So what else is new. Obama’s campaign plans to destroy Mitt Romney, according to Politico, by playing class warfare and portraying Romney as phony and not genuine:
Barack Obama’s aides and advisers are preparing to center the president’s re-election campaign on a ferocious personal assault on Mitt Romney’s character and business background, a strategy grounded in the early stage expectation that the former Massachusetts governor is the likely GOP nominee.
The dramatic and unabashedly negative turn is the product of political reality. Obama remains personally popular, but pluralities in recent polling disapprove of his handling of his job and Americans fear the country is on the wrong track. His aides are increasingly resigned to running for re-election in a glum nation. And so the candidate who ran on “hope” in 2008 has little choice four years later but to run a slashing, personal campaign aimed at disqualifying his likeliest opponent…
The onslaught would have two aspects. The first is personal: Obama’s re-elect will portray the public Romney as inauthentic, unprincipled and, in a word used repeatedly by Obama’s advisers in about a dozen interviews, “weird.”
“First they’ve got to like you, and there’s not a lot to like about Mitt Romney,” said Chicago Democratic consultant Pete Giangreco, who worked on Obama’s 2008 campaign. “There’s no way to hide this guy and hide his innate phoniness.”
This strategy of seek and destroy is not really surprising. Obama is such a dismal failure that he can win only by tearing down others. In 2008, Obama ran a highly negative campaign, including a pervasive use of the race card, but was able to hide behind a media lovefest and John McCain’s unwillingness to play hardball. The strategy against Romney simply is the true Obama campaign without the gloss.
The attack strategy also proves a couple of points I have made. First, do not put too much stock in what current polls tell us about who will do better against Obama, because only Sarah Palin has felt the full Obamamaniac onslaught. After several months of David Axelrod’s sleazy messaging, we’ll see where Romney stands. If I were Romney, I’d get out ahead of the issue and wear the Politico story as a badge of honor and turn it around on Obama.
Second, those establishment Republicans who have piled on Palin in turn will see their candidates get the treatment. They have no right to complain when their candidate is isolated and targeted, because they joined in the anti-Palin frenzy.
I’m glad Obama is taking this turn, admitting to the world that he is a phony who only knows how to tear others down. At least in 2012 we will be running against the real Barack Obama.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Yes, the man who turned down a business deal because he felt it violated his religious beliefs, that’s the insincere man. I hope Obama does use this tactic against Romney, it’ll be funny to see it fall flat on its face.
“Inauthentic”? “Weird”? “Unprincipled”? “Innate phoniness”? All words that have been used to describe Obama at times. So, it’s going to be a contest as to who has the least of those attributes? The 2008 election was a contest between Obama and Palin: who was the least experienced, unfit for office, and unqualified.
Democrats … using the “politics of personal destruction” ?
Oh, psshaw, I don’t believe a word you are saying.
You are right, professor, about turning this around to a positive – that is Alinsky’s guidance, “Push the negative until it becomes a positive” (paraphrase). I hope his campaign does this!
To @alan: I believe those words are just a veiled attack on Romney for being Mormon. That is typically how the Mormon religion is described. It would be no surprise that the First Black President would go after Romney’s religion. As the First Black President, he has the shield of “invincibility” – his race – to protect him from any counter-attack. At least in his mind. How sick people are to think and operate that way, but they do. We’ve seen it all too often since 2008.
To @Awing1: The campaign is no doubt counting on that shield of invincibility I mentioned. To be called a raaaaacist in our society is still a powerful political smear. It has lost much of its power, but Axlerod and Co. will continue to use it, and race merchants like Sharpton (who now has his own show…..now we know why) will fully amplify, gladly shout it to the rooftops, regardless of facts or truth proving otherwise.
Remember the lies when Obamacare was signed, and gavel-in-hand-Nancy walked with the Civil Rights bloc of Congressmen in “solidarity” so they could accuse the TEA party crowd of raaaaacism? Yes it was a lie, but they got away with it. Just wait. They will use it against ALL the candidates, but with particular venomous precision against their biggest threats.
I have no doubt that they will use it to its full extent.
President Downgrade, the divider-in-chief.
“Weird”? … and any mention of religion and the Trinity church and Rev. Wright stuff goes back on the table. I’m sure the good Reverend is itching for an interview on FoxNews.
“It would be no surprise that the First Black President would go after Romney’s religion.”
When Alan Keyes ran against Obama for US Senate, the one time that he got Obama out of his skin was when he went after his religion. Some considered it a low blow.
Going after any Republicans with an attack based on religion opens the door to the same strategy that Keyes used. The moment Obama ever reveals himself to be an “angry Black man” .. he is cooked .. that stereotype doesn’t rub off. At that point, Obama will be as unwelcome as “snakes on a plane.”
“First they’ve got to like you”
I dunno. Aren’t we ready to settle for respecting and trusting the next candidate?
Only Palin got the full broadsides, and when the smoke cleared her ship was shown to be undamaged having angled away and come about fully with cannons blazing. Obama can’t take the incoming from Palin. See her latest FB post.
O should know a phony when he sees one. For once I agree with him.
That approach is rather “baked in” to any campaign against Romney. It’s tough to avoid. I’d imagine he countered it effectively in two Massachusetts campaigns.
I’ve always thought Romney’s flip flops were a problem. First, it makes him easier to attack in a way that seems valid. Second, the extent of his position changes give me real pause about his political character.
The most attractive Republicans at this point seem to be the ones that say they will not run: Christy, Rubio, Ryan, Jeb Bush. Perry may be the best of the real candidates (it looks like he will run); we’ll have to wait and see.
[…] awarded to William Jacobson, Dean of Legal Insurrection, for this comment in reaction to a Politico story that Team Obama intends to subject Mitt Romney to the full brunt of […]
it is hard to believe that the Obama regime would treat a fellow liberal this way…
[…] chance to do well, at least in the early primaries, than a lot of pundits think.Stand by for more “politics of personal destruction” from a team of masters. Meanwhile, Sarah Palin continues to score palpable hits from her lowly […]