This seems like a no-brainer to me:
It’s no secret that the White House would prefer to run next fall against the likes of Perry (or, perish the thought, Bachmann) than Romney, the easier to paint Obama’s opponent as unacceptably outré and even scary. Less appreciated is how significant a player Obama’s reelection team—along with its allied outside groups—may be in the Republican primaries. By spending millions of dollars on anti-Romney ads and pointing out the similarities of his Massachusetts health-care plan to Obamacare at every opportunity, they may be able to function effectively as a pro-Perry “super pac”—and one with greater resources and media reach than anything Perry and his allies can muster. The irony here would be rich, for sure, and the effect bordering on perverse. But don’t kid yourself: The possibility of things playing out just this way is one of many nightmares that keep Romney’s advisers awake at night.
My view is that Obama should use the bully pulpit to talk about how ACA is Romneycare writ large.
keith
Operation Chaos coming back to bite the GOP in the ass… Priceless.
Derf
Oy Vey. This story is more than a little premature donchathink?
Ian
If I recall, this is similar to how Hilary Clinton managed to win Indiana in the primaries, as well as her enduring performance. Rush and his ilk launched a campaign to get Rethugs to vote in the D primaries to keep the struggle going. At the time I thought it was shenanigans.
Now I think it is funny. But if Prez Perry ever manages to come into being, I may have to eat crow.
At the end of the day, I do not think most R primary voters will have their opinions shaped by what the President says. He can go before them and offer them trade deals, patent reform, and tax breaks and they will turn it down because it comes from him.
catclub
Works great until Romney gets the nomination, then all those statements that Obama has made praising Romney will come back to bite him. Romney will be able to say: “I best understand Romneycare and and know how to improve it”
Low information voters will take that at face value. GOP voters will take that as meaning he will dismantle it.
If Obama continues his record of driving all his opponents insane (o lucky man), Romney will not be the GOP nominee.
spongeworthy
…to paint…opponent as unacceptably outré and even scary.
Last I heard, it was raycess to do this.
StevenDS
They should stay the hell out of the Republican nominating process.
Then as soon as a nominee is declared, unleash their campaign.
ant
I think the Obama team has correctly determined the Mitt is the one to beat.
I don’t know if they can help pick him off in the Pub primary though. I think that the pub primary voters wont nearly be as nuts people like to assume.
Either way, this is excellent news for John McCain.
danimal
Well, I think Obama’s ‘death hug’ of Huntsman crippled his candidacy before it got off the ground. Of course he’ll tout Romneycare; it’s a win/win for Obama, he gets to heap praise on his rival in precisely the manner that his rival can’t accept.
The Dangerman
Who needs a SuperPac? Having Huntsman in the race right now and having him blast away at The Crazy is practically ratfucking (Huntsman was, after all, in the Obama Administration).
chopper
@catclub:
of course, in such a bloody battle as this primary is going to be, romney would have distanced himself so much from romneycare he would effectively not be able to run on it at all in the general.
‘i know in the primary i said that i only signed romenycare because my family had been kidnapped by militant muslim abortionists from san francisco, and that it was the worst thing since the nazis, but now i’m saying i’d be the best at improving it on a federal level although i said before that having it at the federal level was fascism!’
romney may have a lot of practice flip-flopping, but obama’s biggest advantage in this election is that he doesn’t have to bend over backwards to appease a bunch of crazies before appeasing a bunch of regular folks.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@catclub:
Except Romney will never say this.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
I haven’t read the actual article, but it seems that the writer is speculating on what Obama should do during the Republican primary. I doubt Obama will do anything during it. Let the Republicans shred each other, and then use the attacks against the winner.
Davis X. Machina
@chopper:
Oh. Really
dpCap
President Perry!
catclub
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): I was looking at after a win of the nom by Romney. I agree he cannot say that BEFORE winning the nom,
but if he wins he can say whatever he pleases and the far right will have to get in line behind him. If he wins he could easily be quite forceful in telling the right wing to stuff it, since it will be the loonies that he has beaten.
(Yes, I have assumed a lot that is not yet in evidence.)
“Except Romney will never say this.”
