Team Obama is in the midst of planning and putting into operation a shift back to Chicago. The plan is to run the re-election campaign from that toddlin' town, Chicago. No formal announcement has been made, as an aide stated that Obama hasn't announced his intention to run for re-election yet. As though there is any doubt in that announcement coming in the near future.
Conjuring up shades of Al Gore and his noted campaign headquarters shift to Nashville, Team Obama is convinced that getting outside of the Washington, D.C. bubble will be a good thing. It will breath fresh air and ideas into the people tasked with messaging the President's ideas and there is the bonus of hanging with the common folk.
Democratic consultant Karen Finney said that's exactly the message Obama will be sending.
“Chicago is where the president is from. That’s his home, and I think it’s important to stay grounded in that," she said. "It’s a good way to remind people that’s where he comes from and that his roots are from the middle of the country.”
Interesting. This is the week that the Obama family is in Hawaii for the Christmas holiday. We are told every year as they make the trek that this is his home, this is where he was raised. Now, we are to believe Barack Obama is just another guy from the midwest. His 'roots' are "from the middle of the country". OK. Then.
Paging Rev. Wright. And Jesse Jackson, Sr and Jr. And Richard Daley. Let the fun begin.
There is no doubt, of course, that Obama plans to run for re-election. There is little doubt, if we were all honest about it, that Obama will be re-elected for a second term. It is hard to imagine at this time any potential Republican challenger running a strong enough and smart enough campaign to beat Obama in 2012. Obama is expected to raise one billion dollars as he runs again. Who is going to top that on the GOP side?
Even Bill Clinton won re-election after he lost the Democratic control of Congress, big time, in 1994. He won in 1996 and even remained in office after the House of Representatives impeached him. An incumbent President is a powerful person and not often beat.
Trying to run as an outsider will be Obama's challenge. With the rising numbers of populist voters, the task will be to make him appear as a moderate and regular guy. He is neither, by any stretch of the imagination, and that is his re-election team's challenge. With headquarters in Chicago, Obama will have an excuse to travel around the country as he is fond of doing. He really has never stopped campaigning anyway. Now he can do it up right.
So, no matter what the groundhog prediction is in February, we will be in perpetual groundhog day with a campaigning Obama for the next two years.
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