Private RNC conference call: Let’s stay away from personal attacks on Obama next year

On private call, Republicans say attacking Obama personally is too dangerous: Yahoo News

Hot Air  "I do think they’re right, though, about people liking or pitying O more than you’d expect given the relentless dreariness of his term. That’s what I was getting at last week when I wrote about his surprisingly high job approval numbers, and why I’ve written several times about how O’s perceived culpability for the protracted awfulness of the economy might actually shrink the more protracted that awfulness is. As bad as he’s been, he can always argue that he was handed a terrible hand; even if voters decide he’s too risky to bet on again, they’re bound to wonder if he’s being blamed for something no one realistically could have fixed in four years. There’ll be some electoral sympathy for him. The RNC’s simply trying to figure out how to keep it as dormant as possible."

Well, that strategy worked so well for John McCain in 2008, didn't it?

October 10, 2008: McCain Says No Need To Fear Obama, Calls On Supporters To Be "Respectful"
"After taking criticism for standing by for days while his supporters grew increasingly unhinged and hysterical, John McCain did the right thing today, telling his supporters that there's no need to be "scared" of a president Obama and calling on them to be "respectful" towards him.
"We have two videos for you from the same event. Here's vid of McCain saying that you needn't fear Obama: "He is a decent person, and a person that you do not have be scared as President of the United States"..."

Obama's speech; first impressions

National Review Online:
Big Statism in Osawatomie  ..."The “America that Roosevelt dreamed of,” Mencken wrote"

was always a sort of swollen Prussia, truculent without and regimented within. . . . He didn’t believe in democracy; he believed simply in government. His remedy for all the great pangs and longings of existence was not a dispersion of authority, but a hard concentration of authority. He was not in favor of unlimited experiment; he was in favor of rigid control from above, a despotism of inspired prophets and policemen. He was not for democracy as his followers understood democracy, and as it actually is and must be; he was for paternalism of the true Bismarckian pattern, almost of the Napoleonic or Ludendorffian pattern—a paternalism concerning itself with all things, from the regulation of coal-mining and meat-packing to the regulation of spelling and marital rights.

And we put his face on Mt Rushmore.

Drudge:
Obama sees 'make or break' time for middle class  "Obama's speech delved into the theme of inequality of income and opportunity, which the White House sees as a major force in current politics, but it was short on new ideas for pulling the country out of its economic doldrums."
Obama Now Blames The Internet For Job Losses

PJ Media:
Obama’s Kansas Speech: Middle Class Faces ‘Make or Break’ Moment  "President Obama delivered a highly partisan and highly dishonest speech in Osawatomie, KS, today. Depicting Republicans as hoping to set up one set of rules for the rich and another for everyone else, the president declared that the America in which “you can make it if you try” is gone, replaced by an America in which Republicans want “everyone to fend for themselves.” "

Hot Air:

Obama’s BIG small-minded class warfare speech in Kansas doesn’t disappoint  "Needless to say, this 55-minute meandering parade-float of an address was O’s early attempt to frame the narrative of the election. WaPo’s dead right that the key parts echo that Elizabeth Warren video that went viral on the left for its communitarian pitch on tax hikes:"

Weasel Zippers:

Dem Sen. Chuck Schumer on Obama’s Class Warfare Speech In Kansas: “The President Just Coined An Economic Version Of An Obama Doctrine”…

The Smartest President In The History of The World Confuses Texas And Kansas

A Tale Of Two Economies In The Headlines

Get the feeling Obama's friends off camera are
teasing him about standing next to Bush?

The Right Sphere   "Take a look at these headlines:"

The President’s Jobless Recovery
Frustrated Job Seekers Cause Jobless Rate To Drop
Economy Adds Few New Jobs
Low Jobless Rate Reflects Lost Hope
US Jobless Rate Drops But For Wrong Reasons

"Recent headlines regarding the drop in the unemployment rate from 9% to 8.6% right? Wrong.

"Those are headlines from January 2004, when the jobless rate dropped to 5.7% and when President Bush was just starting a re-election campaign.
"Here are headlines from Friday’s job numbers:"

Unemployment Rate Drops To 8.6% Raising Hopes
Jobless Rate Drop Could Boost Obama
Obama Gets Economic Indicator He Can Crow About
Good News On Job Front For Obama
Jobless Rate Lowest In 2.5 Years

"See the difference?"...