This seems to imply that saying that might involve some shame, which he does not have. I think there is no statement Romney would reject if it helped his chances.
bkny
‘use the bully pulpit’ …. oh, but that’s so mean. and obama doesn’t do mean.
kerFuFFler
Not sure I am wild about the idea of trying to encourage the conservatives to nominate the craziest among them just because it should give Obama the edge with the independent vote. Should something destabilizing happen right before the election we could end up with a dangerous ninny in the WH—–Palin, Bachmann, Perry, take your pick.
aimai
I’m increasingly anxious that Obama can’t beat Perry–somebody talk me off the ledge. Its not that I don’t think the blue states will rally round Obama if its Perry, but I’m kind of wondering whether the entire of the bat shit crazy republican base plus indepdendents isn’t enough to win the election if they all break for Perry. And I think they are more likely to stay home if its Romney. Somebody make me feel better.
aimai
Hill Dweller
I’m sure the Obama camp can walk and chew gum at the same time, and this sort of thing might pay off, but they’d be better served by shoring up support among their base. Right now the Democratic base has no enthusiasm; and their Quixotic pursuit of “Independents” has alienated the very people they will need to win.
The wingers are going to block anything that will help the economy, ensuring high unemployment in 2012, so the Obama people should get out of their comfort zone, turn populist, and try hanging the economy around the teahadists’ necks.
danimal
@aimai:
Perry is repulsive to independents. Take a step off the ledge. He sounds a helluva lot like Bush, also, too.
catclub
@Hill Dweller: “turn populist”
Harry Truman ‘do nothing congress’ references here we come.
Zifnab
@danimal:
But so is the economy. If independents stay home or Dems have a depressed turn-out in the Midwest, there could be trouble.
Jewish Steel
Very easy to imagine a pres debate in which Obama outlines the salient aspects of ACA praising Romney all the while. I’d prefer to run against a loon, but that would be delish.
cleek
@Hill Dweller:
playing to the self-proclaimed base will not win a presidential election. there simply are not enough people there.
The Worst Person In the World
My view is that Obama should use the bully pulpit to talk about how ACA is Romneycare writ large.
But DougJ, you forget…the Bully Pulpit is useless and has no effect, when used. At least by Obama. Or something…
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@aimai:
I wouldn’t panic just yet. If the UI rate were determinative in general elections, FDR would never have been re-elected in ’36 or ’40, and to cite a more recent example, Reagan would have been in trouble in ’84. I don’t think Obama is going to coast to victory, on account of the economy being where it is and is likely to stay from now thru the fall of 2012, but the number of states in play as true swing states is likely to be fairly similar to the 2008 election.
I don’t think the election will be decided as a referendum on U3 or U6. I have more faith in the American electorate than that, when they can be bothered to show up. The deadly sin of the American electorate is not paying attention, not the sin of making really stupid decisions when they are paying attention. When times are bad people tend to pay attention more.
cleek
@The Worst Person In the World:
it likely has no effect in switching the votes of legislators on contentious issues, in today’s political climate.
it probably has a measurable effect on the voting public, however.
sherparick
Be careful what you ask for. Carter and his folks figured that his reelection would be a snap despite the rotten economy, second oil criss, and utlimately the Iran hostage crisis if the Republicans nominated Reagan. Reagan was a right-wing nut who wanted to get rid of social security, opposed Medicare, and felt nuclear war with the Soviet Union was worth the risk (or at least made noises that sounded like that). How did that work out? The maddening complacency of Obama and Geithner about the economy, and their complete willingness to move on to Republican turf that frames the problem as being all about deficit and nothing but the deficit means that white working class Democrats have very little reason to vote for Obama when at the same time all their tribal resentment buttons are being pushed by the Republicans (see today’s NY Times article about the lack of Democratic ethusiasm in Queens in Antony Weiner’s old district).
I much rather have a semi-sane, flip-flopping, corporate Republican, like Romney, than Perry, a man who appeal is summed up in the quote from the Hutchinson campaign “It takes guts to execute and innocent man.”
Zifnab
@cleek:
Base voters are very reliable and very motivated. They’ll block walk and canvas and fund raise and organize for you. And they’ll rumor mill and dirty trick and rat fuck too.
Playing to the base gives a Presidential campaign lots of energy and passion and is great for pulling in resources. Active voters do a lot more than just pull a lever for you once every two years.
kindness
yea…maybe I’m being too ‘safe’ but I think Obama would be better to just let the Republicans kill each other off in their own party building way. Not to say an occasional announcement praising Romney or vilifying Bachmann/Perry would be a bad idea…just don’t stake a campaign on it. But certainly use the Republican knee jerk reaction of anything Obama to your advantage.
There really should be a term for that. The Republican knee jerk reaction to anything Obama I mean. Where is the BJ lexicon when you need it?
Brachiator
If Romney repudiates Massachusetts health care, as he has done other positions, how does this help Obama? If Romney says that health care should be a state and not a federal matter, how does this help Obama?
@sherparick:
I think you err in thinking that Romney is semi-sane.
