Daniel Henninger of the Wall Street Journal is a very good writer and a very smart man. But his claim that President Obama’s slimmed down version of his most recent State of the Union address – a speech Obama has taken on the road – is “soaring out in the country” is fairly wide of the mark.
We just learned, for example, that only 36 percent of likely voters grade the Obama administration’s handling of the economy at good or excellent, while a huge number — 62 percent — grade the president at fair to poor, with poor collecting the largest number: 45 percent. Now I recognize that people could like Obama’s speeches and disapprove of his policies. But in the end, they will (unlike 2008) cast their vote based on his deeds rather than his words. And Henninger’s claim that Obama is the “maestro” of the “inner melodies of life in America these days” isn’t something I detect when looking at polling data or, frankly, much else.
I’m glad Henninger is raising warning flags, because conservatives should assume the race against Obama won’t be easy. And there are reasons to guard against soaring confidence when it comes to the 2012 election. But my own sense of things is Obama long ago lost his claim to being America’s rhetorical maestro – and while his words may play well in a pre-selected crowd in Chandler, Arizona, they have fallen flat with most Americans.
If Barack Obama wins the presidency in November, it won’t be because he stirred the hearts of Americans. It will have very little to do with any inner melodies of life in America. It will be because he succeeded in utterly destroying the reputation of his opponent.
You may be right. Or Henninger may be right. The smart thing is to adopt a strategy that works in either case. One such approach would be to hammer away at the economic facts, while also hammering away at Obama's personal credibility, all while getting under his famously thin skin and pointing out his habit of amassing and even thirsting for personal power. In other words, you have to him him on at least 3 different levels: n nEconomic and foreign policy failure nPersonal credibility nSuspect motives n nAllowing his credibilty and motives to go unaddressed leaves him free to play on guilt, angst and hope, which, though he might not be a "maestro" at doing, he is certainly better at than Mitt Romney. Let's have a mult-tiered, layered attack, not just a one dimensional economic critique.
If Obama is the issue, Obama loses — but, what the article suggested (as I understood it) wasn't that Obama was loved or even credible, but that his arguments (like the one about only Obama in the whole wide world is fighting the problems caused by that e-e-e-evil Bush). In other words, all Obama is saying translates into "Bush did it! Bush is the issue" and so every tiny little success is due to Obama and every failure is the legacy of Bush. And, facts aren't the amunition to demolish this idiotic argument. That was the point of the article! Personality might (and, Ok, everybody hates Gingrich, especially women, and Santorum is kind of flat and, arguably, an awful lot of non-Republicans are a little afraid of the religious right, which Santorum sounds like — so, fine, if it must be Romney, he needs to "care" not "manage"). Romney would win more votes by getting his picture taken helping a little old lady across the street than he'll get for having business experience in times of economic disaster. Hoover was really good at business too.
You are right. It is very, very hard to make a fact-based argument these days. The statistics are endlessly debated and you get leftist economists to support whatever Obama says. Like it or not, you have to argue on an emotional level. You are right that photos with little old ladies are good. But so is eviscerating Obama's credibility. Nothing would help beat him better than people thinking "I don't believe him." or "I question his motives".
Yes! Some kind of "There you go again, Mr. President," moment will be needed. And it doesn't need to come in a debate — just something that can catch the imagination. I read that Carter led Reagan in the polls until very near the end, that Carter had terrible numbers on what people thought of him, but that Reagan still needed to give the voters a reason to vote for HIM. I think that will be true this year too. And remember how Reagan was criticized for "simplistic solutions"? What the critics missed was that he was communicating! Detailed arguments don't convince. What communicates is [a fabricated] hockey stick showing how bad global warming is … or "If it does not fit, you must acquit."
I agree with with Peter that Henninger is well off the mark. Just because he got applause in Chandler doesn't make him unbeatable.Quite the opposite, as the other posters have said. To catch the imagination of the public , he should bring out a plan for flat taxation-say 18%- that would eviscerate the attacks on his own tax returns and invigorate the Republican base. I think he can wait a bit for maximum effect but this would give him the necessary boost to rally all conservatives.
Unemployment dropped to 8.3%. Factories are moving back to America. Rail Roads are building infra structure at a record pace to modernize everything from bridges to seaports for the coming boom. Our exports have risen by 50% since Obama took office. The stock market closed today at the highest level since 2008. Prosecutions of Wall Street swindlers have excelerated and 63 have been convicted to date and all of this happened without any republican support and a lot of sabotage and obstruction. What are the republicans offering that Obama is not delivering?
If Greece goes bankrupt, which it probably will within the next few months, there is likely to be chaos in Europe and quite a recession out there, which is have a world-wide effect and increase unemployment to much higher levels in the USA; as they are big customers of ours as well as having many companies with employees here. Obama's electability is very dependent on external factors outside his control.
Prosecutions of Wall Street swindlers are not accelerating. Bank fraud prosecutions are at a generational low, in fact. Housing is in a depression, and will remain so for a long time. A striking list of Obama cronies from Wall Street, like Corzine, parade through the news, although not for being prosecuted. Oil prices are rising again, and gas will probably reach $4.50/gallon this summer. While factories are moving a bit back to America, that trend started before the recession, and only in non-union states — Obama and his labor allies have tried to block this. Sorry. n nUnemployment has fallen since 2009 mainly because of prematurely retired workers dropping out of the labor force — the Democrats did not push for an extension of the 2-year emergency unemployment benefits for 2012 precisely because they wanted the labor force and headline unemployment rate to drop. In the upside down world we now live in, a dropping unemployment rate doesn't mean what it meant when labor force participation was growing. Thinly disguised welfare and depleted savings await the over-50 unemployed crowed. Older Boomers and the newly retired were precisely the groups that voted most heavily for Obama in 2008. We'll see what happens this time.
If Greece goes bankrupt, which it quite possibly will within the next few months, there is likely to be chaos in Europe and quite a recession out there, which will have a world-wide effect and increase unemployment to much higher levels in the USA; as they are big customers of ours as well as having many companies with employees here. Obama's electability is very dependent on external factors outside his control.
The question is why are fact based arguments hard to make?