 Liberal bias in the Obamamedia? No way!  "...But look at the headlines for 2011! We have phrases like “Raising Hopes,” “Crow About,” “Good News,” and “Boost Obama.” The unemployment rate drops to 5.7% under Bush and we see the words “Lost Hope”, “Frustrated Job Seekers” and “Jobless Recovery.” “But,” you say, “310,000 people left the workforce when those Bush numbers were reported.” Well, you’re right. But do you also know that the very same government stats that brought us the 8.6% unemployment rate that is “Raising Hopes” showed that 315,000 people left the workforce?
"Come on, folks. Wake up and smell the bias! "

•A 5.7% unemployment rate with 300,000 people leaving the workplace equals “Lost Hope.”
•An 8.6% unemployment rate with 315,000 people leaving the workplace equals “Raising Hopes.”

"I really don’t think I need to say anything more here. My job is done."  Neal Boortz

Obama, Democrats and Foreign Policy

Sen. Eugene McCarthy (D)

When Democrats Became Doves; With the GOP candidates eager to call Obama weak-willed on foreign policy, it's worth looking at how Democrats got stuck with this tag. "It became an opportunity to tar Democrats with the broad brush of weakness and fecklessness on national security (a recurrent GOP political attack since the "Who Lost China" debate of the 1950s). This week came word that the Obama administration is reluctant to apologize for a recent cross-border raid that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, for fear of being portrayed by Republican presidential contenders as soft."

Enforce Existing Laws Against Iran: Obama’s New Get-Tough Policy Is Weaker than Current Measures    "Yet a close analysis of Treasury’s action demonstrates that the new sanctions regime is far weaker than existing laws and falls short of the moves that members of Congress are demanding. What is needed is not new measures, but better implementation of existing statutes."

Belgium Embassy’s Transcript of Gutman Speech Doesn’t Match Delivered Remarks  "If the difference between the speech and the transcript is at all representative, it helps explain why Israeli reporters left the room insisting that Gutman made a distinction “between traditional anti-Semitism, which should be condemned, and Muslim hatred for Jews, which stems from the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.” "
On Second Thought, Gutman’s Comments Were Unfortunate   It sounds like at least the
[National Jewish Democratic Committee ] agrees that Gutman’s comments were problematic — but apparently not enough so to warrant a resignation.

Jonathan S. Tobin: Has Obama Destroyed the Alliance?   "But as bad as things seem right now, it should be remembered that no matter what Obama, Panetta, Clinton and their underlings may think about Israel, they are keenly aware a full break with Israel is not something they can get away with."



Obama Pushed Early Elections In Egypt Knowing That It Would Likely Lead to Islamist Victory
"After two days of largely peaceful voting marked by high turnouts, U.S. spokesmen termed Egypt’s first vote since Hosni Mubarak’s ouster a success. They focused on the openness of the parliamentary election and not on the Islamic hardliners who may end up the big winners — or what that might mean for U.S. policy or U.S. ally Israel."   Caroline Glick: An ally no more

Yeshiva World News: Gingrich Calls On Obama To Renounce Anti-Israe​l Remarks By Members Of His Administra​tion  "Gingrich notes: “Barack Obama must tell the American people today whether he condemns or condones the deeply wrong statements by his Secretary of Defense and Ambassador to Belgium. We have the right to know whether Secretary Panetta’s harsh criticism of Israel is merely his own personal opinion, or a reflection of the policy of his Commander in Chief." "

The Newt and Nancy Show

Gingrich: 'House Should Immediately Condemn' Pelosi If She Uses Ethics Panel Materials Against Me  (video)

"I think it tells you how capriciously political that committee was that she was on it. It tells you how tainted the outcome was that she was on it. And I think what she said to you today should explain a great deal about what happened in the ethics process when Nancy Pelosi was at the heart of it. And is now prepared to totally abuse the House process. “

...And the gloves come off   "This can only be a good thing for Newt and for the Republicans. Princess Pelosi has one of the lowest approval ratings in Washington, well below Dear Ruler. In fact, Pelosi is the most unpopular politician in Washington. The more this woman sticks her nose into things, the better it is for the American people. Pelosi --- she of the “we have to pass the bill so we can see what’s in it” comment on ObamaCare. She’s about as popular as a canker sore at a wedding. So keep it up, Nancy!

