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Obama’s campaign restart stumble

Obama's worst week ever?

It has been one stumble after another since President Obama officially launched, some would say restarted, his reelection campaign three weeks ago.  With the Dems’ Bain mutiny making a shambles of the what was going to be Obama’s main attack on Romney,  this may have been Obama’s worst week ever.  The  RNC  produced the following  video that makes that point:

The Bain mutiny has grown to 14 prominent Democrats:

  1. Newark Mayor Cory Booker
  2. Delaware Senator Chris Coons
  3. Former Alabama Congressman Artur Davis
  4. Former Clinton Special Counsel Lanny Davis
  5. California Senator Dianne Feinstein
  6. Former  Tennessee Congressman Harold Ford
  7. New York Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand
  8. West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin [Video link]
  9. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick [Video link]
  10. Obama bundler Don Peebles
  11. Former Obama economic adviser, Steven Rattner
  12. Former DNC Chair and Former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell [Video link]
  13. New York Senator Chuck Shumer.
  14. Virginia Senator Mark Warner [Video link]

It has been such a rough three weeks for Obama that a Politico headline read “Obama stumbles out of the gate.” The Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei piece notes that Obama’s message is “muddled,” he comes across as “baldly political,” he is facing Democrat “blowback” for attacks against Romney and Bain Capital and is falling behind in fundraising.

It’s been so bad that Romney campaign Communications Director Gail Gitcho made it the focus of his “Week In Review” campaign memo:

By any objective measure, President Obama and his campaign have stumbled into the general election. According to one report, the president’s recent troubles “have shaken the overwhelming confidence of his campaign in Chicago and of Democratic leaders in Washington.”

This week, we saw wave after wave of Democratic officials and Obama surrogates stand up against President Obama’s attack machine. From New York to California, and North Dakota to Alabama, the message was loud and clear. The Obama campaign’s best-laid plans to wage an all-out assault on the free enterprise system have predictably backfired.

These obsessive and misleading attacks – which the president himself confirmed will be the focus of his campaign – have been rebuked by fellow Democrats for being “nauseating” and “unfair” and ridiculed by the media and Democratic operatives as “clumsy” and “ancient.” The media felt compelled to eulogize “the 2004 version of Barack Obama,” who promised unity and a new era of leadership, while introducing the world to “the new, nasty Obama campaign.”

Meanwhile, the current chair of the DNC distanced herself from the Administration’s decision to grant a visa to the daughter of Cuba’s communist dictator, while a former DNC chair declined to endorse the Obama campaign in its current state.

Tuesday’s primaries in Kentucky and Arkansas provided valuable insight into the Obama campaign’s struggles. President Obama has no primary challenger, but is losing significant amounts of support within his own party – to no one in particular. More than four in ten Democrats who voted this week declined to support President Obama.

Despite repeated attempts by the president and his campaign to divert attention from the important issues we face, Governor Romney remains focused on his optimistic, pro-growth vision for America’s future. While the Obama campaign falls deeper and deeper into attack mode, Governor Romney continues to offer bold policies to confront America’s challenges – as he did this week, laying out a plan to give every child in America a chance to succeed by reforming education.

This is the real crux of the Obama campaign’s dilemma. It’s not the messengers that are causing the problem – it’s the message.

It is clear what this election will be about. It will be about the nearly 23 million Americans struggling to find work, and millions more who have been pushed to the brink in the Obama economy. It will be about the failure of our economy to rebound the way it can, and it will be about the outdated, government-centric, liberal policies that President Obama has offered as the solution to our problems. This election will be about our country’s future. Are our schools good enough? Is our economy good enough? Can we do better than the last four years?

Mitt Romney believes we can. And the American people do as well.

As Obama was forced to finally man up and admits he supports gay marriage — thereby ending his successful straddle of the gay marriage issue, his attacks against Romney’s private sector experience at Bain Capital backfired and Obama’s campaign spokesman was caught deviating from the truth, Romney stayed on his it’s still the economy message.

Recent polling finds that the Obama attacks against Romney’s private sector experience with Bain Capital have not hurt Romney. In fact, Romney’s business background is perceived as an asset. In addition polling shows Romney has opened 10-point lead among Independents and has closed his so-called gender gap from 19 to 7 percent.

It’s been a good start for Romney — as for Obama, not so much.

 

COMMENTS

  • evilbloggerlady
  • ctredstater

    how the negativity of the primary battles have been wiped off the screen, and the rollout which Governor Romney has been war gaming for for years is happening – very smoothly so far.

    I want to stand up and cheer when he defends capitalism. Without the class warfare stuff – Obama is totally toast. I don’t believe this means Romney’s election is a sure thing – (nor do I expect the Orioles to win the AL East) – but right now, it is hard to imagine how it could have gone much better.

    the bigger issue I am going to watch is which Dems start cutting their losses and distancing themself from the Big O. If that happens in any great number, he is really screwed. It could be the Hatfields and McCoys time again (Obamians vs. Clintons) for the Dems.

    what a wonderful thought.

