Obama: losing the message war vs. the idea war?
What’s the problem with the stimulus? According to Jeanne Cummings of Politico, it’s all about spin, and Obama doesn’t have the resources he used to command to get his message across.
Say what? As President of the United States, he’s hampered? Whatever happened to TR’s bully pulpit?
Note that whenever President Bush (remember him?) had trouble selling one of his presidential programs, it was his own fault. Never mind that most of the MSM was against him from the start, as opposed to the pro-Obama press.
Now granted, Bush really was a somewhat poor communicator—although never as poor as the press and/or his opponents made out. But those of us who never drank deeply from the Obamalove well have noticed that although Obama has a nicer flow of rhetoric, the actual content has never been all that great or all that informative.
Cummings contrasts the resources Obama used to command as campaigner with those he now has in the White House. Poor guy, they just can’t compare:
Obama’s campaign was lauded for its visionary use of modern tools for old-fashioned politics. Through the Internet, it recruited supporters, collected dollars, rallied supporters and organized get-out-the vote operations. But when these modern heroes arrived at the White House, it was like the lights all went out.
Their contact with their millions-fold supporters was cut off, literally, as e-mail systems broke down and ”˜The List’ of political supporters was blocked at the iron gate…
Even with closet-sized spaces, the White House can only accommodate about only about 200 or so people for jobs ranging from national security to health care reform to Internet guru.
The Obama team “built this incredible campaign and now they have these ridiculously primitive tools. The communication tools they mastered don’t exist in the White House. It’s like they are in a cave,” said Trippi…
According to Evan Tracey, president of Campaign Media Analysis Group, about $65,000 has been spent on pro-stimulus ads in a handful of states.
In the last week of the presidential campaign, Obama was spending an average of $250,000 a day on commercials in the Philadelphia market, alone.
The solution is crystal clear: Obama needs a bailout. The government should vote to give this man more money! And soon—or we’ll have a catastrophe.
I’m seeing a real but subtle groundswell of anger at the generous “spreading of the wealth” in the stimulus bill and elsewhere. And that’s even in Blue State Connecticut! There seems to be the perception among the true middle class (working, doing OK but not upper middel class well) that all the benefits will flow to the non-working or protected groups. Anger is also building at existing benefits that phase out at relatively modest incomes.
Obama pitched his campaign at middle class voters, but the Congressional Dems (and Obama himself) are rewarding traditional Democratic groups such as minorities, unions, and government workers. The feeling I’m getting from people is ‘I worked hard, I didn’t screw up so why is everyone else getting aid/stimulus/bailout?’.
No amount of salesmanship can save this turkey
The problem isn’t that they’re not getting the message out. It’s that it is getting out in spite of their best efforts to spin it.
I’m agree with DirtyJobsGuy. There’s some ‘wake-up’ going on.
As i just noted on Dr Sanity’s blog…
“I feel like our country’s fallen in a well and the genius democrats have managed to get Obama to the surface to go get us all shovels.”
Neo_terrific the big O needs a bailout. Best laugh I have had this month.
Obama is learning that being king of the zoo doesn’t necessarily mean your king of the jungle when you set out into the wilds.
Also, that when the rubber meets the road, you can use the friction to go places or try to overpower it and just leave skid marks and a lot of smoke.
We’ll have to wait and see how Obama’s continued campaign in office affects public opinion once the President’s “stimulus packages” take effect (or not.) Obama was able to portray himself as the messiah back when he had no real responsibilities. It will be interesting to see how his network tries to portray him once his stimulus packages fail.
Call me idealistic, but my idea of “hope” and “change” doesn’t involve Democratic corruption at the state and federal level, massive wasteful spending and the reckless pursuit of pet projects at the taxpayer’s expense.
– G
Too bad the Republicans in Congress seem to be waking up. He may be a little too late to ask for that bailout.
The “Porkulus” Pakage is not an economic stimulus package. Once the details were out there, it was only a matter of time before more attentive citizens would catch it.
They will manage to get maybe a handful of RINO’s in the Senate to go along with it, and it will arrive at the President’s desk a tad modified. He’ll sign it. He and his party will own it. And we’ll pay for it for a long time.
Same goes with much of everything else he wants to get done before 2010. He and his party will take advantage of their limited window to pass most of their agenda. And then they will be out of power for maybe a few generations after wards. The only people who will end up voting for the Social Democrats will be the Far Left folks and the young dopes who drink the Kool Aid from their professors and teachers.
VDH just wrote a column the other day (it’s on nationalreview.com) where he states the view that four years of Obama and Pelosi will usher in a renewed conservative movement. The damage will be that great, but we will avoid a total national disaster and save the Republic.
