Tuesday, May 22, 2012

With Friends Like These. . .

Sometimes, your friends do more harm to you than your enemies. That’s been the case for Obama lately, and I’m not just talking about Biden shoving Obama into the gay marriage debacle. The truth is that Obama’s friends are causing him all kinds of problems.

Obama Hates the Middle Class: Last week, the Republicans introduced Obama’s budget in the Senate. It lost without a single vote (0-99). More interestingly, it got blasted by the United Auto Workers as an “attack on the middle class and our most vulnerable citizens.” That makes this a double embarrassment for Obama. It also drives a stake through Obama’s middle class champion act.

Obama Hates Capitalism: Newark Mayor Cory Booker, a prominent Democrat and Obama supporter, blasted Obama’s main attack on Romney this weekend when he went on Meet the Press. Obama is hoping that people will hate Romney because he founded Bain Capital. To do that, he’s been demonizing Bain. In fact, he just released a new ad doing exactly that. Said Booker:

“If you look at the totality of Bain Capital's record they've done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses. And this, to me, I'm very uncomfortable with. This kind of stuff is nauseating to me on both sides. It's nauseating to the American public. Enough is enough. Stop attacking private equity. Stop attacking Jeremiah Wright. This stuff has got to stop, because what it does is it undermines, to me, what this country should be focused on.”
Booker has since walked these comments back, but the damage was done and it presented Obama with another headache and another distraction. Indeed, he’s spent the week attacking Booker and trying to explain why his anti-Bain attacks are justified.

Not As Brave As Jimmy Carter: For weeks, Obama has been pushing the idea that he’s some tough guy hero, unlike Mitt Romney, because he ordered the killing of Osama bin Laden. Romney rightly blasted Obama for politicizing military action in an effort to make himself look good. Well, The Economist decided to come to Obama’s defense because they now say there’s absolutely nothing wrong with a President trying to impress us with their military achievement (they said the opposite when Bush was President). Clearly Americans disagree as recent polls show upwards of 65% of people thinking that Obama was wrongly trying to politicize this military action.

In any event, here’s the great part. In defending Obama, they were particularly upset that Romney compared Obama to Carter when he said, “even Jimmy Carter would have given that order.” They are upset because they view this as unfair, because while the raid Carter authorized was a failure, it was not cowardly. In fact, they note it took more courage for Carter to order that raid than it took for Obama to order the killing of Osama bin Laden. Yep, they said that. To defend Obama, they took his sole positive achievement in office and told us it was less brave than what Jimmy Carter did. That is truly sad.

Stop Condescending, Mr. Obama: We’ve discussed the supposed war on women extensively. And just when you think it’s finally dead and buried, along comes MSM personality Campbell Brown to lecture Obama about his behavior. Indeed, she just wrote an editorial in the New York Times in which she took Obama to task for his efforts to “relate to women” by saying that his campaign has been “maddeningly off point.” She says he has “failed to connect with tens of millions of Americans, many of them women, who feel economic opportunity is gone and are losing hope.” Then she says,
“In an effort to win them back, Mr. Obama is trying too hard. He’s employing a tone that can come across as grating and even condescending. . . Most women don’t want to be patted on the head or treated as wards of the state. They simply want to be given a chance to succeed based on their talent and skills.”
Julia anyone? So much for pushing the war on women.

Give An Inch: When Obama decided to endorse (and not do anything about) gay marriage, he assumed this would shore up his gay supporters. Actually, it just increased their list of demands. Gay groups are now running around demanding that Obama come through on other promises. Indeed, they’ve got a list of 52 demands, including repealing the Defense of Marriage Act, extending Social Security benefits to gay partners, changing immigration rules to prevent the deportation of same-sex partners, adding gays to the Violence Against Women Act, preventing workplace discrimination, etc. Rather than making them happy, he has just stirred the nest.

