Here’s the Real Reason Obama Is Faltering
By Anita Finlay ("Ani") on September 15, 2008 at 5:20 PM in Barack Obama, Current Affairs, David Axelrod, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Political Strategy, Sarah Palin, Tony Rezko
‘Pols,’ media and other clueless head-scratchers are in a tizzy that McCain has surged ahead in the polls:
A senior Democratic strategist, who has played a prominent role in two presidential campaigns, told The Sunday Telegraph:
“These guys are on the verge of blowing the greatest gimme in the history of American politics. They’re the most arrogant bunch I’ve ever seen. They won’t accept that they are losing and they won’t listen.”
Well, we’ve been howling at the moon about Senator Obama for nine months: there’s no “there” there! Did the DNC listen? The media? Super Delegates? Knock knock?
Believe it or not, the first time I laid eyes on Senator Obama in a debate and watched his ‘body English’: the up-tilt of his head, looking down the nose, leaning away from his audience, the you-come-to-me-I-don’t-go-to-you-demeanor, his halting speech, one thing rang in my ears loud and clear: His arrogance would be his undoing.
Before I listened to a word the man said, it was obvious he could not tolerate criticism of any kind, and had a roundabout, hard to pin down answer for everything – he practiced dissembling and obfuscation.
Case in point: The January debate when Hillary asked Obama about his association with the slumlord Rezko. He stood before the American people on national television and said he had only done “five hours of pro bono work for him” many years before. This ignored their close 17 year relationship, the fact that Rezko helped Obama buy his mansion while under indictment; the housing development contracts he recommended to Rezko get while Obama was a State Senator or the $250,000 in campaign contributions Rezko gave him. Obama lied through his teeth.
Arrogance. As if he was daring people to call him on it. How surprising! No one in the media did. The media suggested, in fact, they insisted that Senator Obama was…
The “new kind of politics” – which was based on telling the truth, being a principled politician and treating one’s opponents fairly.
What nonsense. The ‘principles’ were for show. The Washington Times notes his transformation after the primary:
He reversed course with dizzying speed on NAFTA, FISA, public financing of campaigns, whether the D.C. gun ban was constitutional, meeting with rogue leaders without preconditions and the unity of Jerusalem. He even qualified his Iraq policy by stating it would be “refined” according to “conditions on the ground.” Most recently, in light of the economic downturn, Mr. Obama stated he might reconsider implementing the tax increases in his economic plan.
…He stammers and stutters in response to questions rather than speaking forthrightly. The polished, Ivy League-educated senator now uses “folksy” expressions. This downhome speaking manner is geared toward attracting white, blue collar voters – and is not in consonance with his impeccable oratory. He is now packaged and artificial.
These guys are hilarious. He was always packaged and artificial. It’s just that the ribbons hadn’t yet fallen off the package. In an effort to help correct what they see as Obama’s blunders, skittish pundits and politicians are offering advice at every turn. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that’s what happens when you ‘enable’ a media creation to get the Presidential nomination.
Michael Goodwin’s editorial Barack Obama’s Big Blunder, gives a pretty good assessment of their campaign’s current situation:
With top Dems fearing Barack Obama is in a hole, the Obama campaign has made a weird decision. It’s going to dig that hole deeper, harder and faster. …The problem is not that Obama hasn’t hit McCain hard enough or linked him to Bush often enough. The problem is that he hasn’t done anything else.
How about a new idea? How about putting some meat on the bony promise of “change”?
And what happened to that post-partisan uniter who took the country by storm during the early primaries by offering an optimistic vision for America? Why not bring him back?
Apparently that Obama has left the building. He’s been replaced with a party man who sees the other side as evil and beneath contempt.
So much for holding hands in the White House and passing all that great bi-partisan legislation. A uniter? Reaching across the aisle? How?
In the Washington Times:
Many voters and critics are still asking: Who is Mr. Obama? He has told us who he is through his record and deeds: a liberal politician who will abandon all his principles at the drop of a hat in order to be elected. This is not new or fresh: It is precisely the “failed policies of the past” that he brilliantly identified, but cannot surmount.
The UK Telegraph discusses the defection of women voters to McCain:
Peggy Noonan, the former Reagan speechwriter, blamed the defection of women voters from Mr Obama on the atom bomb of ritual abuse by left-wing bloggers and Democratic officials, painting Mrs Palin as a bad mother and religious weirdo.
