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Obama’s Bad News Power Rankings, 5.31.2013

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

President Obama’s approval rating remains high despite all the bad news.  Good for him.  It’s not a bad thing for conservatives and Republicans that Obama is getting a pass – it focuses the discussion on government overreach, rather than trying to hang these scandals on one person.  It makes for a better policy discussion in the long term.

  1. Department of Justice vs. the First Amendment.  (Last week: 3)  Eric Holder is not so lucky as his boss: 42% of Americans think he ought to pack up and leave.  After word surfaced that the DOJ zeroed in on Fox News’s James Rosen, Holder flirted with perjury charges.  His ham-fisted attempt at reconciling with the fourth estate and demonstrating transparency was an off the record meeting, because nothing says “I love free speech” better than “Shh!”  Sidebar: It would have been hilarious if some press outlet had gone and then reported on the events verbatim.  Most of the media opted for the high road (stop laughing) and opted not to go.
  2. Entitlements.  (NEW!) Call this a dark horse.  Social Security isn’t doing well, and neither is Medicare.  California health insurance premiums are rising due to Obamacare.  This represents a huge messaging opportunity for the GOP.
  3. Benghazi.  (Last week: 2)  The drumbeat of bad news is starting to take its toll on Hilary Clinton.  She’s not a particularly scary or formidable figure in 2014 or 2016, but if you’re scoring at home that’s the second current or former member of Obama’s cabinet that the American people have soured on.
  4. The IRS vs. the Tea Party, et al. (Last week: 1)  There are so many pieces of bad news that inevitably, one of the big scandals fades to the background in any given week.  This one would have dropped off, but for another “dark horse” wrinkle – that the agency may have targeted adoptive families and small businesses unfairly.  This development would move the IRS’s actions from the realm of patently unfair to heavy-handed and just plain mean.
  5. Campaign developments.  (NEW!) left-wing SuperPACs must have been salivating to use Michele Bachmann as the poster child for the Republican candidate class of 2014; when she bowed out of her race her Democrat challenger did as well.  Ed Markey in Massachusetts is sinking into a dead heat with Gabriel Gomez.  In New Mexico, Susana Martinez well-positioned against potential challengers.  Bad campaign news tends to snowball, and that portends a big chilling effect on the Presidential agenda.

Oklahoma

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

This morning, Mike and Mike talked sports on ESPN Radio.  That’s usually no surprise.  But they weren’t talking sports on the morning of April 16, choosing instead to talk about the Boston Marathon bombing.  While that was marginally a sports story, that’s not the type of coverage they lent to the subject.

This morning, the news in DC tells us to expect up to 91 fatalities in Oklahoma after yesterday’s tornadoes, and half of those may be children.   And then it moves on to the next story, about the IRS or the Department of Justice or whichever scandal is having its turn.

This isn’t meant to compare events, or claim East Coast bias, or anything like that.  Realities like the tornadoes in Oklahoma are difficult for our head to process and almost impossible for our hearts to handle.  Events like the Boston bombing – and like September 11, or the shooting sprees in Newtown, Blacksburg, and Aurora – are, in a way, easier to deal with.  In those situations, there is a defined bad guy – a terrorist or a lunatic – so the pain can be focused as outrage and anger.  On one side is our concept of normalcy, on the other side are motives driven by evil.  Very simple.

But what motive does a tornado have?  Or a hurricane?  Or a meteor the size of Texas?

Ours is a dangerous world – a fact which makes our lives, and those around us, very fragile.

 

Powerless

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Suddenly, a phone call I got 13 1/2 years ago makes sense.

Today’s post was going to be about the big atheist billboard in Times Square, and it was going to be sarcastic.  Today is different now than it was this morning.  With 11 days to go before Christmas, a disturbed person in Connecticut has made good hearts everywhere heavy and sad, made devout hearts everywhere question their beliefs, and made peaceful hearts everywhere sad and mad at the same time.

Why am I talking about such a big event on a blog that’s read by a dozen people on a good day, with 10 of them stumbling by accidentally?  Why shout from a non-platform?  It’s actually quite appropriate, because today I feel helpless and small.

