Obama's Re-Election Campaign Flashes The Strategy

At least one real reporter is able to fairly report when the Democrats step out of bounds, even in a re-election season of their favorite candidate.

The Democrats behind the Barack Obama re-election campaign put out a video via e-mail that completely distorted the focus of the GOP Presidential Debate from Monday night. Not surprising, instead of actually listing everything the debate covered - every topic under the political sun - they chose to focus on the most controversial topics. The video states that this was al the focus was on and that Republicans are trying to take the country back to the past.

At last night’s Republican debate, the seven candidates talked about unemployment, taxes, regulations, former Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s talk of a goal of 5% GDP growth, the individual mandate in the health care bill, the Independent Medicare Advisory Board, welfare reform, the Tea Party, currency policy, the National Labor Relations Board, Boeing, TARP, the auto bailout, Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare proposal, former Gov. Mitt Romney’s health care program in Massachusetts, raising the debt ceiling, raising the retirement age for Social Security, the role of religion in public life, the 10th amendment, Libya, Afghanistan, and so on.

But President Obama’s 2012 campaign is sending out a DNC video suggesting the candidates spoke only about sharia law, an anti-gay-marriage amendment, repealing health care, Sarah Palin, and the space program.

“You should watch this,” says campaign manager Jim Messina in the email to supporters, “if you or anyone you know is wondering where the leading GOP candidates want to go, this clip makes it clear. The first big Republican debate last night was like a time machine. They want to go back to the failed policies of the past that caused the economic crisis in the first place. They want to go back and reopen every settled debate that they've lost over the last few years -- on the health care law, on ‘Don't Ask, Don't Tell,’ and on reforming Wall Street's abuses. They even want to turn back the clock and end Medicare as we know it.”

Messina’s general argument that the candidates want to repeal many Obama policies – health care, Wall Street regulations, and so on – is correct.

But the video, which Messina calls a “highlight reel” and the DNC titled “What in the world are they talking about?” selectively uses clips from the 2-hour forum suggesting that the candidates were focused on idiotic issues, or battles from the past, when all of the topics the video hammers the Republicans for talking about were ones they were asked about at the forum.

Why would this be? It is so because the Democratic leadership and Barack Obama know they have very little to run on. Why would a voter want to cast a vote for the re-election of Barack Obama? Is anyone better off now than when he was elected in 2008? Is there any indication that real economic progress is being made? Are his economic policies producing positive results?

In short, no.

I would suggest to Mr. Messina that the only time machine being utilized is the one that brings back the whining of the 2008 campaign by Barack Obama.

So, since Barack Obama doesn't know how to lead and doesn't have any executive experience to guide him out of this mess, he does what he always does - he blames the environment he "inherited" from the previous administration. And, as he does so, he pretends that the GOP are stuck in that mindset. It's sad, really, for the President of the United States to be so shallow and narcissistic.

So, here we go again. Obama is not focused on much more than traveling for campaign events and fundraisers. Along the way he is taking the opportunity to blame others for his failures.

We now know the strategy. Time for the GOP to get on it.