Ms Noonan wrote: “The snobbery of it, the meanness of it, reminded the entire country, for the first time in a decade, what it is they don’t like about the Left.”
The Republican strategist Dan Schnur said that the effect was to repel blue collar, family-oriented voters. “They didn’t like Obama in the primaries and voted for Hillary. And they still don’t like him now so they’re voting for Palin.
Gee, Peggy; so nice of you to chime in. This is the self same horrid human being who missed no opportunity to drive the stake into Hillary’s heart. Obama did the same thing to Senator Clinton. Where was Peggy’s outrage then? More…
Party leaders and commentators say that the Democrat candidate spent too much of the summer enjoying his own popularity and not enough defining his positions on the economy – the number one issue for voters – or reaching out to those blue collar workers whose votes he needs if he is to beat Mr. McCain.
Others concede that his trip to Europe was a distraction that enhanced his celebrity status rather than his electability on Main Street, USA.
What did you expect? When you campaign as though you are a rock star and say that everywhere you go is “Barack Country” with a big smile plastered on your face and think that is enough to win you the Presidency…how would one characterize that? Delusion? Denial?
[S]ome see … a bunker mentality among Obama’s inner circle – where outside advice, even from highly experienced people, is not welcomed.
The Democratic strategist told The Sunday Telegraph: “They think they know best. They don’t return calls. There are governors and senators calling them up with ideas. They don’t get back to them.
Gut check time at the voting booth, people are going to ask themselves who they trust, with whom they feel safe. They may flirt with Barack, but they’ll marry McCain.
Pundits and ‘Pols’ miss the point. They act as if their advice can fix this. It cannot: A man who is most comfortable in front of a teleprompter where he stands above everyone else cannot now change his stripes and stand level with those he clearly looks down upon.
In order to do that he would have to strip away all the personality traits I first described. As McCain and Palin so effectively described themselves, Obama would likewise have to morph into someone with a ‘servant’s heart.’ He would have to stand in a town hall setting and deliver his ideas simply and spontaneously – as if he actually had ownership of them. And we all now know that he does not.
Why do you think he is so terrified to meet John McCain in a town hall? Why do you think he refused to debate Hillary after his abysmal performance at the April debate prior to the Pennsylvania primary?
Of course there is a bunker mentality. Obama’s campaign manager, David Axelrod, must protect his carefully sculpted media creation at all costs. Their whole strategy has been to overwhelm their way into the presidency with huge rallies and concerts, presidential emblems, soaring rhetoric and platitudes.
Furthermore, his statements are vague throwaways, as in ‘his uncle helped liberate Auschwitz” — another fabrication. As if it is only important to throw out some generalized soundbyte of something that may have a passing acquaintance with the facts. The behavior exhibits carelessless. The audience will be fine with this — close enough. They won’t know the difference. Well actually, many of us do.
If you want sophisticated, progressive Democratic policy ideas explained in a down to earth fashion, warmly and sincerely – you need Hillary. Hey, I watched her do it at a fund raiser. She literally had questions from the audience pulled from a bowl and spoke extemporaneously and eloquently for 90 minutes about anything and everything people wanted to know. No uhhs, errrs, aaah, ums.
Did you watch her at the Convention? She, like Barack, must have used a teleprompter there, but you’d never know it – because she owned every policy, everything she campaigned on. There is no denying, she spoke from her heart. And she’d have no trouble reaching out to the American people now, building her coalition. Because she never looked down at any voter.
In contrast, behold Barack: so arrogant he refuses to reach out to Hillary’s voters. Where is his heart? He stubbornly pursues a strategy designed to insult and minimize the importance of the people who always decide elections in this country. And p.s., elections are not decided in NY, LA, or Chicago.
It isn’t that Senator Obama doesn’t want to change his campaign strategy. The fact is his Svengali, David Axelrod, knows he cannot. Character is as character does. The bunker mentality is no mystery to me. But then again, neither was Senator Obama’s personality.
The question is, why did it mystify so many?
, the basis for the Best Motion Picture Nominee (Golden Globes) starring Brad Pitt.
, the novel by John Le Carre, a new motion picture starring Gary Oldman and Colin Firth.
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