Show Me The Money: Romney’s super PAC not only blew Obama away in terms of raising cash in April, but they had a lot more cash on hand to begin with, even despite having to fight a long and nasty primary. The MSM once claimed Obama would get a billion dollars and now they are fretting that he can’t even keep up with Mitt Romney. Moreover, Tea Party groups have many-times more money on hand than both. So much for all of Obama’s rich friends.

All in all, Obama’s bad year continues. His campaign can’t get traction and he’s found no way to attack Romney. The things he’s tried, like the war on women and the attacks on Bain Capital, have all blown up on him and now even his allies are criticizing him. His donors aren’t giving him any money, his supporters are getting pushy, and even his defenders can’t defend him without making him look like a fool. Ha ha.


Don't forget, it's Star Trek Tuesday at the film site!

51 comments:

Unknown said...

Andrew: And yet, with all of that, Obama still manages to stay just ahead or just behind Romney in the polls. When are people going to wake up? Even his friends don't like his policies, but everybody seems to love him personally--the worst criterion for electing a president during a crisis. Some of the worst criminals I represented were absolutely charming and likable. I'm sure you experienced the same thing.

AndrewPrice said...

Lawhawk, The polls are misleading because they're over-weighted toward Democrats because they are using the Demographics of 2008. Besides, Obama can't get above 45%, which means he has zero popularity outside his base.

T-Rav said...

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

NightcrawlerER said...

the best thing is this keeps Obama from running a campaign becasue it makes him look like he's struggling to get his people under control

AndrewPrice said...

T-Rav, Isn't that the truth. I think it's hilarious. They have spent the whole week dodging problems and trying to take each other down. Ha ha.

AndrewPrice said...

Nightcrawler, Welcome. Yep, I agree. This has been a huge distraction for Obama and it's kept him from running an effective campaign.

Cory Booker said...

Don't quote my words! Now that everybody's upset, I didn't mean what I said!

AndrewPrice said...

Mayor Booker, No take back-sies. Sorry. ;)

Doc Whoa said...

It is certainly useful that this is zapping his momentum. I think it will also have longer term effects because right now is the time the O needs to be putting together his campaign organization. And if he lacks money, support and enthusiasm, then he's in serious trouble.

AndrewPrice said...

Doc, That's is indeed key. I think the bigger thing though is that this shows us that Obama's friends are in the middle of a tantrum. Rather than getting behind him and presenting a unified front, they are all over the place. That makes Obama's campaign seem chaotic and his grasp on power tenuous. They will eventually get behind him, but every day they don't is another day that independents and moderates will decide to flee the sinking ship.

Doc Whoa said...

Andrew, I think you're right. I don't want to count my chickens before they're hatched, but I get the sense there is a lot of momentum building against Obama. He seems to be beset by bad luck, bad friends, bad policies, and bad judgment.

AndrewPrice said...

Excellent summation of his problems Doc!

The other thing to mention is that all of this really confirms the things we've been saying about him condescending to women and how the gay marriage thing wouldn't ultimately help him.

DUQ said...

Andrew, My comment vanished. Here it is again.

The Booker thing is particularly funny to me because it's Democratic cannibalism. All the cracks in their coalition are showing.

AndrewPrice said...

DUQ, Sorry to hear your comment vanished. Ever since they made the switch over to the never version, things have gotten a little less stable.

I think it's funny that Booker blasted a hole right in the middle of Obama's primary attack. And now they are busy trying to bury him to save Obama.

Ed said...

Any bad news for the One is good news for the country. He really looks like he's beset on all sides too. I never see him smile or say anything nice. It's like he's annoyed all the time. I can't say that bothers me.

Ed said...

I've had one comment vanish, but I think that was it.

AndrewPrice said...

Ed, Well said. Anything that frustrates Obama is good for the country. :)

I'm not certain, but the disappearing comments seem to happen mainly to people who post without blogger accounts -- but not always. I can't make heads or tails of it as they don't end up in the spam filter either, they just vanish.

Ed said...

Andrew, We should put that on a bumpersticker: "If it frustrates Obama, it's good for America!"

Anonymous said...