Yutsano
@Brachiator:
He already has. He’s still being tarred with passing it.
He’s said this too. It didn’t help him. If it hurts Willard, that’s a plus for Obama.
It’s hard to label a man sane when his whole raison d’etre is to become President by any means necessary.
NR
@cleek: You do realize that Obama’s numbers with independents are absolutely terrible right now, right? (Only 23% approve of the way he’s handling the economy). And this is after all the shitting on the base he did that was supposed to win him favor with independents.
Perhaps a change of strategy is in order.
WereBear
I maintain that all the Republican nominees… are either no-hopers, or crazy. Which should soothe some fears.
Brachiator
@Yutsano:
I’m still not seeing how this really helps Obama. But hey, google spends $12.5 billion for Motorola Mobility, so I guess everybody should throw money down a rathole.
This could be applied to any presidential contender. I think Romney is a bully and a coward. People like this are prone to do something incredibly stupid to overcompensate.
cleek
@NR:
the self-proclaimed base can go soak its fucking head. the actual base is doing fine.
perhaps he’s not actually in full campaign mode right now.
he does have a day job, you know.
geg6
@Hill Dweller:
So it’s quixotic to court the vote of the block of voters who actually decide elections in this country? And liberals will stay home unless he stops courting the block of voters who decide every election?
Hm. Guess my definition of “quixotic” and yours might be a bit different. Personally, I’d say it’s much more quixotic to try to please liberals by only talking to them since they are only about 20% of voters. YMMV.
Steve LaBonne
It’s not just quixotic, but downright stupid, to believe that this very set of voters- precisely the ones who vote about how they feel about things, not about policies, to which they pay no attention- can simply be scared into voting for Obama when the economy is in the toilet and they’re royally pissed off about that. Plouffe and Daley are nowhere near as clever as they think they are.
Brachiator
@NR:
Yeah. He should stop worrying about either “the base” or independents and try to fix the damn economy.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@cleek:
I always wondered about that.
Seems to me that definitionally speaking you are part of the Dem base if for you the worst Democrat is better than the best Republican and you can be counted on to act on that sentiment in a practical fashion by making sure you vote in every election. Everyone else is a swing voter of one flavor or another. Since the denizens of leftblogistan have been shouting it to the rooftops for some time now that they are swingers [insert your joke of choice here], it seems reasonable to ask: “What exactly are you trying to swing, and how are your proposed actions going to help accomplish that?” I have yet to hear any answers that don’t boil down to something along the lines of The President will hear the clamor of our voices and that will Bring Him to His Senses At Last, Thank God Halleluh!
It is a nice theory. I’m wracking my brains trying to think of a significant example in our past when it has ever worked.
Ian
@efgoldman:
And Ford nearly came back in that election too
NR
@cleek:
Actually, no. Only 53% of Democrats approve of the way he’s handling the economy. But keep on dreaming that austerity is going to save his ass.
geg6
@Steve LaBonne:
First, who is talking about scaring them into voting for Obama? I never said any such thing and I don’t think the article says anything about Plouffe or Daley saying it either. In fact, looking at the article itself, I see nothing about anyone saying this other than the author of the article.
And have you seen any of the polls in regard to how the independents view the Republican field? I know it’s early and all, but this election could very well not be the kind of election you think it will be. It may very well not be a “how much better off are you today” election and may very well be a “who do you trust more” election. In which case, Obama wins the independents handily if the GOP nominee is someone like Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann.
danimal
@efgoldman: John B. Anderson, also, too.
If there’s a third party this election cycle, it’s almost certainly going to come from the right and siphon off votes from the GOP. Obama is not the Black Jimmy Carter of the GOP hopes and dreams.
geg6
@NR:
You keep harping on this.
However, I have never heard cleek nor the President say such a thing. Linky, please.
Obama, very correctly, has pointed out that the long term deficit is a real problem that needs addressed. I saw Christina Romer, a supposed “progressive” goddess, say the exact same thing on my teevee about two weeks ago. Meanwhile, the President continues to push for more stimulus and for the wealthy to pay their fair share. Exactly how is this some sort of “austerity pony will save us!” rhetoric?
Hill Dweller
New Gallup poll: Romney 48%-Obama 46%, Perry 47%-Obama 47%, Paul 45%-Obama 47%, Bachmann 44%-Obama 48%
daryljfontaine
@kindness: Mycolonic Twitch (not a typo), in that it’s an autonomic response by Republicans with a bug up their ass.
D
cleek
@NR:
i never said it would.
cleek
@Hill Dweller:
good news for the anti-Obama left!
