Rick Wilson looks at what’s been going on recently in the campaign.
The trick the Obama campaign has executed beautifully this month is to demoralize and dismay the GOP base. A combination of a very, very, very heavy TV buy in swing states (pay attention, because this is a rabbit they can’t pull out every week), a fierce assault on Romney at every turn (abetted by a cooperative press that loves the taste of blood) and a series of public polls that have played into a self-reinforcing narrative that Obama is inevitable.
The trick is a good one, and to judge from the wailing and lamentations on our side, it’s been working.
But it’s just a trick.
Let’s pull back the curtain, shall we?
The polling-validity battle has gone on for weeks now, and I’ll skip recounting the arguments on both sides. Yes, they’re playing 2008+ model games. No, it isn’t a just a conspiracy by the liberal media. Yes, the race is closer than the public polls show – on either side. The poll coverage looks the way it does because the media monster is always hungry, confirmation bias is like slipping into a warm bath and the herd runs the same direction, despite the facts.
See? You just saw one of the wires that make the trick work.
The polling is presented superficially, with typically only the toplines and a degree of analysis that is facile at best. There’s no context, history or depth. I’ve covered this problem a bit here and here.
So the polls became part of the message of chest-beating triumphalism by Team Obama. The drumbeat of Obama’s glorious, inexorable ascension to another four years in the Oval Office is something Chicago feeds to the media, but doesn’t for a second believe themselves.
The entire purpose of the last two weeks on their side is to game early voting. That’s it. It’s not about the end game, but rather an attempt to roll up some numbers in key states before the debates start and the campaign joins in earnest. They’re desperate to have you demoralized, depressed and sitting home in your living room, grumbling at Fox instead of voting early.
The Democrats know very well this race will tighten even further toward the end, and that the Potemkin Village of polls showing Barack Obama with a double-digit lead is just that.
They know that all the balls Obama is juggling now are, statistically and politically, impossible keep airborne. They know the run of Obama-is-God stories will collide with reality, whether economic, diplomatic or political. They know that Romney’s spending is catching up, fast, and will peak in the last week of October in a furious orgy of television ads and a get-out-the-vote program like nothing the GOP has done before.
Austin, Texas is a university town and consequently a hotbed of liberalism, so inevitably some of the old-time natives of the area will take exception to the newcomers’ politics.
A Texas couple determined to find out who had been damaging a sign in their front yard proclaiming their support for President Obama’s re-election bid caught the offender on Wednesday. Tom Priem, a software support engineer in Austin, told FoxNews.com he and his wife, who live on a block where political signs dot front yards, were fed up with seeing only their Obama sign repeatedly defaced.
“The sign had holes poked in it like somebody had stuck a knife through it,†Priem said Friday. “At first I thought it was somebody who didn’t like Obama.â€
“We were making fun of it, saying the deer must be a Republican.”
– Tom Priem, Austin resident
Priem said he even called a city hotline to document the incident in case a more insidious offender was to blame. He couldn’t believe his eyes when his wife showed him the surveillance photo she snapped seconds after the campaign sign was destroyed – by a buck.
The varmint’s vandalism began about 10 days ago and it’s unclear what the animal has against the sign.
The 2012 election will be decided by the undecided middle-of-the-roaders who have so far refused to declare any preference between the two candidates. SNL looks at the people in America with the deciding power.
The Nation’s David Corn revealed at Mother Jones this “secret video, in which “Romney Tells Millionaire Donors What He REALLY Thinks of Obama Voters.” and in which (supposedly) “When he doesn’t know a camera’s rolling, the GOP candidate shows his disdain for half of America.”
The far left seems to think that the startling revelation that Republicans, including Mitt Romney, look down upon the democrat philosophy of entitlement and government dependency is a terribly effective attack meme. Sure, spongers and looters are going to be offended by being identified as what they are, but they weren’t really going to be voting for Mitt Romney anyway.
Here we are with a presidential election right around the corner. An insurgent conservative Republican is challenging an incumbent ultra-left liberal democrat. The US economy is in the toilet. Unemployment is terribly high. Gasoline prices are high enough to be a burden to American household incomes. The economic experts in Washington have no solutions. And the president tells us that we must be patient, his approach will eventually produce a new and better economy, a more moral economy along European lines.
And now, we have again Islamic militants storming US embassies and violating civilized norms and international law by laying violent hands on American diplomats. What will this president do?
I suspect that, like Jimmy Carter, he is going to wring his hands and spout conventional liberal platitudes while the country frustratedly looks on, wondering why he is incapable of understanding that the nation’s honor has been violated, American blood has been shed, and action is required.
Barack Obama probably fails to understand that this moment, right now, is the turning point in which the 2012 election will either be won or lost. The incumbent president of the United States has been presented with a challenge and an opportunity to exercise leadership in a crisis situation. The voters who are going to decide in under 60 days are watching what he does and how her behaves. His response to the attacks on America all over the Islamic Middle East will determine his fate.
So far Barack Obama is echoing Jimmy Carter and relying on his media allies to protect him.
A lady biker sits on Biden’s lap today at Cruisers Diner in Seaman, Ohio (click on photo for larger image)
The Hill tells us that no details are available as to how exactly the biker chick wound up sitting on the Vice Presidential lap, or what happened subsequently.
Jim Geraghty (by morning email) admired the scene.
Everything about this picture is perfect: Her expression, his expression, her attire, the looks on the two bikers on either side, her hands gently resting in an almost-provocative fashion, the fact that we can’t see Biden’s hands . . .
Without the Secret Service, Sheriff Joe gets stomped like a NARC at a Hell’s Angel’s rally.
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The Biden-Biker Chick photo would have been strange enough for any weekend by itself, but apparently President Obama was not going to let himself be outdone by the likes of Biden.
Obama’s photo reminded people everywhere that Joe Biden is a heartbeat from the presidency.
Jim Geraghty observed, snarkily:
Okay, so maybe Biden gets the second-string Secret Service guys. Maybe they’re not quick enough to prevent some chick from moving in and sitting on the Vice President’s lap, but at least Obama’s staff is quick, silent, always watching the crowd for anyone who wants to reach out to the president and . . .
President Obama is lifted in the air by Scott Van Duzer, owner of the Big Apple Pizza owner.