I suppose we’ll know soon enough if spin can triumph over substance once again. Soon there will announced ‘changes’ or ‘restructurings’ at the White House. More construction perhaps where ‘infrastructure’ is added (ie a propaganda outlet). Fair is fair, it’s their house to do with as they please but I wonder what the reaction of the lib media would’ve been had Bush made such changes?
It is worrying indeed if good government policy needs marketing for people to accept it. Therefore I will conclude… these spending packages have not been good policy.
Voice Of Conservative America just visited your blog
Well, I’m pissed at the republicans for not possessing the nads to have nipped this in the bud long before so much cash had already been defenestrated.
This is not going to stop the crash and burn. It’s not going to do a thing for me; and my kids……in debt for their entire life time. I can’t successfully convey my anger except in private. It’s ******* pork!
None of the republicans – NONE of them, possess the courage to do the right thing for fear of not getting along, or worse, not getting re-elected.
In two years we should throw all the bums out. I was hoping we would do it this cycle.
Along these lines, here’s the view from a forward spotter:
“Welcome to Obamaland! I Have Seen Your Future, America, and It Doesn’t Work”
http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/3233531/i-have-seen-your-future-america-and-it-doesnt-work.thtml
by James Delingpole, in the UK Spectator. Good one. I think we’re going to have to cultivate a certain fatalism, a British sangfroid, to sail through this.
A sample from Delingpole, above:
“‘We’ll help you out with all the US detail as necessary,’ replied Harry. ‘But you’re already far better qualified to write this book than most Americans.’ ‘Why’s that?’ I said. ‘Because unlike us, you’ve already spent 12 years living under socialism,’ he replied.
“At which point, it all made such perfect sense that the write-in-a-month part ceased to be a problem. ‘But of course!’ I realised. ‘It’s like May 1997 [Blair’s election] all over again. Same euphoria. Same sense – even among many Conservatives – that this time it’s different, that this guy’s The One who’s going to change everything. Same subtly bullying, post-Diana’s-death-style atmosphere where if you don’t subscribe to the popular consensus you’re a freak and a cynic and you’re wrong and you should probably be shot.’
“Crikey, they were scary times for those few of us who, right from day one, refused to give any credence to the Blair project. It was like the second half of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, where pretty much every human alive has been taken over by the evil, gelatinous pod-creatures, and you no longer know which, if any, of your friends you can trust. Remember the awful final scene in the classic 1978 remake where the sweet girl goes up to nice Donald Sutherland only to have him reveal with that blood-curdling scream that, yes, he too has been got by the bodysnatchers? Well that’s just how I felt when my hitherto sound friend Damian confided to me that he too now held out high hopes for the new regime.”
The fact of the matter is that the Democrats do not need any Republican votes in the Senate to pass the Porkulus Package. And yet they keep trying to get the Republicans to vote for it, which to me indicates that they want and feel they need political cover on this one. Republicans who give them cover should be shunned and mocked. There is no way we are going to defeat this bill. Pretty much everything was decided from November 2006 up to November 2008. It’s done.
There is only one way the country is going to be saved from these followers of Antonio Gramsci: the people who voted for them get to eat this shit sandwich for the next few years, and then decide they’ve had enough. There is no other way out, except by elections or by revolution/civil war. The handful of Republicans who have decided to dance with the President (the two ladies from Maine) are doing so because they want some of the pork. And that’s between them and their constituents back in Maine.
The only things Obama is experienced at are giving speeches and staying “cool” enough to not get caught in political traps on His way up – so far.
His team has let Him down. He’s getting rolled because He’s inexperienced, having never led anything of consequence previously. He needs help!
Bush was much more experienced and at least had Cheney and Rove, and probably some others. Obama appears to have no one who really wants to help Him.
It’s not much of a surprise, either. All through His campaign, I kept wondering, “Where are His friends?”
“Where are His friends?”
Remember, Obama has only really been the Democrat’s “Manchurian Candidate”, their party’s tool and ticket into the White House, and consolidation of Washington power. His only true friends are people like Ayers, Khalidi, Wright, the Black Muslim (Farakhan) crowd; As well as the almost irrelevant lower echelons of the Chicago Democrat political machine. You can bet that people like Kerry, Dean, Pelosi, Reid and company, and especially the Clintons, are green with envy, because they weren’t quite marketable themselves to the hope and change crowd. The truth is coming out now, it’s all been smoke and mirrors, with the not so great wizard finally being recognized at his microphone in the little booth behind the flapping curtains. The Iranians, Russians, North Koreans, aren’t impressed at all. What’s worse, he may himself very well be just a closet moslem communist posing as a Christian Democat, a reality the mainstream can’t yet face the truth of. The Democrats may be stupid, but they don’t really want to be full blown traitors… The Dems will throw him under the bus when he ceases to be of use to them. It’s only a matter of time…
I would have to say that excuse is an interesting one. Apparently as president electrons flow differently for him and all that fancy electronic stuff he used no longer works right.