NR
@geg6:
Here you go:
That’s Obama, in a press conference, saying that austerity is going to help grow the economy. If he actually believes this, he’s in for a rude shock, to say the least.
Tone In DC
This re-election campaign is going to be tough.
But the clown car people might (and, I think, WILL) do something truly, epically st00pid to make it easier for BHO. And with that crowd of MENSA members in mind, that act of stupidity could happen early. And possibly often.
Scott Walker, Kasich and many other state-level people are showing the country just what clowns they are. Keep putting a microphone in front of these guys. They’ll do the rest.
geg6
@NR:
You really aren’t as stupid as your post makes it seem, I’m sure. And I really don’t have the time to be pointing this out to you, but he’s not saying what you are saying he’s saying. He’s saying exactly what I, Christina Romer, and even Paul Krugman have said. The long-term deficit is a major problem that we will have to address fairly soon in order to keep America doing well economically over the long run. I see absolutely nothing about austerity in that quote, but you’re determined to see it, so far be it from me to point out that your fantasy does not agree with reality.
Jewish Steel
@NR: So that’s “austerity”, huh?
NR
@geg6: And it’s the standard Obama supporter tactic–insult people who dare bring actual facts to the conversation. I guess when that’s all you have, that’s what you go with, eh?
Except he’s not talking about the long run. He said that in response to this question:
Obama is saying that big spending cuts will lead to economic growth because it will make businesses feel more confident about investing in this country. I know you’d love to pretend he didn’t say that, but he did.
Brachiator
@geg6:
And this is why Obama’s message on taxes is so confused.
First of all, the payroll tax cut works out to be another tax break for the rich, along with the continuation of the Bush tax cuts. The original Making Work Pay Credit (MWP) was phased out for incomes in excess of $95,000. But the payroll tax cut does not have a cap, and so, for example:
Everybody thinks he or she is paying a “fair share,” and stuff about fair share and shared sacrifice is more a social than an economic argument.
The point that Obama and the Democrats keep refusing to make is this: Bush and the Republicans promised that a deep tax cut for the wealthy would result in more jobs and a more robust economy. It didn’t. Instead, the poor and the middle class got rooked while the rich pocketed a greater share of income.
Obama should tax the rich more because they will not feel the pain and they will still make money. OK, this is not an economic argument either.
Stimulative tax policy must put more money into the hands of the middle class and encourage the wealthy to invest in companies and jobs in America, not simply to amass gains and make foreign investments.
As it stands now, and for next year, if a business buys $100,000 in new equipment, they can immediately write the entire amount off. This is a better deal than investing in employees.
cleek
the President does not have the power to levy taxes. only Congress has that power.
with that in mind, the problem here should become obvious.
TenguPhule
Yes, It’s a 45% levy on income over 1,000,000 called “So We don’t let the Angry Proles Cut Your Head Off Fund Contribution”
Perfectly legal.
William Hurley
Instead of wondering/worrying who the President will face in the generals next fall, time might be better spent wondering and worrying about the President’s standing among Americans as a thing unto itself.
Among the many short-comings of the President’s policy and political direction is the fact that – today! – ~25,000,000 million Americans are under- or unemployed. All things being equal, the number of Americans drowning in that demographic pool will exceed 30,000,000 before election day. By “equal” I specifically mean that the economy must generate 180,000 new jobs per month, every month, from today until Nov 6, 2012. Adding injury to injury, an overwhelming number of Americans fortunate enough to have a job have seen the purchasing power of their pay check steadily dwindle. Is it any wonder then that there are now 25% more homeowners facing immanent foreclosure – now – than there were at the so-called “height” of the housing bubble’s bust.
These ills (evils?!?) are not even close to being evenly distributed across the populace. The brutal effect of these economic outcomes are experienced most broadly and acutely by minorities – regardless of education or industry and even geography.
Focusing on the other team, the TeaOP, to the detriment of your own plants seeds that will very likely produce deeply undesirable outcomes.
The folly of faulty focus is brought into sharp relief by the first “head-to-head” candidate polling of this cycle released by Gallup today.
Remember, past results do not guarantee future performance.
William Hurley
@cleek: Indeed.
The President should have forgone the counsel of this hand-picked, NeoDem/DLC riffraff, for that of the wiser minds who’ve proven to have had a more accurate perspective on the state of the economy, in part and in whole, but who had not been dipped in the necessary sacred oil required to be a Villager.
Or, the President could have simply refused to accept an extension of the Bush/GOP wealth-transfer – for starters.
The President has a rather strong track-record of pursuing objectives he deems crucial with or without Congress. Feel free to ask the Libyans about some of the items on this list.