Obama's Government-Centered Society
The latest unemployment figures are out. They're not good. The unemployment rate did decline, but mostly just because more Americans stopped looking for work.
The Free Beacon's Matt Continetti says our "Peevish POTUS has nothing to run on but demagogic attacks and demonization of Republicans." As if on cue, President Obama says Republicans want to "poison our kids."
Obama's opponents have much more fruitful lines of attack. John Podhoretz writes, at the New York Post, that Mitt Romney has found a good one:
In his speech in Wisconsin, Romney finally found the right argument to use against Barack Obama — indeed, located the very specific dividing line between the president and his opposition that Republicans and conservatives have been trying to draw for four years now.
The president, Romney said, has “spent the last four years laying the foundation for a new government-centered society.”
“Government-centered society” isn’t the most felicitous phrase, nor the most memorable sound-bite. But that may be for the best. What it lacks in mellifluousness, it makes up for in deadly accuracy.
Podhoretz notes that every major initiative of the Obama administration has placed government at the center of the policy. The $860 billion stimulus package that funded state and local governments, the $100 billion bailout of auto companies that led to the president's teams picking and choosing which cars the companies should be making, Obamacare and its mountains of mandates and regulations directing government power over every American.
Obama hasn’t nationalized the auto industry or the health-care industry, nor did he assume control of the economy via the stimulus. What he has sought to do is enmesh government, the economy and the citizenry in a new way.
That is why Romney’s “government-centered society” is a brilliant stroke, why it’s going to stick — and why Obama’s partisans and Obama himself aren’t going to be able to shake it off so easily.
It has been difficult for the right to define its ideological discontent with Obama in a way that might be convincing to those who don’t think in ideological terms.
Obama is more than just a standard-issue liberal, but less than a European social democrat. He has a centrist’s cool temperament, but a statist’s bald confidence. So what is he?
The strength of the Romney approach, Podhoretz writes, is that it redirects the line of attack from Obama personally to his philosophy and his vision for the United States.
I agree. This rhetoric from Romney could help people articulate what they don't like about the Obama presidency and provide them with a way to after the administration without personal attack. And perhaps the Ricochet brain trust could help Romney punch up the rhetoric a bit.
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Comments:
Sep '10
Re: Obama's Government-Centered Society
He should call it Leviathan: its tentacles are everywhere.
Sep '10
Re: Obama's Government-Centered Society
Obama's view of government is like Don Henley's Hotel California:
"You can check in but you can never leave."
Mar '11
Re: Obama's Government-Centered Society
Isn't that usually called Socialism (or even Marxism)?
I guess that would be too direct.
May '10
Re: Obama's Government-Centered Society
Posted this last October... where has the Governor and his staff been?
May '10
Re: Obama's Government-Centered Society
Meh. My guess is that swing voters already understood that Obama favors powerful government. They don't mind a "government-centered society" as long as government gives them freebies.
Apr '11
Re: Obama's Government-Centered Society
David Williamson: Isn't that usually called Socialism (or even Marxism)?
I guess that would be too direct. · 17 minutes ago
It would result in endless conversations in which Socialists and liberals said that Obama wasn't one, which is just as legitimate as saying that Bush wasn't a capitalist. If you're trying to explain content, it's better to use words that describe the content than words whose ambiguity becomes the issue. We're not operating in a media friendly environment. The other side get to use overstated claims like "social darwinist" with impunity. We don't.
It is important to fight back against that, to have our own long march through the institutions. That's not our chief battle of the next 7 months, though.
Jun '11
Re: Obama's Government-Centered Society
I'd go with Cthulhu.
Jun '11
Re: Obama's Government-Centered Society
Or maybe Romney should come out with an eye patch and a burr, proclaiming "Beware the Kraken!"
Mar '12
Re: Obama's Government-Centered Society
Does anyone else listen to Medved? He's been insisting for a while that the Republican nominee needs to focus on the fact that Obama is making the government bigger, which, surveys show, most people don't want.
Feb '11
Re: Obama's Government-Centered Society
I'm not sure I see the brilliance in Romney's rhetoric.