Hawk, I have certainly found that there are two types of people, principled people like myself who focus and carry concern regarding how hard others work, and how much they can play on the team. Then there are those who care about affiliation and identity. I measure out in the former, and that's what makes my personality so complimentary to working business jobs, because my areas of focus and passion are exactly what the boss expects. The latter is fairly common in politics, it's common in the case that people's political affiliation becomes their identity, to the point where the fact that both Obama and these people both have a "D" in front, otherwise, they would be hard enemies.

Second, I would add three more points to Andrew's list on how Obama's pals have not been helping out in what they do:

1) Romney's grandfather's polygamy vs. the deceptive polygamy of Barack Obama Sr. in the 60s and 70s. Again, trying to go after Romney for this institution, which was known that his grandfather did, and tolerated from the time his wife died

2) The epic fail of trying to argue that people don't want to vote Mormon, it made me laugh out loud when Lawrence O'Donell said 20 percent of Republicans wouldn't. Why? because that means 70 to 80 percent of identified Republicans would likely at least be willing to vote should Romney be the nominee. Again, it's funny when a media personality tries to paint something bad, but when a person who has to hear numbers on a daily basis such as myself hears it, it actually sounds good.

3) What sounds better? Giving a dog his own sidecar on the roof of your van or trying an Eastern "hot dog" for dinner? The funny part about this one is that Obama's campaign team could have at least taken this one in a joking manner, and shrugged it off, as an opportunity to explain a little bit of Indonesian culture, but rather, they didn't. And that led me to comment that the campaign team needs to start drinking some decaff. I almost want to rescind that comment further to say no coffee at all considering how hyperactive and short-circuited some of their reactions have been recently.

Ed, seriously, a good boss at work is one that can take something every so now and then not too seriously, because let's face it,life bites at the heels for all of us at some time or another. Among Obama's leadership issues is the fact that he literally takes everything too seriously. This is perhaps foundational to what's wrong with his policies.

Andrew, the whole Bain thing was pathetic, it was recycled from whatever Newt Gingrich, a GOP loser in this election cycle, tried to use. First note, this has very little effect on conservatives because it is OLD NEWS, and people don't like recycled material, especially when all it did was vet their nominee. As for Booker, can't say that I agree with him on everything, but kudos to him for at least having the common sense to speak a little bit for the venture capital industry, it's a useful tool in legally keeping plenty of businesses afloat, and opening doors for future growth at the same time.

AndrewPrice said...

Ed, That would work! LOL!

AndrewPrice said...

obiwan, All good points. The anti-Mormon attacks have been particularly interesting. On the one hand, they are claiming there is anti-Mormon bias among conservatives and they are condemning conservatives for that. But then they turn around and keep trying to tell people, "he's a Mormon... don't vote for him." Talk about hypocrisy! And in any event, with even more people thinking Obama is a Muslim, this is a stupid attack for them to launch.

And making it worse is the whole Rev. Wright thing, with them running around trying to claim that it's somehow inappropriate to delve into what Obama's religious "guide" believes and preached to him, yet, somehow it's ok to smear Mormons? Hmm.

The dog thing was the perfect example of how thin-skinned Obama is. They made a stupid attack on Romney without thinking that Romney could turn it on them, then they freaked out when he did turn it on them and they started whining how unfair it was for Romney to talk about Obama's past. Give me a break! It really showed that he has no sense of humor and no ability to take things in stride and that he has no idea how to respond to an opponent who isn't afraid to fire back.

On Bain, I think the whole attack is rather stupid. For one thing, it's hard to tie Romney to Bain. For another, it's old news. For another, it's "small news" and more people were helped by Bain than hurt. For another, people are looking for a businessman right now to make hard decisions. Attacking Bain just tells people that Romney is what they are looking for.

I give Booker credit for his initial statement. But he's been dancing all over the place trying to get out from under his statement since then. I think it's finished him off as a politician.

ellenB said...

This really feels like the McCain campaign in reverse where everything kept falling apart little by little.

