Competing for a speaking slot at the Democratic and Republican parties’ presidential nominating conventions is a time-honored tradition every four years. The reason is simple: presidential nominees are generally popular within the party and may be the next leader of the free world, and the conventions provide an opportunity to be seen and heard by millions of Americans. (Nielsen keeps historical convention ratings for Democrats here, and Republicans here.)
So it is surely a sign of something close to panic that Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee head Steve Israel is publicly advising Democrats to stay home from President Obama’s nominating convention this year:
The man responsible for getting Democrats elected to the Congress this fall has a message for his party’s candidates: Stay away from the Democratic National Convention in September.
“If they want to win an election, they need to be in their districts,” New York Congressman Steve Israel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told the Reuters Washington Summit on Tuesday.
Who would have guessed the clear favorite for “least convincing political spin of the year” would go to someone other than Jay Carney or Debbie Wasserman Schultz? Not a single person will buy this spin, for two reasons: First, even if the Democrats expected another wave election in favor of the GOP, the very candidates most susceptible to that wave–less experienced members of the House–would benefit most by appearing at the convention, as it would raise their profile. And second, the announcement from Israel came after Democratic politicians began heading for the lifeboats.
The most notable of these Democrats was Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill, whose declaration that she would be caught nowhere near the president’s convention seems to have spooked her party into making a monumental unforced error. If Democrats think they’re headed for another shellacking at the polls, perhaps they know something the rest of the country doesn’t. Because there haven’t been any serious indicators of such a wave–at least nothing like 2010.
Volunteering that information won’t help them, because it won’t increase turnout and it will draw attention to the left’s sense of impending doom–something that occasionally develops into a self-fulfilling prophecy. It also forces media outlets to report a story that has thus far flown below the radar. If this were happening to a Republican administration, mainstream newspapers would be running story after story about how the president is so unpopular, even within his own party, that no one will be seen with him, his governance too radical even for the radicals.
But those stories had yet to appear this time, with the media’s election-year sensitivity to Obama’s image helpfully guiding them. Israel took a story the president’s allies were keeping under wraps and put it in neon lights. Don’t believe the polls showing Obama and Romney just about even, the DCCC itself seems to be saying, the president is politically toxic and everyone knows it.
Well, now everyone knows it.
Yes, it's impossible not to look at it this way. OK, those Southern Dems, like McCasskill and the guys from West VA, that was one thing. But to have the man running the congressional re-election effort make a blanket statement like this – that's another kettle of fish entirely. n nThe only other possible explanation is that this is some giant head-fake, but that barely makes sense. n nMy guess is that Obama has lost a lot more support among white people than polls have revealed, the campaign intends to further alienate white people at the convention by over-emphasizing ethnic solidarity and class warfare, and for any rep not in a deep, deep, blue district this stuff is going to be poison. n nIt reeks of desperation, but let's face it, so did the "gift registry" idea. n n
There's blood in the water and sharks are circling.
I think that it's funny that all of the yahoos that were all for Obumble are now running away – Itls like rats jumping off of a sinking ship – I don't think anyone will be fooled though.
If you chuck out the Registered Voter polls by leftists like Quinnipiac, Marist, NBC/WSJ, or NYT/CBS and just go with Likely Voter polls from Rasmussen and Purple Strategies the picture that emerges is pretty stark for the Dems. It DOES look like another wave election. Obama and the Party Of Compassion have been pegged as the incompetent radicals that they are. People are looking at Europe and then looking at our own deficits and freaking out. They notice that the Dems in the Senate have refused to pass a budget for three years because they would have to endorse the excessive spending that is going on. The Dems are not panicking because they are reading the RCP average, which blends in the loaded lamestream media propaganda polls, they're reading the same polls I am. They're also looking at Wisconsin.
Those polls are designed to make the poll averages look like a dead heat, and indeed, most of the major stories are now talking about poll averages, which they were not doing four years ago, and eight years ago, etc. The media spin/cover for Obama is so pathetic and it's hurting him. I hope they keep helping.
LOL. RCP, 538.com et al were being used 4 years ago…538's methodology has Obama at 65.4% for re election using polls, adjusting them and economic data.Nate has a stellar record and is where your attn. should be.
A linear extrapolation to 6 November of the Intrade odds curves for Romney and Obama shows 56-44 in favour of Romney.
That's why I laugh when I see the democratic talking heads saying that this election is going to be close, I think it's going to be a route and I think that Obama is going to get creamed when it's all said and done. If it's this close in June, it spells doom for Obama.
OMG how did we ever live without the genius that is Obama and his ilk, they gave us, healthcare that is worse for the rest of us, deficits that our grandchildren can't pay, ignoring laws they disagree with to create a voting block and an Arab Spring that gave us more instability in the region. The man is a genius and we are lucky to have him leading us. How small we must be in relation to his genius? But for him, we would be rubbing sticks together in search of fire. What a joke.
