Tag: obama

This menu is a national security concern

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Before last night’s game, President Obama told Bill O’Reilly that the Fox News commentator was invited to the White House Super Bowl party.  He didn’t mention the menu, which sounds delicious:

Here, according to the White House, is the menu for Sunday’s party: “Bratwurst, Kielbasa, Cheeseburgers, Deep Dish Pizza, Buffalo Wings, German Potato Salad, Twice Baked Potatoes, Snyders Potato Chips and Pretzels, Chips and Dips, Salad, Ice Cream. Beverages including the following beers: Hinterland Pale Ale & Amber Ale (Wisconsin), Yuengling Lager and Light (Pennsylvania), White House Honey Ale.”

Yummy.  Oh, and by the way, here’s the link to First Lady Michelle Obama’s obesity initiative, a program where she tells you what to feed your children.

Winning the Salmon

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 1 Comment

Immediately after the State of the Union address, NPR asked listeners to describe the President’s speech in three words, then made word clouds out of the responses.

The dominant word from the speech?  Salmon.

Even self-identified Democrats told NPR the fish was the biggest hook of the night – here’s their word cloud:

At first blush, it seems like President Obama lost his message. The President’s recommendations on economic, education, and energy policy took a backseat to a joke that, as my brother said, sounded like it was ripped off from a Kenny Bania routine.

In reality… That was gold, Jerry.  Gold!

The President’s job approval rating is creeping up, but Republicans are rebounding in the polls as well.  In other words, his return to good standing with the public probably has more to do with the fact that, since the election, there haven’t been television ads running non-stop blasting his economic and health policies.

That will, of course, change in the coming months, once the real legislative battles start, and once the Republican primary season starts in earnest negative messages about President Obama will blanket the news coverage.

For all the talk about Obama’s centrist political re-orientation, he has to be personally likable if he wants to win in 2012.  His charisma was a key factor in his ability to best John McCain in 2008, and the lack of charisma among the early Republican front runners will make this an advantage for him again next year.

Obama may not be able to get a majority of Americans to agree with him, but he can get them to like him.  A State of the Union speech most memorable for the yuks can only help that.  Viewers (and voters) can disagree about income tax policy or health care overhauls; a good sense of humor can cut across partisan lines.

Cross posted at Pundit League. Read it again!

Reacting to the Bachmann Reaction

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday at PunditLeague, I argued that Michelle Bachmann’s “Tea Party Response” to the President’s State of Union address would not detract from Paul Ryan’s official Republican response.  In practice, Bachmann’s response was actually better than Ryan’s – not because of content (Ryan did as well as he could have done), but because of style.

Despite Bachmann’s shortcomings as a speaker, her speech varied from typical State of the Union responses by including charts and images as visual aids.  Ryan’s turn as a talking head was traditional, but less dynamic.  As Brit Hume observed on Fox News last night, replying to the grandeur of the President’s address is difficult; it means sitting in a room with no audience, no applause, and no chance to speak in booming tones in front of an austere chamber.  Bachmann did better in the empty room by simply filling it with something besides her.  Granted, the charts could have looked better and could have included better visual representations of the consequences of the Administration’s fiscal policies, but the still looked better than Ryan’s charts (which, again, didn’t exist).

Future responses to the State of the Union might consider a more carefully crafted presentation that the Max Headroom-style talking heads that have become typical.  The opposition’s annual reply is a rare chance to rebut the President before a national audience.  Bachmann may have rankled Republican leaders with her rogue response – but she might be on to something.

UPDATE: Something I missed entirely in Bachmann’s presentation was the fact that she was apparently staring into space.  I figured the video I saw (linked above, from PBS) simply had the camera positioned off to the side, and that Bachmann had another, main camera she was looking into.  Unless this was filmed in the Congresswoman’s basement, I assumed SOMEONE would have told her to look into the camera; I guess that’s what happens when I assume.

