.
Unlike the Republicans and their ” Swift Boating ” where they just make stuff up.
The one good thing about electing Cheesy Grits will be that after finally electing a minority candidate the country will have elected the first non-christian President.
That will at least be a milestone.
Michael H. Smith
May 29th, 2012
4:15 pm
@Kyle… as the chill wind blows, one vote and Scalia await.
I demand to see Cheesy Grits Birth Certificate- Long Form Please
May 29th, 2012
4:16 pm
Americans, aided by some Democrats, will fix the problem in November.
Yet all the polls point to Obama.
Got some money saved up. Vegas says its Obama easy.
I’m sure they will take your bet.
Kyle Wingfield
May 29th, 2012
4:19 pm
JDW @ 4:06: ICYMI, Rick Santorum lost…handily…in large part because of the kinds of quotes you mentioned. He dropped out when he did to avoid being embarrassed in his own state’s primary. He’s in no position to shape the GOP platform, and won’t even be the most consequential Pennsylvania Republican in this campaign (Pat Toomey will play a larger role). He isn’t even at the top of the list of social conservatives Romney would consider choosing as a running mate (Mike Huckabee is reportedly the top candidate from that pool).
More broadly, “defund[ing] birth control” is not the same thing as regulating sex. Nor is banning same-sex marriage or overturning Roe v. Wade.
If you believe a lack of subsidy is tantamount to regulation, you may as well turn in that “fiscal responsibility” card you like to play around here. If you believe marriage = sex, then you would seem to be more comfortable with Rick Santorum’s thinking than you let on. If you think abortion = sex, you may need to consult a biology textbook.
Finn McCool
May 29th, 2012
4:20 pm
Non-Christian, Cult Follower, Eater of the Cheesy Grits 2012
Kyle Wingfield
May 29th, 2012
4:21 pm
Cheesy Grits: ICYMI — and a great deal seems to elude you — my entire post was pointing out all the ways there are no “facts close by” to Plouffe’s fear mongering.
I demand to see Cheesy Grits Birth Certificate- Long Form Please
May 29th, 2012
4:21 pm
@Kyle… as the chill wind blows, one vote and Scalia await.
Exactly right. They are pretty close now and don’t think they wont do it with a little bit more of a nudge.
Republicans don’t want the government to be any part of your life.
Except where their religion tells them to. Then its perfectly OK.
Michael H. Smith
May 29th, 2012
4:22 pm
By the way… 2010?
How’d that work out for the donkey jockeys in Vegas… just saying.
Finn McCool
May 29th, 2012
4:22 pm
It looks like the “regulating sex” concept touched a nerve.
We libs have found our talking points for the coming weeks!
Just saying..
May 29th, 2012
4:24 pm
Kyle Wingfield
May 29th, 2012
4:00 pm
stands @ 3:36: And yet…abortion remains legal.
What has changed that Romney, considered (by everyone but the Obama campaign) as not so socially conservative, would suddenly do what born-again Christian George W. Bush didn’t?
News: Because he bends which ever way the wind blows, Kyle. Have you noticed that the Republican Party is a bit more conservative that it was in ‘04 & ‘08?
Or did I miss W campaigning as “severely conservative”?
Michael H. Smith
May 29th, 2012
4:27 pm
Exactly right. They are pretty close now and don’t think they wont do it with a little bit more of a nudge.
Exactly right. “We” are pretty close now and don’t think “we” wont do it with one more Conservative Supreme Court Judge.
There, I corrected your errata for you.
Finn McCool
May 29th, 2012
4:30 pm
I guess we libs will have to get the Black Panthers to the voting booths in November to scare away the white conservatives. All 4 of them!
I demand to see Cheesy Grits Birth Certificate- Long Form Please
May 29th, 2012
4:31 pm
Meanwhile you’ve got Cheesy Grits running around with Donald Trump.