I laughed so loud I had tears in my eyes reading your truthful but very funny comment. Maybe now people will know that since Pres. Kennedy who had 1.0% budget deficit as a percentage of GDP, Obma has the highest deficit of 8.3% of GDP. Even the Bush's with all the wars only had 4.3%, but this "genius" raked a whopping 8.3%, so where is the genius there people? In 4 yrs. do you know how much he borrowed from China alone? Counting the rest of the world, about 6 trillion dollars folks. Do you know what a trillion is? Since Jesus was born if you spent a million a day, you cannot consume 1 trillion….It will take our great, great, great great grandkids to pay off our debts if ever.
Another cheap shot at Obama. I have yet to see your publication/news service find a single fault with FlipFlopper Romney – or did I miss it? Your continuing biased treatment of the Presidential race makes it difficult for anyone to take your commentary serious, Commentary.
Look Obama is a disaster for this country. He has no ideas and everything he has done has failed. SO ROmney just has to show up, because Obama was never vetted for being qualified by the media and they are and did everything they can to get him elected.
Seriously, the Lame Stream Media is in the tank for our dear leader… If they were doing their job they would have reported the Fast and Furious story.
I knew that Obama was in deep trouble when his reelection campaign put up an incredibly shameful and rather silly Internet site suggesting that his supporters donate the financial value of their wedding , bar mitzvah, and birthday presents to the Obama campaign rather than to their proper recipients. nI remain amazed that this juvenile and offensive individual is actually the President of the United Ststes of America.
Maybe the democrates are waking up to the fact that the extreme left also want's democracy to fail.
Obama's problem is that many voters, due to demographics, remember what a real President looks and acts like. And I'm not talking about Clinton.
You keep posting this spam link to your own blog everywhere (this is the third place I've seen it in two days), but when people leave a comment you don't like, you delete it, as you did mine from yesterday. It's annoying to be begging for attention like this, and then reject the attention you get. Learn the conventions of blogging before you go spamming all over the place. Your audience is paramount. Amateur.
Obama is pro-racism, pro-gay, anti-Christian, a liar, blessed with free college tuition, free house in Chicago, free car, anti-capitalistic, pro-illegals, anti-law advocate and race baiter – so why would any Dem want to be aligned with his views!
In 1980 Senators Warren Maguson, birch Bayh, Frank Church and even George Stanley McGovern did not attend Carter's recoronation and neither did numerous congressmen. n nIt didn't help any of them–they all lost reelection. n nThat they treat Obama as a tar baby only confirms their constituents' opinion that he is! This is going to be an across the board whack of the Democ-rat Party.
The Dems truly are getting desperate: I got an email from the Dems today more or less begging me to come to their convention–and I'm not even a Dem. I think they're afraid of TV coverage of a lot of empty seats.
LOL. The list of Repubs skipping Tampa grows as we speak- Rehberg? Et al
Congressional candidates are not the only ones distancing themselves. When is the last time you saw a photo of Obama and Hillary Clinton together? Doesn't that seem a little odd for the Secretary of State to be virtually invisible\?
Would you want to be seen with Hillary?
They should just get Ed Shultz, Chris Matthews and the other media liberals to give the speeches. They elected him last time, gave him all the posititve press he needed, never vetted his ability, covered for him every chance they got, voted for him and are trying to get him elected again even though he isn't qualified. They ignored his lousy track record on the economy and blame everything on Bush or Republicans. THey have no respect for the COnstitution just like Obama doesn't. So they're Democrats, and everyone knows it so just let them speak and we won't have to listen to them on cable.
The political game is not one of chance but when stakes get really high, just about anyone can become a turncoat wet feet player. Back stabbing keep happening but it's not all comers that bleed to not come out tops. n nThe game has a human element to it that will never be shaken up, The position of the current President has relevance that goes beyond American shores and strictly American issues and interests but is cosmic world wide reality that could never have come up in the first instance if it wasn't really cosmic and universal in an entirely human context. n nThis phenomenon having happened, President Obama's fate and retention of office is a settled matter that back stabbers can't withhold. By the time reality dawns on the vast majority, they will simply end up as earlier with questions whereas it's answers that count, Where do answers come from? How are they incubated? How are they hatched? Where do all these things happen before distribution to other lads and climes? Simply put, the world is rotating around harsh truths and winning again isn't strange at all.
@ bd , off your meds today !!!!!!!!
Who would you think can turn a bankrupt economy around, a lawyer who's experience was that of a community organizer or a Harvard grauate, businessman who's experience was turning bankrupt corporations around and made them profitable? If you love your country, you can throw your party loyalty out and vote for the man that can do it. We all love well scripted speeches but folks we love good results even more. The monies given away to bankrupt corporations as we have seen in the last 4 yrs. is enough to make each one of us multi-millionaires & it would have turned our economy around and no one would have been homeless. Simple math is better than RHETORICS.