Obama’s compromising word choice

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 2 Comments

Those who, in the wake of the 2010 elections, foresaw a Clintonesque Obama administration that tried to “triangulate” policy positions, the President’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal serves notice that… well, they may have been right.

First off, it’s in the Wall Street Journal, where the opinion page is widely recognized for leaning rightward.   Second, it describes an effort to strip federal bureaucracies of some layers of red tape:

Sometimes, those rules have gotten out of balance, placing unreasonable burdens on business—burdens that have stifled innovation and have had a chilling effect on growth and jobs… This order requires that federal agencies ensure that regulations protect our safety, health and environment while promoting economic growth. And it orders a government-wide review of the rules already on the books to remove outdated regulations that stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive. It’s a review that will help bring order to regulations that have become a patchwork of overlapping rules, the result of tinkering by administrations and legislators of both parties and the influence of special interests in Washington over decades.

It’s one thing to be pro-business, but the allusion to crony capitalism could be right out of a conversation with a hard core tea partier or Ron Paul.  It gives the impression of an understanding of open markets that many Republicans don’t quite get.  Much like Bill Clinton’s pronouncement that the “era of big government is over,” it absorbs conservative messaging – in fact, it echoes an executive order President Reagan made to trim regulatory costs 30 years ago.

The real policy that comes from this proclamation won’t necessarily be as business friendly or economically stimulating as the President is boasting.  But this is a message to the crucial middle ground of the American electorate – who don’t equate their center-right political views with a party identification and are pre-disposed to like Obama.  Appealing to these voters (especially when the other side still lacks a viable contrast) is the stuff reelections are made of.

Obama’s play action

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

The big story at the infrequently traveled intersection of sports and politics this week is the President’s congratulatory phone call to Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie about installing renewable energy equipment at Lincoln Financial Field.  During their discussion, they also mentioned quarterback Michael Vick, which seems to be drawing more attention.

There’s no word yet on whether the President will be calling the other team just north of DC on I-95, the Baltimore Ravens.  While the gave Vick a second chance, the Ravens have taken in wide receiver Donte’ Stallworth, who served a month for DUI manslaughter.  They have also stuck by linebacker Ray Lewis, who beat the rap on murder charges by rolling on his accomplices and went on to have an excellent career and win a Superbowl.  (By the way, did you know that a group of ravens is actually called a murder?)  On the other hand, Obama might be slow getting there – after all, the Eagles really gave Vick his second chance about a year and a half ago.

So why make this call now?

A possible explanation is to give his enemies something to talk about, and allow them to use a slow news cycle to work themselves into a lather about something that is, essentially, a non-issue.  Coming after a productive lame duck session, this could permit the administration to take a high road while its opponents chatter about Vick and dogfighting.  It would be the messaging equivalent of a draw or a play action pass – tricking the opposition into being out of position.

Of course, this isn’t a football game, but electoral politics – and voters don’t largely pay attention.  Riding a winning streak as the President is, why expose your administration to negative messages by wading into issues that people actually care about?

Joanne Bamberger of AOL’s Politics Daily points out that Pennsylvania’s electoral votes will be in serious play in 2012, and suggests Obama is building good will now.  That certainly makes sense, but 2012 is still a long way away, and making nice with fickle Eagles fans now won’t necessarily pay dividends in 22 months.  Heck, if Vick throws four interceptions in a playoff game, or isn’t playing with the Eagles next year, those comments may do nothing in 22 months. Much more important to Obama, as Bamberger alludes, is Lurie’s checkbook – which, when not being used to pay rehabilitating NFL players, makes large donations to Democrat presidential candidates.  And keep in mind that Lurie, and not the administration, made the details of the conversation public.

It is most likely that the President did not intend for the conversation to be public – not that it was secret, but just that it wasn’t intended as a public statement.  And, in that private conversation – which was, remember, also about renewable energy – the President took some time to blow even more smoke up the rear end of a potential donor.

