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""""It's Bedtime For Obonzo, And It's All (B)ill (J)efferson Clinton's Fault!
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Johnny Asia
Oct 25, 2012, 6:01:27 PM10/25/12
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Attention Obonzo: You're Fucked, And It's All (B)ill (J)efferson
Clinton's Fault!
The New York Times Reports That The Dems Begin the Post-Obama Blame
Game
Some Democrats are apparently not waiting for Barack Obama to lose the
presidential election before starting the inevitable recriminations
about whose fault it was. Whether writing strictly on his own hook or
as a result of conversations with campaign officials, New York Times
political writer Matt Bai has fired the first shot in what may turn
out to be a very nasty battle over who deserves the lion’s share of
the blame for what may turn out to be a November disaster for the
Democrats. That the Times would publish a piece on October 24 that
takes as its starting point the very real possibility that the
president will lose, and that blame for that loss needs to be
allocated, is astonishing enough. But that their nominee for scapegoat
is the man who is almost certainly the most popular living Democrat is
the sort of thing that is not only shocking, but might be regarded as
a foretaste of the coming battle to control the party in 2016.
Bai’s choice for the person who steered the president wrong this year
is none other than former President Bill Clinton, who has widely been
credited for having helped produce a post-convention boost for the
Democrats. Clinton’s speech on behalf of Obama was viewed, with good
reason, as being far more effective than anything the president or
anyone else said on his behalf this year. But Bai points to Clinton as
the primary advocate within high Democratic circles for changing the
party’s strategy from one of bashing Mitt Romney as an inauthentic
flip-flopper to one that centered on trying to assert that he was a
conservative monster. Given that Romney demolished that false image in
one smashing debate performance in Denver that seems to have changed
the arc of the election, Clinton’s advice seems ripe for second-
guessing right now. But we have to ask why Bai thinks Clinton was the
one who single-handedly forced the change, and what is motivating
those feeding the reporter this information?
Here’s the gist of Bai’s blame-Clinton thesis:
You may recall that last spring, just after Mr. Romney locked up the
Republican nomination, Mr. Obama’s team abruptly switched its strategy
for how to define him. Up to then, the White House had been portraying
Mr. Romney much as George W. Bush had gone after John Kerry in 2004 –
as inauthentic and inconstant, a soulless climber who would say
anything to get the job.
But it was Mr. Clinton who forcefully argued to Mr. Obama’s aides that
the campaign had it wrong. The best way to go after Mr. Romney, the
former president said, was to publicly grant that he was the “severe
conservative” he claimed to be, and then hang that unpopular ideology
around his neck.
In other words, Mr. Clinton counseled that independent voters might
forgive Mr. Romney for having said whatever he had to say to win his
party’s nomination, but they would be far more reluctant to vote for
him if they thought they were getting the third term of George W.
Bush. Ever since, the Obama campaign has been hammering Mr. Romney as
too conservative, while essentially giving him a pass for having
traveled a tortured path on issues like health care reform, abortion
and gay rights.
This is clearly intended to absolve the anonymous Obama aides for
making a decision that they — and the president — must have signed off
on before it was implemented. Bai goes to great lengths to take them
off the hook, and even compares their position to a ballplayer who
would reject advice from Derek Jeter. In other words Bai is saying
that anyone, even really smart political operatives like those working
in Obama’s Chicago headquarters, or the top guys themselves like David
Axelrod or David Plouffe, had no choice but to bow to the 42nd
president’s wisdom.
Bai is right on target when he notes that the strategy — regardless of
whose bright idea it was — was a clunker. While there is no guarantee
that calling Romney a flip-flopper would have worked better, the
investment of tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in negative
ads trying to convince Americans that the Republican was a heartless
plutocrat who abused dogs, outsourced jobs, killed cancer patients and
hated ordinary people set the Democrats up for a fall once their
target showed himself to be a likeable and reasonable person. The same
tactic failed 32 years ago when it was tried by the Jimmy Carter
campaign against Ronald Reagan, and right now that precedent is
causing the knots in the stomachs of Obama campaign officials to
tighten as they contemplate defeat.
If Clinton thought that he could apply the lessons of his own
victories to President Obama’s re-election problem, he was wrong. As
Bai points out, Clinton truly was a centrist, something that no one
(except perhaps the president himself) thinks about Obama.
But the idea that it was only Clinton that advocated this strategy or
that without his influence the geniuses running the Obama campaign
would not have made this mistake is so patently self-serving on the
part of his sources that it’s a wonder that a generally savvy observer
like Bai doesn’t point this out.
If anything this omission, like the general thrust of his piece,
points to an effort by Obama’s chief strategists to get out in front
of the story of who led the president to defeat. Moreover, it is hard
not to avoid the suspicion that pointing the finger at Clinton is a
way of reminding him that if he thinks Obama loyalists owe him for his
herculean efforts on behalf of the president he’s got another thing
coming. Especially, that is, if he tries to call in IOUs from the
Obama camp on behalf of another presidential run by Hillary Clinton in
2016.
But no matter where the Democratic fingers are pointing, the fact that
they are already starting to blame each other for an Obama loss has to
send chills down the spines of Democrats who are still operating under
the assumption that Romney can’t win.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/10/24/dems-begin-the-post-obama-blame-game-clinton-obama/
+
Pucker your butt for the Apocalypse!
Johnny Asia, Asshole from the Future
http://twitter.com/johnnyasia
http://www.angelfire.com/co/COMMONSENSE/blasphemy.html
Clinton's Fault!
The New York Times Reports That The Dems Begin the Post-Obama Blame
Game
Some Democrats are apparently not waiting for Barack Obama to lose the
presidential election before starting the inevitable recriminations
about whose fault it was. Whether writing strictly on his own hook or
as a result of conversations with campaign officials, New York Times
political writer Matt Bai has fired the first shot in what may turn
out to be a very nasty battle over who deserves the lion’s share of
the blame for what may turn out to be a November disaster for the
Democrats. That the Times would publish a piece on October 24 that
takes as its starting point the very real possibility that the
president will lose, and that blame for that loss needs to be
allocated, is astonishing enough. But that their nominee for scapegoat
is the man who is almost certainly the most popular living Democrat is
the sort of thing that is not only shocking, but might be regarded as
a foretaste of the coming battle to control the party in 2016.
Bai’s choice for the person who steered the president wrong this year
is none other than former President Bill Clinton, who has widely been
credited for having helped produce a post-convention boost for the
Democrats. Clinton’s speech on behalf of Obama was viewed, with good
reason, as being far more effective than anything the president or
anyone else said on his behalf this year. But Bai points to Clinton as
the primary advocate within high Democratic circles for changing the
party’s strategy from one of bashing Mitt Romney as an inauthentic
flip-flopper to one that centered on trying to assert that he was a
conservative monster. Given that Romney demolished that false image in
one smashing debate performance in Denver that seems to have changed
the arc of the election, Clinton’s advice seems ripe for second-
guessing right now. But we have to ask why Bai thinks Clinton was the
one who single-handedly forced the change, and what is motivating
those feeding the reporter this information?
Here’s the gist of Bai’s blame-Clinton thesis:
You may recall that last spring, just after Mr. Romney locked up the
Republican nomination, Mr. Obama’s team abruptly switched its strategy
for how to define him. Up to then, the White House had been portraying
Mr. Romney much as George W. Bush had gone after John Kerry in 2004 –
as inauthentic and inconstant, a soulless climber who would say
anything to get the job.
But it was Mr. Clinton who forcefully argued to Mr. Obama’s aides that
the campaign had it wrong. The best way to go after Mr. Romney, the
former president said, was to publicly grant that he was the “severe
conservative” he claimed to be, and then hang that unpopular ideology
around his neck.
In other words, Mr. Clinton counseled that independent voters might
forgive Mr. Romney for having said whatever he had to say to win his
party’s nomination, but they would be far more reluctant to vote for
him if they thought they were getting the third term of George W.
Bush. Ever since, the Obama campaign has been hammering Mr. Romney as
too conservative, while essentially giving him a pass for having
traveled a tortured path on issues like health care reform, abortion
and gay rights.
This is clearly intended to absolve the anonymous Obama aides for
making a decision that they — and the president — must have signed off
on before it was implemented. Bai goes to great lengths to take them
off the hook, and even compares their position to a ballplayer who
would reject advice from Derek Jeter. In other words Bai is saying
that anyone, even really smart political operatives like those working
in Obama’s Chicago headquarters, or the top guys themselves like David
Axelrod or David Plouffe, had no choice but to bow to the 42nd
president’s wisdom.
Bai is right on target when he notes that the strategy — regardless of
whose bright idea it was — was a clunker. While there is no guarantee
that calling Romney a flip-flopper would have worked better, the
investment of tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in negative
ads trying to convince Americans that the Republican was a heartless
plutocrat who abused dogs, outsourced jobs, killed cancer patients and
hated ordinary people set the Democrats up for a fall once their
target showed himself to be a likeable and reasonable person. The same
tactic failed 32 years ago when it was tried by the Jimmy Carter
campaign against Ronald Reagan, and right now that precedent is
causing the knots in the stomachs of Obama campaign officials to
tighten as they contemplate defeat.
If Clinton thought that he could apply the lessons of his own
victories to President Obama’s re-election problem, he was wrong. As
Bai points out, Clinton truly was a centrist, something that no one
(except perhaps the president himself) thinks about Obama.
But the idea that it was only Clinton that advocated this strategy or
that without his influence the geniuses running the Obama campaign
would not have made this mistake is so patently self-serving on the
part of his sources that it’s a wonder that a generally savvy observer
like Bai doesn’t point this out.
If anything this omission, like the general thrust of his piece,
points to an effort by Obama’s chief strategists to get out in front
of the story of who led the president to defeat. Moreover, it is hard
not to avoid the suspicion that pointing the finger at Clinton is a
way of reminding him that if he thinks Obama loyalists owe him for his
herculean efforts on behalf of the president he’s got another thing
coming. Especially, that is, if he tries to call in IOUs from the
Obama camp on behalf of another presidential run by Hillary Clinton in
2016.
But no matter where the Democratic fingers are pointing, the fact that
they are already starting to blame each other for an Obama loss has to
send chills down the spines of Democrats who are still operating under
the assumption that Romney can’t win.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/10/24/dems-begin-the-post-obama-blame-game-clinton-obama/
+
Pucker your butt for the Apocalypse!
Johnny Asia, Asshole from the Future
http://twitter.com/johnnyasia
http://www.angelfire.com/co/COMMONSENSE/blasphemy.html
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