In the tradition of the proverbial carpenter and his nails, if you're Barack Obama, every political problem looks like 2008. Today, the DNC signaled its willingness to use 2008's rhetoric to win in 2010 with a half-hearted rallying video recorded by Obama asking his base to show up at the polls in November.
It's the same message Obama used to pitch Creigh Deeds for governor in Virginia, Jon Corzine for governor in New Jersey, and Martha Coakley for Senate in Massachusetts. It's also the same pitch he made for health care—the one instance in which it actually worked, at least on the Hill, but health care's numbers are still about on par with Corzine's, Deeds', or Coakley's.
Spot political problem, apply speeches, lather with inspirational rhetoric, repeat. What Obama seems to miss, however, is that his inspirational rhetoric worked because he himself was inspirational. Conferring his inspiration upon any old hack Democratic cause or candidate that comes through the DNC has not proven fruitful.
In this video, he is Barack Obama. He is the man whose problems are still inherited. He is the man who fights the health insurance companies... whose product he's requiring that every American buy, battles the big banks... who bankrolled his campaign, and stifles special interests... with whom he meets behind closed doors to hash out deals on legislation. And, he posits, all of this should inspire those who voted for the first time in 2008 to vote again on behalf of all the uninspiring Corzines, Deedses, and Coakleys who will in some unspecified way guarantee the uplifting change at sometime in the unspecifed future that Obama himself has not delivered. Fired up and ready to go!
It's hard to say whether this is more pathetic and phoned in or cynical and disingenuous. They're neck-and-neck. Obama uses what Ben Smith at Politico calls "unusual demographic frankness," when he exhorts, "young people, African-Americans, Latinos, and women" to come to the polls. Drudge calls it the "race card," though like Ed Morrissey, I'm not sure I'd go that far.
What he's doing is acknowledging, more ham-handedly than other politicians could get away with, that these are the demographic groups of solidly Democratic voters he needs for Democrats to win in 2010. He's been this ham-handed before when he told an 80-year-old town hall attendee during the health-care debate that politicians always listen to senior citizens because they vote in high numbers.
But here's the thing about Obama. He can either be the inspirational, post-partisan, post-racial transcendent figure everyone talks about him being, or he can be the nakedly political candidate who addresses traditional Democratic voting blocs by their race and gender when asking for their votes. He can't be both. (For fun, imagine Bush exhorting white evangelicals, pro-life Latinos, and the Cuban community to get fired up about Republican candidates and not getting slammed for it.)
What appealed to cross-over and new voters in 2008 was a positive, inclusive message about everyone getting involved to make a difference. Sure, when Obama said it in 2008, he meant he wanted everyone to get involved to vote for him. It was ultimately a self-serving pitch, but it was more positive, inclusive, and less political than this one. The idea of Obama himself as an inspiration was far more credible than Obama as proxy inspiration for any old Democratic candidate who happens to be on the ballot.
Obama once reassured Democrats that "the big difference" between the disastrous 1994 mid-term elections and 2010 is "you've got me." This newly narrowed version of his inspirational message suggests even he doesn't believe that anymore.
When Sen. Chris Dodd decided to retire instead of seeking another term as senator, the conventional wisdom held that popular Connecticut Attorney General Dick Blumenthal would turn an at-risk seat into an easy win for his party.
Turns out Blumenthal's bumbling has Democrats nervous, despite a commanding lead over Republican challengers Rob Simmons and Linda McMahon. (He lead Simmons 52-38 in a Rasmussen poll this week.)
In the new movie The Young Victoria, the mother of Victoria and her chief overseer meet with the prime minister, Lord Melbourne, to discuss what role they’ll play now that Victoria has become queen of England. They’ve waged a fierce struggle to retain control over Victoria. Suddenly Melbourne cuts off the chatter and bluntly explains the situation. “You lost,” he says.
That’s the situation that faces President Obama and his White House advisers. Months of polls on the president and his policies, the Virginia and New Jersey governor’s elections, then last week’s momentous Massachusetts Senate race – all have sent the blunt message to Obama that, for now, he’s lost. But Obama and his team insist on pretending it’s not true.
To the Boston left, "anger" and "Washington" explain Scott Brown's victory in the Massachusetts senate race, but the win was also a shaft of common sense hitting Bay State's echo chamber of liberal self-righteousness. "Voter anger caught fire in final days," said Wednesday's Boston Globe. "Massachusetts voters sent Washington a ringing message." Yet it wasn't anger, the final days, or just Washington, as the Globe suggested.
Representatives of organized labor met in the White House last week and cut a deal exempting union members from paying higher taxes as part of health care reform. It was a tawdry affair in many ways. But the meeting seems to have had an unintended consequence: Massachusetts has just elected a Republican senator.
In Newton, Massachusetts, 67 percent of folks voted yesterday for Democrat Martha Coakley (32 percent voted for Republican Scott Brown, and 1 percent chose Libertarian Joe Kennedy). In short, the town is a liberal outpost, just miles outside of Boston.
In other news related to Newton, though, a Board of Alderman resolution has been riling up concerned citizens. The resolution would welcome Abdul Aziz Naji, originally from Algeria but most recently living in Guantanamo, to town.
Scott Brown appeared on the "Today Show" this morning, where a slightly sad Meredith Vieira asked him about how he was able to pull off his historic win.
Of all of the memorable moments from the Massachusetts special election, the one that stands out most--and the one with real implications for 2010--did not directly involve either of the two candidates in the race.
When Dean Barnett died at age 40 in August 2008, it was a loss of a unique voice in politics, and those who admired him could console themselves only with the thought that he had been needed for some pressing business above. Now, a year and a half after it happened, we know what it was: Only Barnett -- Bostonian, Red Sox fan, former aide to Mitt Romney, with a loathing of cant and a fine sense of lunacy, could have orchestrated the Senate race in Massachusetts thus far.
The Martha Coakley campaign just sent out a media advisory, announcing a press conference at 5:30 p.m. ET, alleging irregularities in the special Senate election.
The press conference will involve reports of voters who received ballots that were already marked for Republican candidate Scott Brown.
Dana Goldstein at the Daily Beast is bummed, along with her fellow feminists from Massachusetts who put their weight behind Martha Coakley early on in the primary, only to be disappointed during the general election as Scott Brown moved ahead in the polls with the support of the Tea Party movement and other voters fed up with the Obamacare mess. While they still support her effort and are making calls on her behalf, feminist groups in Massachusetts are scratching their heads toda
As Mary Katharine notes below, Ben Smith reports that a Coakley adviser is sending around a memo blaming national Democrats for Coakley's current predicament, and Washington Democrats are firing back.