As Aaron Miller has already noted some people won't mind the government centered society as long as they get freebies.
And I bet other people are wondering what just point Romney is attempting to make.
So Obama wants a government centered society. Okay. Why is that bad, Mr. Romney? What bad things will the government centered society make happen? How will it harm the country? And the people?
Perhaps Romney should spend more time discussing that sort of thing, and less time worrying that he might say accidentally something mean about Mr. Obama.
Nov '11
Re: Obama's Government-Centered Society
Leviathan, Cthulhu nor Kracken would work, nobody would get the references.
It's a great notion. I just have no evidence that would reverse the trend (which, fwiw, long predates Obama).
Dec '11
Re: Obama's Government-Centered Society
The brilliance in the rhetoric is that it is short, memorable and accurate. It captures what Rick Santorum has correctly identified as a real problem (excessive reliance on government) and provides a real opening to a meaningful conversation (which Santorum didn't effectively do).
In order to get to the questions you pose (which are the heart of that meaningful conversation), we must first capture their attention with a short, memorable and accurate rhetorical device. That's what I like about his comment.
Xennady: I'm not sure I see the brilliance in Romney's rhetoric.
...
So Obama wants a government centered society. Okay. Why is that bad, Mr. Romney? What bad things will the government centered society make happen? How will it harm the country? And the people?
Feb '11
Re: Obama's Government-Centered Society
Let's say that's true.
So what?
It has all the punch of being attacked by a dead sheep.
Obama isn't going to be moved to respond to this line of attack, nor will he be forced to do something or stop doing something because of it. Romney supporters will agree with Romney, Obama supporters won't, and swing voters will figure they've heard it all before.
Because they have. Everyone knows Republicans aren't fans of Obama or what Obama has done.
More explaining by Romney won't help.
There are much better lines to use against Obama. For example, Romney could talk about how Obama is breaking the law by disabling address checking for the online contribution page at his campaign website.
If Romney said that it might make people wake up and pay attention. Obama might even have to respond and might even have to start following the law.
But no. Telling people what Obama is doing might be construed as making a personal attack, so Romney won't do it.
So we get blather. FAIL.
Apr '11
Re: Obama's Government-Centered Society
I think this most of the comment has some truth in it (although I think there are some people who find this stuff persuasive, there are certainly others who would be more moved by allegations of criminality). It does leave me wondering, though, where you were when commenters here said, endlessly, that he had to be talking about first principles all the time, and that discussing specific issues meant that he was setting himself up to be a tax collector for the welfare state, managerial progressive, etc.
With regard to the specific message you recommend, I don't endorse the idea that Romney should talk about criminality, rather than surrogates. While true, it's hard to explain without risking a conspiracy theorist's tone.
Feb '11
Re: Obama's Government-Centered Society
J of E,
Of course Romney should talk about first principles. But there's a time and a place for everything, and this government centered society line seems to be intended as a theme for the general election.
Yes, it's both a memorable line and a true statement- but I find it a failure as an act of politics, as noted above.
Romney must do better. Perhaps he will, and my negative evaluation of this is all based on insufficient information. I certainly hope so.
But I'm seeing an old pattern here, and it doesn't give me a warm feeling about November. That is, the GOP simply will not do what needs to be done to win.
Bluntly, Obama is a shameless liar who has done many corrupt things.
Someone needs to tell people about this- and if the GOP won't, who will? Certainly not the so-called mainstream media.
And Romney- as the GOP standard bearer- is best suited for that, IMO. Point taken about the conspiracy tone, etc- but I think it quite proper for the guy attempting to unseat Obama to criticize him directly.
That's a judgement call, of course.
Feb '12
Re: Obama's Government-Centered Society
It occurs to me that Barack Obama dislikes America or he dislikes what America has been. Both his mother and his father disliked America. Many of his close associates, the Ayers, the Khalidis, the Van Jones dislike America and Barack Obama is determined to change America and change it's history. The open Mic incident validates his intent to collude with the Russians to change America. For the sake of those who have gone before us who have built this great country, we have to identify the fact he dislikes America and we have to stop Barack Obama.