Ed said...

obiwan2009, That's true, a good boss needs to have a sense of humor and realize that not everything can be deadly serious. Obama has no sense of humor and treats everything like it's a personal affront.

T-Rav said...

I think the main takeaway here isn't the infighting so much (though that obviously is important), it's that every time this year that Obama has tried to play the race or class or gender card, him playing it has become the story, and not the new meme he was trying to establish in the first place. And with none of the attacks on Romney really gaining traction, the spotlight is trained directly on him--something he can't afford this time around. Eat it up, Barack, you deserve it.

AndrewPrice said...

Ellen, It does have the feel of a campaign sitting under a cloud of inevitable doom. I think all the problems we are seeing and the fact we are hearing about them, is evidence that things are falling apart for them and they have no idea how to change things. If things were going well, these items would either be ignored or treated as jokes.

AndrewPrice said...

Ed, That's the truth. Good bosses know when they need to take things seriously and when they can blow things off. But Obama is humorless in all things.

AndrewPrice said...

T-Rav, That's exactly right. What Obama is doing is nothing more than the standard Democratic tricks they've done in the past. But this time it's not working. This time, each attack is blowing up in his face and he ends up having to explain himself as he becomes the story.

I'm not sure if it's the new conservative media that has caused this, or if they just overplayed these cards so much that the public now instinctively turns on them, or if Obama is just playing them incompetently? I suspect it's a little of all three.

I also think we can't underestimate how much frustration the Democrats are experiencing. In 2008, they had dreams of making America into a permanent socialist country. Two years later it was all in ruins, and they very much blame Obama for that.

Kit said...

Romney also had a good first campaign ad:
LINK

AndrewPrice said...

Kit, That is an excellent ad! Day One: Keystone pipeline, tax cuts, and ending Obamacare. Nice choices!

Individualist said...

Obama is a tool!

It is that simple. I know, I know it ain't politic but Obama has always come off as fake to me. A guy more interested in being known as the leader than actually having to lead.

The MSM and the Hollywood crowd played blocker for him and did a decent job in the campaign but the constant need to guard him as he walked limply down the field even became to much for them. Now we see Obama for what he is, a self important empty suit. It is painful to think this guy comes off this way and he managed to become President. But what positive thing has this guy done.

Individualist said...

But luckily for the rest of you I have no strong opinions on this subject!

AndrewPrice said...

Indi, Very true. I've always felt that Obama was little more than an empty suit and once he got into office, he proved to be an angry, egotistical man with little talent. His team was able to hide this for the first election, but couldn't hide the truth once he got into office. And since he didn't have the slightest idea how to lead, he managed to squander a massive Democratic majority. By now it's impossible for them to cover up his incompetence, especially since he tries to hide it with anger.

What positive things has Obama done? He's disgraced the Democratic Party and given us a strong Republican majority. That was pretty nice of him.

Anonymous said...

Ellen, I recognize it more as a rerun of how Gingrich and Santorum tried running against Romney back in the primaries, it was either their way or the highway, and they attacked plenty of people from their own side for suggesting there was something wrong with their own strategy, Compare this to the backlash and sound bite sampling on mayor Booker, for his statements about Bain, they are harsh, and pretty reactive, and this is hurting quite a bit, and especially in a time frame where you want to act in a way that attracts the moderates and independent voters who can go either way in a general election.

Andrew, once again, I attribute this to Romney's business experience. Running business successfully means that you study up your competition, know what insults, or advertising schemes to expect your rivals to pull, and build your strategy based on how well you figured your competition out, it's a tough strategy, but think about it, if Romney was able to successfully run Bain against the Venture Capital firms throughout both New England and the U.S. it's improbable that he didn't do it without the three-step procedure which I mentioned, and he is doing the exact same thing with Obama, he has studied him up, knows most of what to expect from him, and has everything he wishes to present lined up.

As for the media, they are trying to present bad information against him, but either he's not afraid of it, or he has a counterpart point to shoot back to the Obama team for pretty much most of what they try to throw at him.