What a freak show.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 29th, 2012
4:32 pm
“Silly me when a candidate promises to “to overturn Roe v. Wade” as Romney did I stop worrying about how to interrupt his intentions and go with the simplest explanation…he means what he says.”
Please provide the quote where ROMNEY said he’d overturn Roe v. Wade.
Then tell me how you can make the “Romney is a flip-flopper and doesn’t stand for anything” argument followed by the “he means what he says” argument, JDW.
You want it both ways, but you cannot have it both ways.
JDW
May 29th, 2012
4:33 pm
@Kyle…”Rick Santorum lost…handily…in large part because of the kinds of quotes you mentioned.”
And yet every Republican candidate has some agenda on sex related issues. For a party that preaches reduced government involvement everyone of them want government involved in the bedroom.
As for the reasons Santorum lost…funding, funding and more funding. Had he gotten an early enough start he might well have won…yet another reason to fear the Republicans.
JDW
May 29th, 2012
4:35 pm
@Tiberius…”Please provide the quote where ROMNEY said he’d overturn Roe v. Wade.”
Here you can watch him argue both sides….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAuwuLse1Gg
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 29th, 2012
4:39 pm
“As for the reasons Santorum lost…funding, funding and more funding. Had he gotten an early enough start he might well have won”
Don’t quit your day job and become a political analyst, JDW.
Just sayin’ . . .
Kyle Wingfield
May 29th, 2012
4:40 pm
JDW: Explain how not wanting to subsidize birth control pills qualifies as wanting “government involved in the bedroom.”
Michael H. Smith
May 29th, 2012
4:41 pm
Conservative talking points remain on the same raw liberal nerve:
ITS OBUMER’S FAILED ECONOMY STUPID!
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 29th, 2012
4:45 pm
So you think that Romney saying he’d like the SCOTUS to overturn Roe v. Wade is the same as saying he’d overturn Roe v. Wade, JDW?
News flash!
It isn’t.
One is accomplished through legislation and one is accomplished through the judiciary. And the judiciary, despite what conservatives may think, is not going to overturn settled law such as Roe v. Wade.
btw, Roe v. Wade is bad law (imo) only in that it takes a states rights issue and makes it a Federal issue.
Rafe Hollister- trying to save the Choom Gang
May 29th, 2012
4:46 pm
But tell me again- when is Obama coming for our guns?
saywhat
You man Barry gave you the answer, he said he would have “more flexibility” after this election. He thinks he is going to win, I don’t think so.
He was actually coming for our guns when he and his bud Eric Holder hatched Fast and Furious, but that didn’t work out so well. Ask S/A Brian Terry’s family for verification.
ragnar danneskjold
May 29th, 2012
4:46 pm
The election will be fear of the devil one knows – Obama – versus fear of the unknown. As Obama is officially the worst ever – at least, so far – it is an easy decision to vote for someone with a little business competence.
Jefferson
May 29th, 2012
4:49 pm
Kyle, you keep bringing up the war on women, 4:40.
Michael H. Smith
May 29th, 2012
4:50 pm
Kyle Wingfield @4:40 pm
Only in the irrational logic of the liberal mind can refusing an abortion on demand for any reason and making a legal distinction of the unique relationship that exist in the union between a man and a woman be explained.
md
May 29th, 2012
4:57 pm
“but I recognize that the mess was largely of his own making.”
And there in lies the problem, as many on that side of the fence can’t see that……
And he didn’t learn his lesson on Gates as he turned right around and did it again in the Martin case…..
iggy
May 29th, 2012
4:57 pm
Finn McCool
May 29th, 2012
4:30 pm
I believe that would be “New Black Panthers.” Sorry Finn but Im forced to put a frowny face beside your name on the employee of the day calendar.
JDW
May 29th, 2012
4:58 pm
@Kyle…”Explain how not wanting to subsidize birth control pills qualifies as wanting “government involved in the bedroom.””
And I suppose you think that Republicans wanting to deny people birth control doesn’t constitute an intrusion in the bedroom…even though such a stance likely costs more money than it saves.