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Political Hay
The Zebra’s Focus Group
Barack Obama can change his rhetorical stripes, but not reality.
(Page 2 of 2)
Had the stimulus lived up to its hype, Republicans would have taken the political hit no matter how many experts they brought into massage the message and we’d all still be listening to the president yammer on about how he put the car in “D” and pushed it out of the ditch while Republicans drank their slurpees.
I’m quite sure Stanley Greenberg would have had the time of his life drafting polling questions under that scenario. Alas, what the poor man has been left to work with is something a stable-hand might call truly shovel-ready.
“Barack Obama can’t catch a break from the American public on the economy,” Greenburg writes, “even though he prevented a depression and saved global capitalism.”
I guess we could charitably deem that assertion questionable. For the sake of argument, though, let’s say Greenberg hit the nail on the head. Well, then, a shame the president didn’t set the barometer accordingly rather than tell us “generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth.”
Call me a cynic, but nowhere in that (in)famous speech does Obama say, “Also, just to keep expectations in check, let me add that we will make no progress or move in the right direction until the second term, but if it makes you feel any better I can promise my presidential robot will sign a full extension of the Patriot Act into law.”
I suspect this is why one of Greenberg’s remedies for Democrats’ current flailing is to “detoxify” politics by passing laws to “severely limit or bar individual and corporate campaign contributions” and impose a forced regime of public campaign financing.
It’s much easier to build frameworks, I imagine, when there is a regulator in your corner rearing to chop down the ones erected by the other side.
HERE’S THE THING: Barack Obama is doubtless a compassionate, caring man — in fact, it is probably self-awareness of his own virtuous intentions that allows the president to behave so churlish and imperious while maintaining a clear conscience. This is why we have a constraining Constitution — to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, whatever Obama’s most ardent fans or Woody “Make Obama Dictator for a Few Years” Allen believe, we have not found angels in the form of kings to govern us.
Whatever the intent of its designer — or perhaps in this case, figurehead — you cannot instill reason or a soul into technocracy.
Peggy Noonan stirred up a lot of mud tossing the “loser” epithet at the president last week, but I was more struck by this remarkable paragraph:
The secret of Mr. Obama is that he isn’t really very good at politics, and he isn’t good at politics because he doesn’t really get people. The other day a Republican political veteran forwarded me a hiring notice from the Obama 2012 campaign. It read like politics as done by Martians. The “Analytics Department” is looking for “predictive Modeling/Data Mining” specialists to join the campaign’s “multi-disciplinary team of statisticians,” which will use “predictive modeling” to anticipate the behavior of the electorate. “We will analyze millions of interactions a day, learning from terabytes of historical data, running thousands of experiments, to inform campaign strategy and critical decisions.”
I ask you, dear reader, does that sound like a campaign simply searching for the best way to honestly project its candidate’s innate passions? Or does it sound like a political machine determined to say and do whatever it takes to get to the next zero-sum round where the framework will consist of fiat rule by executive orders and rule-making delegation? For our own good, of course.
About the Author
Shawn Macomber is a contributing editor to The American Spectator.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (16) | Leave a comment
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chuck| 8.5.11 @ 7:06AM
Obama is the cause of the economic woes. This will be corrected in the next election.
That said, the GOP missed a perfect chance to prove to the country that this huge government is not necessary, or useful. They should not have agreed to anything less than Cut, Cap, And Balance. This would have led to a partial shutdown. After a couple of weeks with the Dept. of Education, Commerce, Housing, Energy, and some other nonsense, people would realize that these really have no benefit whatsoever, certainly none that justifies the cost.
The Republicans, as usual, has the winning hand, and folded.
massmile | 8.5.11 @ 9:30AM
The list of political lost political opportunities is endless. Carter looks like a veritable Lee Atwater at this point.I am a 28 years old doctor, mature and beautiful.and now I am seeking a good man who can give me real love , so i got a username sammyshine2002 on--a'ge'l'ov'e'r.c óm--.it is the first and best club for y'ounger women and old'er men, or older women and y'ounger men,to int'eract with each other. Maybe you wanna ch'eck 'it out or tell your friends!
James Solbakken | 8.8.11 @ 6:44PM
GFY!!!
you
Troll.
Mattled| 8.5.11 @ 8:27AM
If the Obama Govt had been shut down, the media would have been in overdrive inflating the fictitious "damage".
We have to damage the media, by name, by face and attack them relentlessly for their lies, bias and under- reporting ( think John Edwards).
