A level-headed conservative seems to disagree with our own batch of conservatives in this thread, and says the Democrats ran circles around the Republicans this week. This Republican admits the striking difference between the two conventions may even end up costing Romney the election. gasp!
I like Scarborough, but I don’t agree that conventions matter that much. Not many people watch them, and those that do are largely those that have already made up their minds. Joe is correct in his assessment of the two weeks that we just saw, but I think he’s too much of an insider so he may tend to overstate the significance of the conventions.
Right now, the conventions round is clearly Obama’s. Now there are three debate rounds to go and a couple more job reports. The best think both sides can do is forget the conventions and work on the ground game.
Obama’s speech wasn’t for you or me. I spent some time thinking about who it was aimed at.
It was the trickiest of all political speeches, the “I’ve disappointed you” speech. Oddly, the “I screwed up big-time and I’m sorry” speech is a lot easier. Clinton is the prime example. He lost the country and caused Al Gore the presidency because of the overwhelming wave of “how fucking stupid do you have to be to blow the presidency because you fucking couldn’t keep yourself from getting an intern to blow your dick?” Even in all that there was always an undercurrent of “wow, awesome, man; you were the President AND you got blow jobs from your interns. That’s the American Way.” Americans love to forgive celebrities for big colorful falls, especially if they fell because of behaviors that the public would secretly like to do. Charlie Sheen’s show just got picked up for 90 more episodes; the biggest in all TV history. Except for the true haters, Americans are ready to forgive and embrace a larger-than-life figure like Clinton.
Obama is in a totally different position. He’s more like the kid with all sorts of promise who manages to get some mediocre grades among with the good ones in high school and now has to go to his parents and ask them to still spring for the big bucks to send him to that fancy college. That shows weakness in a president, always a big disadvantage. The one advantage - which might be even bigger - he has is that most parents in that position will give in and spend the money. They want to see him succeed, they want the bragging rights for themselves, and they’d hate to think somewhere down the line that they could have made the difference but didn’t. It’s also a big advantage that in an election, the alternative is voting for the other guy. That’s like asking parents to take the money away from their child and give it to the shiny foster student they’ve taken in.
The speech a high schooler gives on that occasion won’t change many parents’ minds all by itself. What it can do is give them the excuse to do what they wanted to all along - spend the money - and still feel good about themselves doing so.
That’s the speech I think Obama gave last night. If he gave the “rah-rah, look at how great I am” speech that would have fired up the base more, he would have forfeited giving those uncertain the excuse they needed to stick with him. And as I’ve been saying all along, the election has little to do with either base - except to ensure that they show up to vote - and everything to do with the voters whose votes are wavering or undecided in those few states in which they will be decisive. Pitching an acceptance speech to 3% of the voters while placating 48 additional percent to make a majority is a bizarre notion and I might be all wet on this. If that is what he did, and it sure sounded like it to me, then it was a home run because it worked on both levels. Or maybe I should say, it was a long well-hit fly ball that may or may not actually go over the fence. We won’t know until November 6.
Kind of a nitpick because I actually found your post insightful and generally agree with it, but Clinton left Office with a 66% approval rating. One of the many foolish mistakes Al Gore made was distancing himself from his very popular boss.
Methinks you are a bit too dismissive of the base issue, and missing some of the finer marketing points of conventioneering.
538 yet again. The base for the GOP is smaller but more easily fired and usually more reliable even when not fired. (This year perhaps their coming out even though not fired was not able to be assumed, given their extreme tepidness to Romney, hence the Ryan pick.) The Democratic base is significantly larger and if both sides were equally coming out to vote it would be a big Democratic advantage. But they often don’t.
Note though that “exception of the prime-time” … if the undecideds are ever watching the convention coverage that’s when they are tuned in, prime-time. They miss the more strident bits in the off hours aimed at the base (who are more likely to be watching then and making sure their interests are represented and even pandered to) and can be narrowcasted a sales pitch designed for them: Michelle’s highlighting his likeability; Clinton’s damn straight you are better off, you were in economic free fall and now you are climbing back up; and Obama’s pitch to the undecideds as well.
This whole post is a quote from a CNN story. Please cite your sources and make it clear when you’re quoting someone else moonshot925. Otherwise it looks like you’re passing off the first sentence as your own idea.
I thought the Dems did a better job than the Pubs in their respective conventions. Clinton was great and even Biden did a great job. I thought Obama’s speech was flat and lacked passion though. I see many on the Left thought the same thing:
That’s why I thought of the Andrew Shepherd line. By by reminding everyone in the movie of the obvious, it asserted the sitting president’s position of strength. But then I’m uncool enough that I don’t know Biggie Smalls.:o
Gore couldn’t figure out how to embrace Clinton the politician while simutameously distancing himself from Clinton the person.
This bit made me laugh:
I assume the rules only compel you to drink a tiny sip every time he said “literally” because otherwise you would be dead before the end of the speech. Literally dead.
That’s the highest approval rating Obama has had since 2009.
Looks like the Democrats might be getting one hell of a bump from the convention.
Yeah!!! And that’s only because it’s his home country!!
This rates right up there with last election’s “Palin is being attacked by the left because they’re afraid of just how smart and right she is.”
I can smell the flop-sweat from here.
Or because it wasn’t weak.
It’s ok. I took figurative chugs for all of those.
I hope that happens. The President has been kicked around ad nauseum for the worst economy since FDR’s, and he doesn’t have a world war to turn dying manufacturing jobs into munitions factories. No escape valve for BO he has to deal with paranoids who hate anything that could do a collective good, that would be too “socialist”
I know I was thinking to myself “fuck those car company corporate bastards” who flew in to Washington on their corporate jets looking for a handout, and dang if the President wasn’t correct in doing the very thing to restore confidence in the economy.
And now you know why my panties are in a twist. But I think the jobs report will bring him back to where he was. Intrade’s expectations haven’t changed.
Well, Bill spent the entire speech eloquently arguing for the re-election of Barack Obama, which is clearly good news for the McCain campaign.
:rolleyes: