Don’t know if you heard about the snafu whereby a reporter for Yahoo (and I didn’t even know Yahoo had reporters) was inadvertently allowed to listen in on a private GOP strategy session…
Anyway, the headline from it was, the Republicans on the call were warned not to attack President Obama too directly as they try to get him fired by the electorate:
Republicans on a private Republican National Committee conference call with allies warned Tuesday that party surrogates should refrain from personal attacks against President Barack Obama, because such a strategy is too hazardous for the GOP.
“We’re hesitant to jump on board with heavy attacks” personally against President Obama, Nicholas Thompson, the vice president of polling firm the Tarrance Group, said on the call. “There’s a lot of people who feel sorry for him.”
Recent polling data indicates that while the president suffers from significantly low job approval ratings, voters still give “high approval” to Obama personally, Thompson said.
Voters “don’t think he’s an evil man who’s out to change the United States” for the worse–even though many of the same survey respondents agree that his policies have harmed the country, Thompson said. The upshot, Thompson stressed, is that Republicans should “exercise some caution” when talking about the president personally…
How about that? There’s hope for the world when we see that top Republican strategists don’t see Obama as the incarnation of all evil — or are at least reluctant to say so. Now, if I can just persuade my Democratic friends that calling other people “vicious” is not conducive to a meeting of the minds, maybe we can get together and solve some problems in this country…
Related Posts
Oh, and for the record — yes, I feel sorry for the president. I always feel sorry for the president, whoever he is at a given moment.
Yeah, they always ask for it, going to extraordinary efforts to get the job in the first place. But I feel for them anyway.
… which helps to explain in part why, when I could always rattle off a litany of reasons I didn’t like the guy, I used to stick up for W when Bush Derangement Syndrome was raging.
No president in my lifetime has ever deserved as much calumny as is routinely heaped upon them by their political opponents. They always get blamed more than they deserve. Yeah, including Nixon. I felt sorry for him, too.
There’s hope for the world when we see that top Republican strategists don’t see Obama as the incarnation of all evil — or are at least reluctant to say so.
-Brad
That’s not exactly what this says. He may very well believe Obama is the “incarnation of all evil”. But what he’s acknowledging is that the VOTERS don’t view him as the “incarnation of all evil”. This is purely a political strategy ploy. If he thought it would help the GOP cause to compare Obama to Hitler they’d to it in a heartbeat. The GOP strategists have no scruples at all. They don’t give a damn about Obama, the public or even the country. It’s all about winning. And the consequences be damned.
AS for W. He got far less criticism from the media than he deserved, especially in his first term. Had the public been fully apprised of his utter incompetence and mendacity before the 2004 election it’s doubtful he would have been re-elected.
So in other words, people believe him to be a nice guy who can’t lead.
bud– I’ll agree with you on W’s incompetence, but mendacity? That suggests a level of knowledge and intent I doubt he had. He was negligent, grossly negligent, reckless even, but I doubt he was knowing or willful.
He was probably lying about the threat from Iraq but that’s probably unprovable. He was DEFINTELY lying when he told the world he was not wiretapping. I stand by the charge of mendacity.
As for Obama and the pity factor, not sure I get that comment. His approval rating really isn’t that bad, still holding firm in the low to mid 40s. And I would suggest to my conservative friends that folks are starting to respect the president for his ability to defend our nation. Let’s not forget who got Bin Laden and helped the Libyan people without putting our troops in harms way.
The Republicans really only have one card to play and that’s the economy. They get nowhere harping on the troop withdrawl from Iraq or some phantom cuts in defense spending. Nor is there anything to nitpik on Obama’s personal ethics. They really don’t need to go there espeically if Newt gets the nod.
So what is a good family values conservative to do? Vote for the guy who has impecable family values credentials? Or vote instead for Mr. serial adulteror himself and just pretend that’s not a party talking point? Then again, can you really trust those Kenyan born socialists?
@bud
Obamacare AND the economy will be the two factors influencing his re-election.
“Let’s not forget who got Bin Laden and helped the Libyan people without putting our troops in harms way.”
The military.
So that’s a wash, Doug. Most people are happy some small progress toward a more sensible healthcare plan got pushed through.
Good or bad, the ecomony has absolutely nothing to do with the Presidency. With Congress, yes. But still only to a small degree.
Obamacare is not, repeat NOT the albatross conservatives think it is. With a good PR campaign showing a few anecdotal stories of some downtrodden individuals who have been saved by either the (1) pre-existing conditions clause or (2) children on their parents plan clause Obama could actually use this to great effect.
In any event I don’t think it will matter much either way. Conservative elites like to make a big deal of it but I don’t think independent voters are that interested. Basically I’d call it a wash between those who hate it for some misguided reason and those who have benefited from it.
@Mark
By what measure have you determined that “most people” find Obamacare to be a sensible solution? The bulk of it hasn’t even begun to go into effect yet. It was so popular that more than half the states want to repeal it in its entirety.
There’s a good chance that “Obamacare” will one day be a positive phrase.
The Medical Loss Ratio aspect of the plan went into effect last week.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2011/12/02/the-bomb-buried-in-obamacare-explodes-today-halleluja/
Having done some traveling, I think we should be more thankful that we have leaders who to some degree show at least some respect for the rule of law. Many other countries have far less than we do. (Even if, in many instances, they do have better systems for paying for health care.)
And after reading a good bit of Caro’s third volume (LBJ in the Senate), I’m inclined to think that morality in government has actually improved, at least in some respects, to what it was a couple of generations ago. Leaders would not get away today with some of the stuff they did back then.
Doug, the more people learn about Obamacare the more they like it. It is finally dawning on folks that we pay far too much for sensible health care in this country and that BY FAR the main culprit is the health insurance industry. As Burl’s link points out health insurance companies are fighting to be able to spend less than 80% of their gross income on actual health care. Think about that, companies want to spend more than 1/5 of the money they collect on overhead and profit. Stunning that we can live in a nation that has such a screwed up set of priorities that allows this type of profiteering.
I say to all my conservative friends bring on the debate. If you really want us to go backwards to the days when health insurance companies could routinely deny coverage for practically any pre-existing condition they can drum up then you will lose that battle.
Mark, the edonomy is a very complicated machine with many, many players who make a difference. The president is the biggest single player in the economy but indeed even he only plays a small roll. Fiscal policy comes across his desk and he can influence legislation that drives unemployment and inflation numbers. And he should be held accountable for decisions he makes.