Harsh Words

Time Magazine‘s long time senior political analyst and editor-at-large, Mark Halperin, has a scathing feature with an even more scathing headline: Obama is in the Jaws of Political Death. How time flies and headlines have changed for the MSM OPrecious. This piece is particularly bad because the long standing Obot meme has been that Obama and his campaign were superior politically and that is why he beat the Clintons. She ran a lousy campaign and Obama was a political god. It’s hard to see any of that superior strategy these days in a Democratic Party whose first instinct on GOTV is to scold and rebuke their own base. Now that there’s been some blowback for the hippie punching strategy and we’ve moved on to demonizing the Chamber of Commerce for cheating and stealing democracy. At least it’s not the War on Limbaugh, any more.

Well, I mean really, how can you run as a party of ideals and messages when a good portion of the congressional Democrats up for re-election are running away from their own legislative agenda? The major ad down here for Charlie Melancon in Louisiana is the big things he did to buck the party and the President. That would be Health Care Reform and the oil drilling moratorium. Former President Clinton has headed to West Virginia to try to boost Joe Manchin’s senate campaign. Manchin is running to replace the late Robert Byrd. The Senator is pro-life and strongly pro-gun. Manchin is running away from Obama as far as he can. He’s even said he’s never been invited to the White House. Manchin’s Republican views don’t seem to bug The Democratic party that is more concerned with the numbers than the actual stands of the people who will come to the District and vote for things that would be Republican if the Republican party hadn’t turned into something completely off the deep end of the crazy pool.

There’s no coherent Democratic message. What kind of national political campaign can you run when you’re only message is really, they’re worse and just ignore what we’ve done the past few years, we’re just warming up? Well, I’m downright kind to the problems facing the Democrats now compared to the Halperin article. Is this the way you would want the head of the free world described to you?

With the exception of core Obama Administration loyalists, most politically engaged elites have reached the same conclusions: the White House is in over its head, isolated, insular, arrogant and clueless about how to get along with or persuade members of Congress, the media, the business community or working-class voters. This view is held by Fox News pundits, executives and anchors at the major old-media outlets, reporters who cover the White House, Democratic and Republican congressional leaders and governors, many Democratic business people and lawyers who raised big money for Obama in 2008, and even some members of the Administration just beyond the inner circle.

Yeah, I could gloat because I had a feeling this would happen to some extent, but good grief, this is our country! Halperin enumerates the groups frustrated with the unemployment numbers and the economic outlook. Why couldn’t they just pass a bigger stimulus with the right kinds of spending in the first place and better yet, more timed to take care of things at least a year ago. Why are they still standing by this plan with results less than stellar? Well, the Chamber of Commerce didn’t eat their policy homework on that one nor did us hippies. Why not just stand up and say we did what we thought we could do under the political circumstances and you’re right, it wasn’t enough? Instead, what we got was just wait, it’ll work and looks it’s not as bad as it was last year.

But Obama has exacerbated his political problems not just by failing to enact policies that would have actually turned the economy around, but also by authorizing a series of tactical moves intended to demonize Republicans and distract from the problems at hand. He has wasted time lambasting his foes when he should have been putting forth his agenda in a clear, optimistic fashion, defending the benefits of his key decisions during the past two years (health care and the Troubled Asset Relief Program, for example) and explaining what he would do with a re-elected Democratic majority to spur growth.

Yup, that’s a good deal of the problem. Why declare war on Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, the Chamber of Commerce, and leftie bloggers that few people actually read? But, the deal is that no coherent Democratic message can exist in a party that kowtows to Senator Ben Nelson from Nebraska and Congressman Bart Stupak all the while giving speeches that promise FDR. Every one’s confused and exhausted. There are a lot of Velma Harts out there who don’t understand the numbers games and the pandering to the donor base. Exactly where’s the hope and change message in terms of vision, strategy, tactics and action items?

This is a president who needs a sign on his desk that says “it’s still the economy”. Cohesive policy and political strategies come from cohesive messages. Generic hope and change messages are great for elections, but lousy for governing. Some one needs to write a speech that delineates Democratic values. If at that point, some blue dawg can’t buy into the message, then why bring them to the beltway to sidetrack the agenda? Yes, batshit crazy republicans will scream and yell, but blue dawg democrats have shredded Democratic legislation to the point that most of it wasn’t really worth passing. And, we still have massive unemployment and record numbers of homeless and poor.

Really. Democrats need a coherent message and they need to concentrate on doing a few things correctly rather than a list of things sloppily and without some consensus by the governed. This President’s main mistake is sending out too much that does too little. If he’d have just concentrated on jobs and the wars and doing them both like a good Democratic President, I doubt he’d be reading his political obituary in Time Magazinee or elsewhere.

Really. It kills me to think of a return of Republicans, but sheesh, this legislative and message chaos needs to stop now before the electorate puts a stop to it for a very long time. I mean its nice to have huge majorities in congress, but when you’re trying to deal with the likes of Ben Nelson and Bart Stupak on your side, isn’t easier when they’re actually sitting with the bad guys? Isn’t there something to be said about a unified front? Put out a unified Democratic message and tell them to get on board or don’t support them.