How to Know You’re an Unpopular Incumbent

Posted by in Blog, Politics on May 24, 2012 3:41 pm / 1 comment

Exhibit A:

“Ever since the recall wars erupted in this battleground state [of Wisconsin], the Obama campaign has been faced with a dilemma: how involved does the President get in a polarizing fight with huge national overtones?”

“Less than two weeks to go before the June 5 election, the answer seems pretty clear. The Obama forces are pitching in with voter turnout and fund-raising appeals. But the President has avoided taking a vocal role in the conflict, and there is little expectation of an Obama visit to Wisconsin in the homestretch of the campaign.”

In most cases having the President of the United States on your side should make him the big guns. He’d be the guy you bring out to build up support and push for a win, especially in a fairly blue state like Wisconsin. President Obama should be your guy in that scenario. But this case is different. Obama’s drooping popularity and peculiar ability to get the vote and support out among the opposition rather than his own side makes him a liability, not an asset.

Don’t believe me? See the 2010 special election in Massachusetts and basically every race in November of the same year.

Looks like you’re on your own, Barrett.

 
 

1 Comments

  1. geek49203 says:
    May 24, 2012 at 5:28 pm

    Newsflash (uh, not…): The President hasn’t had any friends in Congress since they figured out that an appearance by Obama guaranteed a defeat in the election.

    No matter what the campaign rhetoric (left, right, etc), all Congress critters share one ideal in common — they want to get re-elected, as cheaply and easily as possible. If they think for a second that someone would endanger that — hey, they don’t care if it is their mother, they won’t be seen during the campaign. In all of those fundraisers, I’m hard-pressed to see any politicians coming out to be seen with Obama — and at least one showed up to yell at him.

    WE know also that Obama doesn’t have more than 2 friends on the SCOTUS, and even then those 2 have questionable loyalties given the public verbal thrashing in the State of the Union address.

    In addition, there is considerable evidence that the Washington bureaucracy, from the power brokers (like the Clintons and Kennedys) to the entry level intern, has lost faith in Obama. When he was elected, the public employees and the vendors all thought that there would be lots of jobs and contracts, but in fact it is obvious that this won’t be the case.

    The greatest unreported story of the last year is that many agencies are already in downsizing mode, hoping at best to hang on to the budget and head count they’ve got. Don’t believe me? By this time 2 years ago, Congressmen were passing out government money like a mall Santa passes out candy. Now you don’t see any of that.

    It will take a while for the rank and file Dems to get the memo that Obama is toast, when the memo is received the plunge in the polls will probably be sudden and drastic.

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