It must have worked – otherwise, Lurie wouldn’t be so proud about spilling the beans.

Same election, two messages

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

In the week of fallout since the most recent ground-shaking election day, Democrats and Republicans alike have been on the airwaves, trying to put it in context.  But have you looked at their postmortems side-by-side?

Marco Rubio owned the GOP message on election night:

But we know that tonight, the power in the United States House of Representatives will change hands. We know tonight that a growing number of Republicans will now serve in the Senate as well. And we make a grave mistake if we believe that tonight these results are somehow an embrace of the Republican Party.

What they are is a second chance. A second chance for Republicans to be what they said they were going to be not so long ago. You see, I learned early on in this campaign – in fact it’s what propelled me to enter it – that what this race was about was about the great future that lies ahead for our country, a future that Americans know is there for the taking. But it requires actions on our part.

The theme of the Majority That Lost Its Way has been a consistent message for Republicans since 2006 – in fact, less than a year into the Pelosi Era, Rep. Tom Feeney argued that a philosophically adrift GOP had squandered its power:

We lost the majority in 2006 because Republicans could no longer convince voters that we were the party of fiscal restraint and traditional values. Polls in the closing days of the last election showed that a majority of voters felt that Democrats were more trustworthy when it came to issues of spending, taxation and general economic development — that we could no longer be trusted to fight for the limited government and personal freedom that have always been cornerstones of our party’s beliefs.

Contrast that to the Democrats’ lines about “what it all meant” – including the President, who has been vocal in chalking up the Democrats’ failures to messaging strategy:

What I didn’t effectively, I think, drive home, is that we were taking these steps not because of some theory that we wanted to expand government. It was because we had an emergency situation and we wanted to make sure the economy didn’t go off a cliff. I think the Republicans were able to paint my governing philosophy as a classic, traditional, big government liberal. And that’s not something that the American people want.

The first obvious thing is that Republicans, even now, seem contrite for driving the car into the ditch when they held most of the keys from 2001-2007.  Since Democrats haven’t had the benefit of time – and still have the responsibility of governing – contrition may simply be a luxury they can’t afford at the moment.  Still, the difference in where each party lays blame for still-somewhat-recent losses is stark: Republicans blame themselves for not living up to the expectations of the people, Democrats blame the perception that they didn’t meet expectations.

Another underlying current worth noting in all of these quotes is that, despite apparent sea change in the election of 2008, America remains a nation that trends philosophically toward smaller government – with both parties trying to frame their arguments through that prism.

 

A Purple Congress: The best of all possible outcomes

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Last night’s results – a historic wave of pickups in the House along with key gains that did not achieve a majority in the Senate – is the best possible playing field for Republicans nationally.

The reality of the Senate results is that the electoral map was bad for the Republicans in 2010 – but in 2012, counting independent seats in Vermont and Connecticut, Democrats are defending 23 of 33 seats up for re-election, with only one or two Republican seats obvious pickup opportunities.  (Plus, the Tea Party successes of 2010 should serve as a cautionary tale to incumbents like Orrin Hatch, who might not make the same mistakes that candidates like Mike Castle did.)

The Republicans did, however, scored a convincing win, and now control a legislative body – an important factor in a nation that buys as many Yankees, Cowboys, and Lakers hats as America does.

That means that Republicans can be proactive legislatively, and articulate a vision for the nation. And it also means that vision will run into a legislative buzz saw, because the Democrats control the other half of Congress and the veto pen.  In that fog of sawdust, who becomes the “Party of ‘No'”?

The GOP is in the enviable position of being, to paraphrase Reggie Jackson, the underdog and the overdog at the same time.

Of course, this means putting forward policies, and as the Democrats discovered, once you put something on paper it becomes a target.  And two years is, apparently, an eternity in politics.  But if Republicans can position themselves as the active minority party, their chances in the Presidential and Senate elections in 2012 will greatly improve.