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The Spectacle Blog
In 2008, Barack Obama won the presidency by expanding the electorate, and competing for votes among ideological groups and within geographic areas that Democrats don’t normally go near. He ended up winning in states such as Virginia and Indiana, which Bush carried easily. And he beat John McCain among independents by 8 points. But a lot has changed in two years.
With less than a month left before the midterm elections, the New York Times reports that the White House has narrowed its focus to trying to rile up the liberal base, in hopes that it can mitigate the potential disaster facing the Democratic Party. This strategy became apparent to me back in July, when I was covering the Netroots Nation conference of liberal activists. At the time, Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid essentially delivered the same message to the audience: We’ve accomplished a lot, a lot more needs to be done, so work to get us reelected or else Republicans will try to undo our gains and thwart the rest of our agenda.
In a pretty pathetic episode for a sitting president, the Times reports that Obama has been reduced to pleading with college students not to abandon him:
“You can’t sit it out,” he told a conference call of college student journalists last week. “You can’t suddenly just check in once every 10 years or so, on an exciting presidential election, and then not pay attention during big midterm elections where we’ve got a real big choice between Democrats and Republicans.” He added that “the energy that you were able to bring to our politics in 2008, that’s needed not less now, it’s needed more now.”
Whenever a party is reduced to shoring up its base, it is a pretty good indication that their own internal polls aren’t very encouraging, and suggests that they have given up on winning the independents. The problem for Democrats, as the article itself notes, is that there simply aren’t as many liberals as there are conservatives. So while Republicans may be able to get away with a “get out the base” strategy in the midterms, Democrats need to win over independents, as they did in 2006 and 2008. Instead, they’re running away from independents.
There’s been a lot of talk about Democrats narrowing the gap, but the White House sure isn’t acting like it.
View all comments (11) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Philip Klein
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/10/06/obama-left-courting-the-libera
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Curly Smith| 10.6.10 @ 9:40AM
I think your "Obama expanded the electorate" is a false premise. There was virtually no difference between Obama and McCain on their stated policy issues. The uninformed were left to choose between the young, cool, hip Black guy and the old, uncool, cantankerous, Washington insider White guy. If you didn't want things to be done the way they'd always been done, if you really wanted "change" then the only logical choice was Obama. So, Obama didn't expand the electorate as much as McCain contracted it.
I wish I had voted for Obama. He really is a force for change. Because of him we have a real chance to change the GOP and Washington.
Richard| 10.6.10 @ 11:27AM
I'm wondering if you have been sleeping for the past two years. Obama has demonstrated himself to be nothing more than, "Just the same as before, only more of it." The only difference is that the huge Democratic majorities have enabled Obama and his party to ram through the most ruinous legislation in the shortest period in American history.
Curly Smith| 10.6.10 @ 12:43PM
I was speaking of his campaign, not his actual work product. Any informed voter understand what he was, to the uninformed voter he was virtually identical to McCain.
Stan Redmond| 10.6.10 @ 10:03AM
Obviously Obama needs to dust off the old playbook. Republicans will roll granny in to the snow and take her social security. Republicans will eat your children and kick your puppies. Republicans will dump toxic waste in to your drinking water. We've heard them all before but not from a cool hip teleprompter messiah with forceful finger wagging.
Tenn Slim| 10.6.10 @ 10:12AM
Opine
1. The Socialisties in power now, will not go quietly into the night.
2. The November 2010 election MAY give the US Electorate some breathing room, most likely not.
3. The Liberal base that elected Obama in 08 was really composed of a lot of Older Old Time Dems. The folks that saw a FDR return. Dedicated Lefties capitalised on this, and we have reaped the whirlwind.
4. Never, ever doubt the dedication of the Left. Enscounsed in the Civil Service at 1st, 2nd and 3rd tiers are the Socailistic folks dedicated to furthering the agendas. These folks dont stand for elections.
5. Finally, if anyone thinks the 2010 election will put this country "back on track" they are living a dream that will only be fulfilled via a hard working core of dedicated Conservatives.
end
Semper Fi
WE must Prevail
tonypal| 10.6.10 @ 10:43AM
Tenn Slim, the only thing I've ever admired about leftists is their determination. They never stop. That's why your 5th point is so important. We can't just celebrate a big victory in November, then go back to our lives as if everything is okey dokey. We need to be breathing down the necks of elected republicans, reminding them on a daily basis that they serve at our leisure and that we will pull the plug on them in the blink of an eye.
Pete| 10.6.10 @ 12:27PM
That is an excellent point that can't be emphasized enough. We need to get back to the place where these people think of themselves exclusively as REPRESENTATIVES and not members of an elite ruling class. Their salaries should NOT exceed those in the private sector so that we can go back to the days where "public service" meant sacrifice instead of privilege and entitlement.
heir2freedom | 10.6.10 @ 12:43PM
Dear Philip, the Democrats aren't running away from the Independents; au contraire, it's the Independents who are sprinting away from the Democrats like a herd of wild elephants at a "Willard" movie marathon.
Funny how cosmic justice has worked for Obama, though. In his wildest, fiendish, wealth-distributing dreams, I can't imagine he ever posited in his narrow, Cloward-Piven mind that his radical, Marxist agenda would cause the republic to reflexively jerk violently back toward Constitutional principles so fast in utter repulsion to his unicorn-filled utopian huckstering.
Dem apathy, Repub enthusiasm and Independents yearning to cash in on a "do-over" for their horrific 2008 mistake will be keys to watch on November 2nd.
http://heir2freedom.blogspot.c.....wards.html
Oldefarte| 10.6.10 @ 1:47PM
IMO, Obama won because Americans were fed up with the war, and because they believed his lies about his wanting to bring CHANGE to the the middle class. His disguised definition of MIDDLE CLASS is someone working temporary jobs or simply living off of governmental welfare. His WEALTH REDISTRIBUTION is his sole personae, and each/every legislative act or program is geared toward that end. He wants to steal income from those who earned it and give it those who do not, period. He used his African-Americaness to play to the shame of Americans over slavery and their desire to elect a black person as president. He disguised his extremely radical liberalism/socialism,etc since he knew that if voters understood who/what he really was/is, he'd never get elected. He was the ultimate trojun-horsed/stealth political usurping candidate. Voters only saw his engaging smile, his nice appealing family portrait, and his Princeton/Harvard education. They did not see his Mao/Fidel/ Vladamir/Stalin/Sadaam/Hugo ulterior motives!!!!!!!!!
Patriot| 10.7.10 @ 12:23AM
Give RINO GWB his due. W's weakness and total disregard for answering the Left's lies and distortions about him and his policies also helped elect Obummer. Rove is also at fault.