Kit, I agree, and it was great how tech-savy his campaign team was in throwing forward Romney's opening ad as well. I ran into it on youtube last night, and thought, wow, the campaign team and/or Romney are up to date on their presentation techniques and are a decent competitor to have for the team. It's also the kind of material I want to have speaking on behalf of my country as well.

AndrewPrice said...

LOL! Yeah, lucky us! ;)

Actually, feel free to tell us what you really think. We can take it!

T-Rav said...

Concerning LawHawk's comment and the polls from earlier, I just saw an ABC/WaPo poll which had Romney and Obama in a tie. How to take that? Well, the "self-identified Republican" share of the sample was...22 percent. The same share in the actual voting during 2010, I might add, was about 35 percent.

AndrewPrice said...

obiwan, I think Romney is running a brilliant campaign. He's learned how to deflect all attacks against him right back onto the people making them, and he's figured out how to appear above the fray while still landing devastating blows against his opponents.

He's also learned to exploit their egos and to really get under their skin. That has resulted in Newt and Ricky and now Obama each falling into the trap of acting irrationally, saying stupid things out of anger, and becoming obsessed with defending minutia, while Romney appears to be plugging away on the big issues. It's really impressive.

And from what I've heard, he's got a solid ground game built up too in state after state, which will help with voter turnout.

I honestly haven't seen a campaign this well run since Reagan's 1980 campaign, when Lee Atwater was coordinating everything.

wahsatchmo said...

I'll add that part of Obama's problem is that he's never looped in any Democrats outside the Beltway into his policy planning and coordination, and even then he apparently only listens to Valerie Jarrett and possibly one or two others of his staff.

Clinton was famous for making late night phone calls to Democrats at all levels and made them feel important. Sure, he may have completely gone against their advice, but they felt like they were part of a larger whole.

Democrats and the media (same thing) assumed Obama would do the same. They didn't realize that the man's ego would dwarf any impulse for him to connect with the party on a wider basis. He makes demands of them without giving them respect nor reward. No wonder the party is fracturing.

AndrewPrice said...

T-Rav, That's been the thing about the polls. Most are dishonest in their samples, and even those who aren't, are trying to norm the polls to reflect a 5% Democratic advantage based on the 2008 returns. Factor that out and the polls look a lot differently. Also, when they break it down and you look at independents separately, you suddenly see this huge gap which spells doom for Obama.

And like I keep saying, few politicians who are below 50% this close to an election (and none who have been so consistently below 50%) have gone on to win. Obama should be at 55% right now given the advantages of incumbency and the slow news cycle of the summer. 45% is doom.

AndrewPrice said...

wahsatchmo, That's true as well, and I'm seeing more articles on that point lately -- Democrats and the MSM complaining that they are demoralized and dislike him personally because he treats them with contempt. And the thing they are most upset about is that he never seeks their advice, never includes them in his decision-making process, and doesn't seem to care about them, yet he happily throws them under the bus whenever things don't go right.

That makes him hard to support and even harder to support enthusiastically.

In fact, look at what they've done to Booker. Booker retreated on his comments almost immediately and yet they keep right on smearing him in the press to try to kill off his words. Basically, they are destroying him when they should be laughing it off and forgiving him. How can you be loyal to someone who decides to kill you just because you made a mistake?

Anonymous said...

It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Joel

AndrewPrice said...

Joel, So true. This has all the makings of a real falling out among thieves.

Anonymous said...

Well Andrew, that's just my business bias kicking in, I know I drive plenty of passion into arguing that part about Romney, but his campaign reminds me of exactly that: the intelligent, studious efforts that make a business competitive and effective. Just about all the shortcomings in the Obama campaign could be traced back to the fact that Romney isn't McCain, he doesn't have the baggage, and he is tough to provoke.

