#occupyswingstates
Barack Obama is going on the road this week. It's worth noting where, exactly, he's going. From the WSJ:
President Barack Obama starts a three-day bus trip Monday through North Carolina and Virginia that brings fresh attention to the kinds of voters he will rely on as he works to assemble a majority next year in the Electoral College.
Those two states hadn't backed a Democrat for president for decades, but their large numbers of minority voters and an influx of white, professional workers helped Mr. Obama carry them in 2008. Now, they have re-emerged as potential leverage in the hard-fought battle to come.
They are among a number of states that Obama campaign officials see as a major focus. Mr. Obama will visit another key region, the Mountain West, next week, where Hispanic voters helped put Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico in the president's column in 2008.
North Carolina and Virginia are crucial to his re-election strategy. Oddly, though, I'm not sure those are the places that will be most receptive to his big-spending neo-Stimulus of a jobs bill.
And then next week, he's off to Nevada. Which is going to be tough. From AP:
HENDERSON, Nev. (AP) — Look no further than Nevada — and this swing voting city — to understand why President Barack Obama may not win re-election next fall.
Unemployment has grown to 13.4 percent, well above the national average, in recent months. The state has the highest foreclosure rate and record bankruptcies. And shuttered casinos collect dust along the glittering Las Vegas Strip that's usually a robust artery of jobs.
"Obama's hope hasn't done anything," grouses Larry James, a security guard who moved here from Philadelphia for work a decade ago, back when the state was booming.
It's so bad here that even the president's fans worry about the country firing him — and Nevadans helping.
What this president doesn't understand is that swing states have a pretty simple formula: since they swing back and forth a bit, and since they're essential to win, it's where Republicans campaign a little closer to the center and where Democrats campaign on law and order issues. When Bill Clinton campaigned for re-election in 1996 -- which has to be one of the most organized, efficient, and tightly scripted campaigns ever waged -- he ran on the economy, more cops on the street, school uniforms, and the economy again.
Two out of those four are out of Obama's reach. But instead of finding something moderate to talk about to appeal to the swing voters in these swing states, he's out on the hustings talking about a giant, expensive federal program to add to the other two giant federal spending binges he's already enacted.
His #occupyswingstates strategy makes about as much sense as his recent praise for the #occupywallstreet movement.
Maybe he wants to lose.
Wouldn't be so bad for him if he does. He's be the next president of Harvard, don't you think?
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Oct '11
Re: #occupyswingstates
The enthusiasm among conservatives for Obama's missteps are understandable, but we should be asking a deeper question: With the way the economy is going and with Obama's unrepentant and adamantine defense of his failed spending programs, how is it that he has even a 42% approval rating? We should find that troubling.
Sep '10
Re: #occupyswingstates
Remember the 80s, when pundits on NPR kept telling us that Reagan was an "ideologue" (which was of course bad )? Obama has shown that he is the most rigid ideologue in recent memory, exceeding even Carter in his zeal to "transform" America. The economy is sinking into the Marianas Trench, unemployment has been over 9% since his first months in office, but what he cared about most was being a "historic" president who enacted a giant federal health-care program.
Oct '11
Re: #occupyswingstates
Right dogs, a healthcare program with parts that even its authors are now backing away from.
Sep '10
Re: #occupyswingstates
As a resident of Virginia and frequent guest and friend of various Tar Heels I am agast at the thought that either of our states could be considered swing states. I suppose it is because we have large African American populations. I know that if I had grown up in the civil rights movement instead of observing the end of it as a little kid that I would probably be reflexivley liberal democrat, but I can't help but think that some modest percentage of African Americans must be asking themselves if this is really the key to their on going prosperity or if it would make more sense to judge their candidates on the content of their character or at least the content of their positions. When I'm around black folks who I consider friends I assiduously avoid the subject of poltics and so do they but I have to wonder if some of them aren't rethinking their decisions. One of the great things, I thought, about Doug Wilder when he became governer was a real sense of his place in history and not screwing it up that this fellow seems to lack.
Dec '10
Re: #occupyswingstates
They are. Not even leaning Republican. Pure toss-ups according to polls analyzed by RealClearPolitics.
What should Republicans do? Concede the Democrats’ strengths and attack the Toss-ups, which include NC and VA.
The Toss-ups divide into four blocs:
A conservative can sweep the South and split enough from each of the other regions to defeat the incumbent. High return. If Romney’s campaign appeals to the Union states, he will split the South, without guarantee of a Union sweep. High risk.