  • Ausonius

    needs to be in November.

    Never underestimate the Left and the drugged Kool-Aide they have swigged. There have been no “gaffes” and no mis-statements and nothing bad has happened at all because MAObama is The One, The Leader, and we are going FORWARD!!! :)

    We can write about all of these people contradicting and disagreeing with MAObama and type our fingers into stubs worrying about “Kimberlin” and “Wasserman-Schultz” and exactly how will any of this change the minds of those who voted for him last time?

    The task may seem simple: convince about 5% of the population to reconsider their 2008 votes. It is unclear to me that they will change their mind because of the Mayor of Newark or anyone in the above litany.

    I fear overconfidence: we know that everyone in that litany will still vote for The Leader. And the MSM, which too many still depend upon, will ignore or dampen any kind of negative news. The prime example is the lawsuit by the American Catholic Church against the administration demanding complete Freedom of Religion, demanding that it not be limited. ABC and NBC carried nothing about it, when it was filed, CBS gave it 19 seconds and parroted the MAObama line about the Church wanting to take away contraception from everyone.

    My worry here is that while we may think the above group’s opinions show MAObama on a downhill trend, our view may however not be shared by that 5% whom we need to shake and convert.

    I fear that they do not care about such people’s opinions. Show the 5% instead the logical conclusion to BIG BRObama’s policies for America: complete national bankruptcy, confiscation of private property, hatred of successful people, the rise of mediocrity, failure redefined as victimization by the successful, continual erosion of basic rights, and pusillanimity in foreign relations.

    In general, I am not heartened or encouraged by anything yet: I want to keep punching and swinging and acting like I am behind on points and the only way to win is a KO.

    • 6eorge Jetson

      It’s not “Forward”, it’s

      For Ward, Elizabeth, Barack, & untold other statists that “check the box”.

    • http://www4.webng.com/rickbull/lostlucky/ rickbull

      All we need to do is get the 5% so disgusted with Maobama that they stay home on election night.

      I firmly believe that we could have won in 2008 if we had had the right candidate, but 5+% of us stayed home on election night out of disgust toward McMilquetoast. Even I’ll admit that I had to hold my nose at my precinct when I pulled the lever for McCain.

      • ctredstater

        I have always believed that the enthusiasm of the core base is a huge factor that has a ripple effect. When the hard core are very very enthused (such as in the Perfect Storm of 1980 – which combined someone to enthusiatically be FOR as well as someone to be very enthusiastically AGAINST) – then it radiates out to the “persuadable middle” – who pick up on the conviction and passion – and go with the flow.

        As a conservative, I have cast most of my presidential votes since 1984 as “enthusiastically against” – but not with the big combo. Governor Romney is doing more than I would have thought to make me affirmatively like what he is doing in his early campaign. But no matter – we have NEVER in my lifetime had a president for whom another term would be such a cataclysmic national disaster as this one. So, despite what my feelings were in March of this year (disheartened hard core Perry supporter and “ABR” guy) – I am feeling my enthusiasm FOR Romney rise, while my fear of “Obama 2013-2016″ continues to rise.

        • Ausonius

          Enthusiasm is crucial of course, and although it seems like the momentum might be rising among Republicans and declining among Dems, I read today – again – that half of America remains on some sort of government assistance.

          We must hope that a large enough percentage of them have enough pride and sense left to want independence, rather than a check in the mail from MAObama.

          Whether or not this same percentage is also the same as the near half of Americans not paying income taxes remains unclear, but the odds are good that many of those receiving government checks pay no income tax.

          What do Romney and the Republicans have to offer them? An appeal to their self-worth? An appeal for personal responsibility and the joy of financial independence?

          In earlier days that tactic could have worked: given the debased nature of many people today, who knows?

  • johnt

    of 2012. The difference between talking and doing were never more evident, and it’s not just that Obama is exposed as a truly dull thinker. Axelrod? No mastermind stories this time, goes for the rest of the flakes as well. The media is really going to have to roll up their sleeves this time around.

  • fredflintlock

    Assume for a moment that Obama’s caricature of Romney is accurate, that Bain Capital does nothing but cut jobs and keep the savings as profit, and that Romney heartlessly sees value only in the volume of lay-offs a company can generate.
    Even if any of this was true, nobody has yet explained to me why this would make Romney a poor choice for CEO of the federal government.
    Imagine if some scrooge accountant became the next President of the United States.and put the entire alpha-beta bureaucracy on the chopping block in order to squeeze out revenues that could be used elsewhere in the economy.
    Problem?