Unfortunately, it seems like this story gets replayed every few years.  Among others, there was Jonesboro, Columbine, Virginia Tech, and today Sandy Hook Elementary School.  I had a brother attending Virginia Tech in 2007, which is the closest I’ve been to having a personal stake in any of these.

Today’s shooting actually made me think back to Columbine, though.  That night, while sitting in my dorm room at UMass, I got a call from my Mom.  I knew about how horrible that day’s shooting was, but getting a call that night seemed a bit odd.  She must have been shaken up more than she let on, I reasoned at the time.

I get it now.

Today’s shooting is not the first school shooting since I became a Dad.  But Sandy Hook is unmatched in human toll since Virginia Tech, and the children in that school were just a few years older than my daughters – short years which I know will fly by.

In 2007, by the time I heard anything about Virginia Tech, my brother was safe and sound in his off-campus apartment; the threat was apparently over.  The massacre in Connecticut makes me worry – not about today, but about tomorrow.  I want to go home, bolt the doors, and huddle with my family.  No one goes outside anymore.  The End.

That’s not realistic; my little girls are going to get bigger every day and they are inevitably going to go to school.  And with that realization comes the next logical thought about these two little souls were entrusted to me and my wife:  “Oh, my God.  I can’t protect them.”

Naturally, we all grieve for the families of the victims.  Yes, we feel a mix of anger and confusion directed toward the apparently deceased gunman.  And if we are completely honest, surely we have wondered to ourselves why God would let this happen.  Scrolling through my Facebook feed, though, I see something else.  “I can’t hold my babies tight enough tonight,” said a high school classmate.  “Giving extra kisses to my baby today,” said a college friend.  The sentiment has been echoed by former softball teammates, ex-colleagues, clients, and others I’ve met in various walks of life.  The only common threads are our children and our fear for them.

Suddenly, I know why Mom and Dad were so worried.  Today is heartbreaking.  But tomorrow is terrifying.

Small is huge nowadays

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Two seemingly unrelated pieces of patriotism struck me as oddly similar this week.  The first was, obviously, the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.  The second was the not-quite-safe-for-work homage to George Washington from cartoonist Brad Neely.

Neely’s work is kind of out there, but for those who share his sense of humor it’s spot on.  (A sample line: “And we danced, like those people in the hyper-tight light of fried chicken commercials!”  Seriously, what does that even mean?)  Even with limited exposure in venues like Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, Neely’s two or three minute videos are especially suited to a YouTube audience.

Obviously, the Navy SEALS who took down bin Laden crafted a much more significant piece of work on Sunday.  Their achievement, though, was a reflection of a changing military environment just as Neely’s videos reflect a changing media environment.

The major military conflicts to stop terrorism after September 11 targeted nations – specifically, Afghanistan and Iraq.  The plan was to smoke out terrorists by pressuring state sponsors of terrorism.  We found that the strength of our armored columns had limited effectiveness confronting the independent contractors who made up Al Qaeda’s network.  We could contain the snake, but we couldn’t do the one thing we set out to do.

It’s significant, then, that the bin Laden kill mission was set up by intelligence and espionage, and executed by a couple dozen elite servicemen.  There was no invasion of Pakistan, simply a precise action focused on a single piece of property within the country.  One can’t help but suspect that had our leaders not announced the mission’s success, the rest of the world might never have known bin Laden was dead.

A small, elite unit was all it took to snuff out the world’s leading terrorist.  George Washington (who crossed the Delaware for a surprise attack) would be proud.

Dueling ads about Planned Parenthood

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

On his Daily Caller blog, AOL/Huffington Post ‘fugee Matt Lewis talks about why a recent ad taking on Planned Parenthood works – noting that the inclusion of a former Planned Parenthood staffer helps strike an authoritative blow to the abortion provider’s claim to be about more than abortion.

 

In contrast, here’s one of the ads Planned Parenthood has been running on local Washington stations, most likely to scare the Congressional staff who live in the area:

This ad is effective, too – at least to a degree: it highlights a personal story and diverts the attention from their core business of pregnancy termination, which is a political loser.   Unlike the ad referenced by Lewis, this ad (and other Planned Parenthood ads) have used a male voiceover.  At first blush, that seems like a bad mistake; after all, isn’t Planned Parenthood trying to position itself as the voice for women’s health?  But there might be a method to the madness: the male voice allows Planned Parenthood to convey a sense of urgency and anger without allowing a listener to dismiss and stereotype the message as “angry feminist” rhetoric.