It's the media folks-------it's the media.
We need offense.
rb| 8.6.11 @ 3:56PM
Mattled is correct. Should a group form to deal with this?
R Martin| 8.5.11 @ 8:38AM
“Barack Obama is doubtless a compassionate, caring man…”
Doubtless? I have some doubt. A compassionate, caring, virtuous man does not include Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright as friends and mentors. He does not work for and advance the cause of criminal enterprises such as ACORN. He does not hire senior advisors such as Anita Dunn and Van Jones and he does not make a partisan, bumbling hack like Joe Biden his vice president.
Mr. Macomber, your whole piece serves to disprove that assumption about Obama.
Michael Crites| 8.5.11 @ 11:12AM
Perhaps the author's sarcasm was missed ...
Bob Grant| 8.5.11 @ 8:56AM
Excellent article. That Peggy Noonan paragraph you included struck me when I read her article last week. It seemed apparent to me early in his presidency that he was no Bill Clinton - politically speaking. It's as though he expected the mainstream media to carry this water and handle those duties, all the while Obama can look above the fray.
He's simply horrible at politics. He has no knack for it what so because, as Clinton was keenly aware, a favorable media doesn't always carry your water and you sometimes had to do the dirty work yourself...think fast on your feet. Obama is poorly lacking in this department. As a matter of fact, he's shockingly inadequate and getting worse by the day. The list of political lost political opportunities is endless. Carter looks like a veritable Lee Atwater at this point.
W| 8.5.11 @ 11:27AM
Peggy Noonan endorsed, and I assume therefore, voted for Obama. Now she sees the wind changing, and being fashionable, criticizes Obama.
Jack Olson| 8.5.11 @ 9:12AM
I have read Greenberg's essay several times. He mainly argues that the Democrats's problem is distrust, that the voters regard their political platform as "just words" and that slogans like "reinventing government" as well as promises like "middle class tax cut" are empty. Since Greenberg worked for the Clinton-Gore campaign which promised these things, how could he fail to notice that once his candidates took office there was no middle class tax cut and government certainly did not get re-invented? Don't the voters think the Democrats' slogans are "just words" because that is what they are?
davelnaf| 8.5.11 @ 12:21PM
We’re all a little spooked that someone like Obama became POTUS, and we’re all thinking ‘if it happened once before it can happen again.’ But an Obama presidency would not have happened had it not been for a slew of circumstances and situations smiling down on him before the election. One of which was that the presidential template provided by the political process had been degraded enough to allow someone like him to become president. In other words, the electorate was softened up—or softened itself up—with the likes of Clinton and the two Bushes.
The silver lining in the dark Obama cloud is that we won’t be seeing another like him for a very long time, which is as cheerful a thought as can be salvaged from the ash heap that is the Obama presidency.
Oldefarte| 8.5.11 @ 12:23PM
SOME of us here get it and some do not, in that IT'S THE DEMOCRATS AND THIS PRESIDENT, STUPIDS!!!!!!!!!
Dai Alanye | 8.5.11 @ 2:22PM
"Barack Obama ... prevented a depression and saved global capitalism." /Stanley Greenberg
Sure, in the same way Lenin saved the Russian Empire.
Peggy Noonan, by the way, has been out of touch with the conservative movement--and possibly with reality--since the early nineties. There's no other way to put it: Republicans like she and David Brooks are doofuses.
Scott Tucker| 8.5.11 @ 8:24PM
Shawn, The Zebra's Focus Group is one of the best commentaries I've ever read! WELL DONE SIR!
FIY I blog online at yahoo.com as WHILE WE ARE STILL FREE with an eagle head avatar.
POST American| 8.5.11 @ 11:25PM
----'90's Show' Tavistock/Rockefeller
'Calm-place-n'--SEE' and SAP OP ---ALERT!---
Globalist directed, EUGENICS feuled,
psychopathic, God mocking, creation hating
---USURY remains ------THE------- issue
here, and worldwide.
REALLY
TRULY
jackc| 8.6.11 @ 11:40AM
Visionary economic leadership - not politicians obsessed with greed, titles, position and power - is the elixir that is needed to extract America out of the economic disaster, perpetrated by Obama and big government policies.
All policies over the last three years must be immediately erased.
Apple now has more money than the onerous Obama government, without printing bills or pontification.
Free markets are indispensable, in an economically-oriented world of the 21st century and beyond.