Pelosi: On second thought …  "What a difference a day makes — and a counterthreat. On Friday, Nancy Pelosi bragged to TPM’s Brian Beutler that she had access to “a thousand pages” of investigatory material on Newt Gingrich, implying that she would “talk” later in the campaign if Gingrich won the nomination.  However, after Gingrich blasted her a few hours later and called for an ethics probe into Pelosi’s threat, her office suddenly developed a case of amnesia about those thousand pages:"...

The dumbest thing he has ever done, he says.

Class Warfare: Why would Democrats advertise that they're giving up on the "white working class"?.

This subject has been on my to-do list for several days. Since the TW can't equal news services for timliness, it is better to wait a few days to see what thoughts crystallize on the subject, then publish those that the networks will not mention or even consider.
 Consider the Tunnel Wall to be the anti-NBC. The Tunnel Dweller

http://theweek.com/section/cartoon/55/219477/democratic-party

'They Don't Need Our Votes' From the Nov. 30 Wall Street Journal:  "Would there be any compensating gains? Maybe, if one assumes there is a significant segment of the electorate that is antipathetic toward Hispanics. Similarly, it could be that the Democrats' disrespecting of the [white working class] is a tactic aimed at playing to the prejudices of other Democratic-leaning voters, especially college-educated whites. Recall that then-Sen. Obama delivered his notorious disquisition on "bitter clingers" to a well-heeled cackle of rads in San Francisco."....

http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/2011/12/04/94265

"It is important for them not to believe that all is lost--that Obama still has a credible shot at re-election. Openly ceding the WWC to the GOP, even if it actually ends up harming Obama's re-election prospects, may be the price these strategists feel they have to pay in order to make credible their claim that Obama has any path to victory at all."

An opening for Romney, if he's smart enough.  "For all of Joe Biden's nostalgia about the blue-collar virtues of his home town (where he hasn't lived since the early days of the Eisenhower administration), the coal mines shut down years ago and many in the white working class have been drifting to the Republican Party."

 Obama’s Reelection Strategy Is Riddled With Problems  "Essentially, it all comes down to three big goals:

1. Do as well with the non-white vote as Obama did in 2008, with the expectation that it continues to increase as a share of the total electorate.
2. Hold steady with upscale white voters, who tend to be more focused on quality of life issues like environmentalism.
3. Mitigate losses among the white working class, but expect to lose this group once again.

....
"Is this a feasible approach?
"At this point, it's not likely. I could go on at length about all of its problems, but let’s just look at the three biggest dilemmas I see."

http://conservativedailynews.com/2011/12/creating-whiners/

Obama Is About To Make A Big Class Warfare Speech,  And Echo A Republican President At The Same Time. 
"Roosevelt used his 'New Nationalism' speech to launch his failed bid for the presidency in 1912, and it's safe to say that Obama's speech on Tuesday will draw from Roosevelt to lay much of the intellectual framework for his reelection bid."
Roosevelt's legacy is the national park system with its mountains and forests; Obama's legacy will be the "#Occupiers" with their drugs, vandalism and public bowel movements.

Ryan Rejects Obama’s ‘Class Warfare’

The difference in discrinimation(sic) is simple. You have a choice whether to be hard working or a bum. It is sort of hard to switch skin color or sex (despite "Chaz" Bono and Michael Jackson). They increase the taxes on things they don't like to get less of it (think cigarettes or other "sin taxes"). So, in this White House, is being a millionaire (or 200-thousandaire) the new sin? (From the comments to this video)

From Taegan Goddard's Political Wire: Invoking Theodore Roosevelt    "First Read: "Is this the re-election message? The Obama campaign does still seem to searching for one, or at least struggling to refine it." "

 Obama's official campaign theme: Fairness  "The Democrats have been using that “fairness” line for quite some time, and it works.  Just take the tried and true accusation that “the rich need to pay their fair share” of taxes.  It matters not that the top 1% of income earners earn about 19% of all earned income, but pay around 39% of all income taxes.  It matters not that the majority of American households pay no income tax at all.  Remember .. these voters -- especially the voters the Democrats are relying on for votes – are largely government educated and will make no attempt whatsoever to find the facts on who pays what."