I would have to say my opinion of him has risen recently, but as Glen Reynolds says that is simply because it could go no lower. Some of his appointments and his reactions to – you know – actually *being in charge* has not been near as bad as I thought they could be (especially given his past associates with Wright, Ayers, and such).
That being said there has also been a great deal of obvious lack of leadership – not leadership in the sense of inspiring people (that too, no better than Bush) but a pure lack of where he intends to go.
Rendition, Guantanamo, and this are prime examples of that. Were I not directly affected by these decisions I would find them highly entertaining. As is I find it such along with a sense of … unease (still to early to have more than that – the guy may very well learn).
Right now he is doing what has worked for him for ages – whine about it and everything falls into place. At some point it isn’t going to work. I had hoped it would be before the finish of the primaries (while I dislike Hillary if it had been between her and McCain I wouldn’t have really cared), then I hoped it would be before the election, now the only hope I have is that he learns fast enough that whining about it doesn’t get anything done. Whining is only making things worse.
I will end with a personal anecdote – I had the pleasure of attending a quarterly financial meeting of a company that the place I work for contracts with, they are around Boston (Thankfully I’m not). I was probably one of the VERY few that were not an Obama supporter (indeed, the company I work for mostly is too – though not of the kool-aid variety as may of these were). I clearly recall the person saying that things would look up shortly after November since even if a monkey were elected there would be significantly more confidence in the world and everything will work great after then. At the least, they figured, the election would stop all the downward slide – after all the current guy was so horrid.
Sadly I will not get to be at their next one – it was only truly random chance I was at that one. Even were I at it I wouldn’t be able to comment anyway (can not really bite the hand that feeds you that much) – however I have to wonder how those people are dealing with this. It is another case of if it didn’t impact me to the extent that it does I would find it highly entertaining – as is I guess I will take what I will and be entertained and try and go about my business otherwise.
Cultivating fatalism can be a good thing when no rational action is possible. If you do not know what to do, the best choice is to do nothing, at least, nothing risky or costly. It is better to save effort, money and emotional resources for times when they can be used in more meaningful way.
I do not fear that Obama is a closet something (muslim, communist, European style social democrat); I do fear that he is a closet nothing, immature person never capable to become an adult, like Jimmy Carter. It can be fatal to have a puerile empty suit as a CEO in times of turmoil. He can be shocked into permanent stupor, as Carter was with Iran hostage crisis. He already shows signs of indecision and confusion when confronted with unexpected hurdles. A bad omen.
A monetary US version of shock-and-awe
I am surprised that, as a former McCain supporter (OK I voted for him as the lesser of 2 evils), I have already come full circle: disappointment he lost, relief that he lost (on about Nov 6th, realizing I wouldn’t have to defend him), and now disappointment AGAIN, ALREADY, that he lost, with not 3 weeks of the Obama administration underway. Somehow I don’t think McCain would have achieved the mess Obama has made of the spendulus bill.
Some great wit early in the comments.
br549, do not be in complete despair. There are some Republicans, even at the national level, who have not abandoned small-government ideas. There just aren’t enough of them. Don’t kick the last few allies we’ve got, dude. A few are still on our side.
FredHJr: I’m with you. You’re exactly right.
Robert Baer, The former CIA chief for the Middle East
Truth,
Robert’s opinion is not well founded. Yes, lefties who already denounced the U.S. and thought poorly of it used it as ONE more excuse to not love America.
My lefty boss who calls us a terrorist nation would not have ‘loved’ america just because we didn’t free 25 million Iraqi people from Saddam’s tyranny.
The Lefty ‘Blame America’ mentality is embedded and irredeemably lodged. The voices of Troof and other like minded liberals are typically lazy, stupid and easy to dismiss.
If the republicans are not voting for this, they need to say so loud and clear – repeatedly – and get it in print and on the air as much as possible – so it may be referred to numerous times at some later date when it becomes necessary.
Watching CSPAN, democrats are stating repeatedly this is a bi-partisan effort, this bail out. It may have started as one when all were panic stricken, but as it has morphed into this pork and power grab monster, most republicans and even some democrats have been jumping ship.