red states rule
08-11-2011, 03:17 AM
Is anyone surprised by this? After all the last thing Obama would want to talk about with voters is his RECORD in office
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 <NOBR>product (http://www.debatepolicy.com/#)</NOBR> 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.
In a move that will make some Democrats shudder, Obama’s high command has even studied President Bush’s 2004 takedown of Sen. John F. Kerry, a senior campaign <NOBR>adviser (http://www.debatepolicy.com/#)</NOBR> told POLITICO, for clues on how a president with middling approval ratings can defeat a <NOBR>challenger (http://www.debatepolicy.com/#)</NOBR>.
And now the money quote from a prominent Democratic strategist aligned with the Administration.
“Unless things change and Obama can run on accomplishments, he will have to kill Romney."
And if, indeed, it is Romney, the White House will try to paint him as a "weird" flip-flopper who can't relate to ordinary Americans.
The specifics of the attacks might shift based on which GOP candidate is nominated, but the POTUS' overall strategy is clear -- Talk about the opponent; not himself, and in a deeply disappointing move to the disaffected who chose to join him in 2008 -- play on fears; not hopes
http://gop12.thehill.com/2011/08/obamas-reelection-plan-ripping-romney.html
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 <NOBR>product (http://www.debatepolicy.com/#)</NOBR> 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.
In a move that will make some Democrats shudder, Obama’s high command has even studied President Bush’s 2004 takedown of Sen. John F. Kerry, a senior campaign <NOBR>adviser (http://www.debatepolicy.com/#)</NOBR> told POLITICO, for clues on how a president with middling approval ratings can defeat a <NOBR>challenger (http://www.debatepolicy.com/#)</NOBR>.
And now the money quote from a prominent Democratic strategist aligned with the Administration.
“Unless things change and Obama can run on accomplishments, he will have to kill Romney."
And if, indeed, it is Romney, the White House will try to paint him as a "weird" flip-flopper who can't relate to ordinary Americans.
The specifics of the attacks might shift based on which GOP candidate is nominated, but the POTUS' overall strategy is clear -- Talk about the opponent; not himself, and in a deeply disappointing move to the disaffected who chose to join him in 2008 -- play on fears; not hopes
http://gop12.thehill.com/2011/08/obamas-reelection-plan-ripping-romney.html