Edited on Oct 17, 2011 at 11:57amAug '10
Re: #occupyswingstates
Not just that: he'll write his narrative as the President the nation "just wasn't ready for yet", as the poor fall guy for a bad economy he didn't create (bad ol' Bush and all), and of course as the victim of right-wing racism.
Contrast that to the hard work of a President's 2nd term. Historically the second term is always harder, always get crippled by some scandal, and always manages to disappoint. It's 2 years of claiming a renewed mandate, followed by 2 years of lame duck weakness.
Why wouldn't the man who's "too smart to be President", who is bored of the job already, and tired of the gun-clingers thwarting his technocratic brilliance at every turn, want to pack it up and head back to the friendly halls of academia?
Dec '10
Re: #occupyswingstates
Rob Long: [...] And then next week, he's off to Nevada. Which is going to be tough. From AP:
If he starts spending a lot of time in Nevada, either his polls are weak and he has to defend a Toss-up state that ought to go his way; or, there is no better place than Las Vegas to clandestinely recruit, inculcate, arm, and train the unequipped and ill-informed for duty as community organizers.
Las Vega may be our historic first Islamic apostate president’s designated smoked-filled, underground war room from whence Reid, labor and public employee unions, and their fellow-traveling miscreants will secretly issue forth tactics for their shadowy mob of useful idiots throughout our land in order to disrupt our elections, primary and general, any way they can.
Apr '11
Re: #occupyswingstates
Whether he goes out in 2012 or 2016 has anyone thought about what a meddling, sniping ex-Prez he's gonna be? And for a long, long time.
We'll be pining for the days Jimmah the Sweet and Sunny.
Re: #occupyswingstates
This is a really excellent -- and disturbing -- point. We often assume that everyone, or even most voters, are basically conservative in some way. And we forget that 53% voted for Obama, and a lot of people still really like him.
We have a lot of voter convincing to do, a lot of voter persuasion to accomplish. Not just that Obama and liberalism are wrong, but that conservatives are right.
Jul '10
Re: #occupyswingstates
Rob Long
This is a really excellent -- and disturbing -- point. We often assume that everyone, or even most voters, are basically conservative in some way. And we forget that 53% voted for Obama, and a lot of people still really like him.
Funny, I asked that same question about a month ago.
Dec '10
Re: #occupyswingstates
barbara lydick
Funny, I asked that same question about a month ago. · Oct 17 at 1:45pm
There are “lies, damned lies, and…“ polls.
“In high-profile contests where one of the major party candidates is black, pre-election telephone polls have often been wrong, overstating the strength of the black candidate. In polling circles this is known as the “Bradley effect” or the “Wilder effect” or the “Dinkins effect.” Will it also be known as the Obama effect?”
PC responses to telephone polls are common. Decades ago, since extremist-party candidates in Europe kept producing superior election results than the polls predicted, the polling agencies have been weighting their results.
Telling pollsters what they want to hear goes both ways: Omertà when necessary; enthusiasm where there is none.
Nov '10
Re: #occupyswingstates
Yes! What a great idea! We can only hope.
Sep '11
Re: #occupyswingstates
I was having the same thought this morning; he would be back in academia, where he's most comfortable, without the pressure of, well, accomplishing something. Either Harvard, or start the Saul Alinsky Memorial Institute for Community Alienation...I mean organizing...
Apr '11
Re: #occupyswingstates
With the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, are we seeing a replay of 1968? In 1968, we had big protests of people who were recipients of government largesse - students who received student loans, grants and draft deferments protesting against a government run by the Democrats. As much as the liberal left looks back on the time as a wonderful experience of people trying to change the government, two facts seem to be forgotten: (1) people were protesting BECAUSE there were perceived problems with a DEMOCRATIC president, and (2) Nixon (a moderate Republican like a certain former Massachusetts governor) won the election. If President Obama does not embrace the OWS movement more, will it split the Democratic Party and will there be a big protest/riot at the Democratic Convention next year? Will that make a Republican victory in the Presidential elections more likely? I have not seen this comparison yet, so if I am repeating someone else's post, please fogive me.
Dec '10
Re: #occupyswingstates
Charlotte of 2012 is not your Chicago of 1968. Not because leftist grievances have been satisfied after 44 years of welfare spending, but because of the demographics. Opportunistic trashing of the local neighborhood is what you did in big cities as rioting spread across the country (’67 Newark, ’67 Detroit, ’68 Washington, ’68 Chicago, ‘68 Watts).
The leftist draft dodgers also had to prove to themselves that waging violence against innocent, working-class policemen and laying waste public property made them less of a coward.