AndrewPrice said...

obiwan, I agree. Romney has absolutely followed business practices in how he's analyzed the question of how to run, and how he's implemented it. And that is a much, much better way to run than what McCain did, who shot from the hip and wanted to be liked more than respected. McCain's world was the world of the personal favor and claiming nobility in defeat, Romney's world is the world where only the bottom line matters in the end. That gives Romney a huge advantage in terms of how to fight this election. And it really shows. He is running a very different campaign than I've seen in decades -- very methodical.

tryanmax said...

The only thing that concerns me, the unknown variable so to speak, is how much cynicism will play in the next election. Among the right, it seems to be at an all-time-high with folks chanting "throw the bums out" in reference to the ones they just put in two years ago.

In an extreme example, the day after Dick Lugar lost his primary, one (supposedly conservative) radio host was entertaining calls on the subject of why Richard Mourdock will be a turncoat. And I don't need to repeat what happened in Nebraska, where good conservatives were branded RINOs just because Palin endorsed somebody else.

In a nutshell, conservatives have misplaced their mistrust (I don't think that's a double-negative). Because Republicans fail to outfox shifty Democrats 100% of the time, it's taken as though they are in on it.

Sorry if I'm in wet-blanket mode, it's just impossible to overestimate Republicans' ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

---

Good ad by Romney. It's not rock-n-roll, but it gets out front with some solid campaign promises the likes of which I have never seen before.

Tennessee Jed said...

Andrew - nice article. Just had a chance to read it now, and quickly skim comments. Obama has shown just how bad a true leftist ideologue can be, particularly when an economy is trying to recover. I truly believe the segment of the voting public that hasn't actually made up their mind is beginning to see the emporor actually has no clothes, and his pathetic attempts to turn the debate away from his failure to deliver on the promises which helped him get elected, are being seen for what they are. Maybe this will even be enough to overcome all the voter fraud Axelrod will try and orchestrate.

AndrewPrice said...

tryanmax, That's absolutely a concern. A lot of RWR is obsessed with how Romney will betray them. And I've been seeing a lot of articles slamming the Tea Party members in the House for "not sticking with their principles." Huh? They absolutely did and to claim they didn't is just a lie. So yeah, there is a real possibility for our side to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory here.

The good thing, I guess, is that Romney has first hand knowledge now of just how stupid and counter-productive his allies can be and I can't see him putting himself in a position where he needs to depend on Rush or Laura Ingraham or Sarah Palin doing the right thing. That's another business principle, don't trust someone who has proven the don't know what they are doing.

AndrewPrice said...

Jed, Thanks! I see the same thing as the undecides are breaking more sharply for "anybody but Obama" in each passing poll. I don't want to predict this yet, but I'm getting a sense we may actually be looking at a landslide. If the election were held today, I think that would absolutely be the case. So we'll just have to see what changes between now and November.

On the plus side, all of the above tells me that Obama will have a hard time righting his sinking ship, if he even knows how.

ellenB said...

obiwan2009, You make a good point that Obama is just repeating what Newt and Santorum tried without even really adding any of his own touch to the attack. That's like trying to beat someone up over something everyone else has already looked at an ignored. The Booker attack has hurt because it calls into question whether even Obama's own people belief he should be saying that.

ellenB said...

tryanmax, Never underestimate the ability of conservatives/Republicans to hurt themselves.

Anonymous said...

ellenB and Andrew, Obama's whole methodology of ostracizing Booker sounds a whole lot like Newt Gingrich in his going after Romney. It's extreme, it's egotistical, and it's likely to hurt, given the current record of Booker, plenty of politicians who are simply worried at what is going on. I don't agree with Booker on policy, and yes, I am not a Newark, New Jersey, resident, but at the same time, the Obama campaign appears to be running a Rush Limbaugh of going out to destroy people for a misstep, which to me, gives all the more reason to follow Romney's advice, and let the other side be the radical ones.

AndrewPrice said...

obiwan, I agree. I think Obama's team is very much in "total retaliation" mode and is working to destroy anyone who gets on their radar screen in a bad way, and that will only make them more enemies. And yeah, this sounds a lot like what Newt did.

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