It also might have been a budgetary consideration; the ad itself looks like it was made cheaply and quickly.  And that might be a bit of strategy, too: after all, if you are paying for ads that say you need a handout, the ads probably shouldn’t look too slick.

Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na BACHMANN!

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

It’s shaping up to be a big week for Minnesotans running for President, with Michelle Bachmann yesterday suggesting that there might be a future announcement about preparing to make an announcement that she would consider heavily running for President.  (That’s an official FEC designation, as I understand it.)

For 2012, it’s tough to see where Bachmann will draw support.  She has made plenty of inroads with tea partiers, but her operation may be short on organizational infrastructure – a polite way of saying that the usual top-level consultants who know how a Presidential race is run may not want to touch her with a 40 foot pole.  (And what candidate would you touch with a 40 foot pole?  But that’s a question for another blog.)  Perhaps sensing vulnerability and indecision from Palin – or with inside knowledge that she won’t run – Bachmann sees the potential for a candidate straight out of central casting for the strong, suburban soccer mom demographic like herself to fill the gap.

Or maybe Bachmann is, despite all the criticism, pretty smart about the nature of political movements.  Some pundits might advise she bide her time, run for Governor or Senate, and table her White House ambitions until 2016, 2020, or even 2024.  But while the tea party movement where her support is based is very relevant now, the reality is that its influence may have already crested with the 2010 election.  If it could carry her through Iowa and possibly South Carolina early on, she could at least score a pretty good speaking slot at the Republican Convention.  It would be a long shot, but it also might be her best shot.

An extended break

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Since I’ll be away for a couple of weeks, here are some of what pass for greatest hits when you run a two-bit nickel and dime blog:

Sunday Funnies: Taking on FreedomWorks

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

This week, Tommy Christopher at Mediaite shared this parody of FreedomWorks’ Matt Kibbe and the tea party movement:

If the character playing Kibbe sounds a little familiar, it’s because he’s the former voiceover artist who left a threatening voicemail with FreedomWorks resulting in him getting axed from GEICO.  (Happiest guy about this?  That “Could switching to GEICO really save you 15% or more” guy who looks like an extra from Mad Men.)

The joke is a bit of inside baseball – if you follow politics closely you recognize the takeoff of Kibbe’s signature ‘burns.  But it’s so clearly directed at FreedomWorks, that its limited appeal really doesn’t matter – this is nothing but an FU to FW.

It isn’t deserved, but at least it’s funny.

The right way to lose

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

It isn’t going out on a limb to say that Len Britton likely won’t beat Patrick Leahy to become the next U.S. Senator from Vermont.  But he has used a couple of campaign videos to point out the problem of government overspending, and who foots the bill:

In another video, the creepy government guy hands Billy and his family a check for their share of the national debt.  When Billy points out that it’s a lot of money, creepy government guy taunts, “Better get a paper route, Billy!”

The videos have received national attention, because they deliver a message in a creative, funny way.  They’re also excellent examples of the right way to run an extremely uphill race.

I’m not very familiar with Britton’s campaign, so he could be an insane, foil hat-wearing Lyndon Larouche backer who thinks that the destruction of the Death Star was God’s revenge for the Empire’s tolerance of same-sex Jawa marriage.  But based on this limited sample, Britton uses his underdog status to make his point in a way that would scare off many campaigns in the thick of a close race. If Britton were to drop this strategy to rant about the President’s birth certificate, Sarah Palin’s baby, or some other conspiracy theory for the deranged the damage to his personal credibility will be dwarfed by the damage he does to the Republican brand.

Britton may wind up underfunded, and his videos may be limited to their viral appeal, and it may not be enough to keep Leahy from wiping the floor with him come November.  But this isn’t the last election in Vermont, so this video and the messages it carries can still set the table for victory – even if it isn’t until Billy’s old enough to vote.