“A Lesson Learned”: Obama’s Presidential Road Trip Annoys The GOP
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) complained on Fox News yesterday, “All [President Obama] does is go out and make speeches” instead of negotiating with lawmakers like him. Around the same time, on “Meet the Press,” Republican strategist Mike Murphy argued that the president should “stop the speeches” and “stop the politicization.” Also on “Meet the Press,” Republican pundit Michael Gerson complained about the “outside game [Obama’s] been pursuing,” in which the president hits the road, “beating up on the Congress.”
It’s not exactly subtle: Obama’s GOP detractors aren’t happy about the president taking his message directly to the public though outside-the-beltway events.
Then again, it appears the White House doesn’t much care. When Obama delivered a big speech on preventing gun violence, he did so not in Washington, but in Minnesota. When he spoke on immigration reform, the president skipped D.C. and traveled to Las Vegas.
The president will deliver the State of the Union from Capitol Hill tomorrow, but over the weekend, the White House announced the president’s plans for the rest of the week.
After Tuesday evening’s State of the Union address, the President will travel to three different communities to discuss proposals, unveiled in the speech, that focus on strengthening the economy for the middle class and those striving to get there. On Wednesday, February 13th, the President will travel to the Asheville, North Carolina area for an event. On Thursday, February 14th, the President will travel to the Atlanta, Georgia area for an event. On Friday, February 15th, the President will travel to the Chicago area for an event.
To be sure, this is hardly the first time a president has taken a post-SOTU road trip, but these excursions come against an interesting backdrop.
For one thing, we have Republicans urging Obama not to take his message directly to the public, which should probably be a sign that the president is doing the smart thing, since his detractors probably don’t have his best interests at heart.
For another, keep in mind, the president played the game for much of his first term the way the GOP wanted: staying in D.C., huddled in closed-door meetings trying to find new ways to meet Republican demands. It appears Obama has learned a lesson he intends to apply to his second term: the old way wasn’t constructive, didn’t pay dividends, and failed to make GOP policymakers more cooperative and/or interested in governing.
Whether the new strategy works or not remains to be seen, but it’s a deliberate shift — Obama hopes to change the political environment, and create new public pressures, by making his pitch outside Washington, whether Republican lawmakers and pundits like it or not.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, February 11, 2013
“The New GOP”: More Of The Same, This Time In Spanish
Congressional Republicans are boldly forging a new anti-Obama path that sounds depressingly familiar to the anti-Obama path they’ve been on since retaking the House in 2010. But now it’ll be done in Spanish.
In the Senate, the Republicans’ minority status could force them to play defense in an effort to respond to an agenda that is controlled by the Democrats and usually an extension of policies being pushed by the White House. But in the House, where Republicans run the floor, the party plans to shift gears, spearheading a series of bills designed less to land on the president’s desk than to communicate to Americans what the GOP stands for.Given the outcome of the 2012 elections and the increasing importance of Hispanic and younger voters, it also is likely no accident that Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky selected the 41-year-old Rubio, an ethnic Cuban, to deliver this particular Republican rebuttal to the State of the Union address. Rubio is not just a rising GOP star and potential 2016 presidential contender, but a key Republican leader on immigration changes.
“Marco Rubio is the right guy to talk to Hispanics about work ethic and economic growth as a counter to deficit spending,” said a Republican lobbyist with relationships on Capitol Hill. The implicit suggestion of many Republican operatives is that Rubio is an important GOP messenger to spotlight in the aftermath of the party nominating a 2012 presidential candidate who garnered a mere 27 percent of the Hispanic vote.
This new “voter-focused” agenda was previewed by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in his big, rebranding speech last week. That was the speech presented the same old Republican ideas on the budget, on education, and on health care, but with a smile. And now, apparently, in Spanish.
So to recap: the GOP still hates Obama; they aren’t changing any of their policies; they’re still going to focus on legislation that will never go anywhere; and they think having Rubio deliver this message will solve all their problems with Hispanic voters.
BY: Joan McCarter, Daily Kos, February 12, 2013
“A Dangerous Demagogic Figure”: Ted Nugent Is An Eloquent Spokesman, For Democrats
Yesterday rocker Ted Nugent announced that he would attend President Obama’s State of the Union speech — and then hold a press conference afterward to comment.
Nugent will attend at the invitation of Republican Congressman Steve Stockman of Texas. But the message he sends is toxic for the Republican Party.
Ted Nugent is a board member of the NRA — and an avid spokesman for the right of every American to buy, carry and use military style weapons. Graciously, he will arrive at the capitol without military style weapons. He told the New York Times he would “go in at least 20 pounds lighter than I normally walk,” … “I will be going in sans the hardware store on my belt. I live a well-armed life, and I’ve got to demilitarize before I go.”
He will be attending the State of the Union speech along with 100 relatives of the victims of gun violence invited mainly by Democratic Members of Congress and sponsored by Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Among them will be former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords who was almost killed in a gun attack in Tucson.
The contrast could not be starker. During last year’s Presidential campaign Nugent said:
“If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.”
In 2007 he said:
“I think that Barack Hussein Obama should be put in jail. It is clear that Barack Hussein Obama is a communist. Mao Tse Tung lives and his name is Barack Hussein Obama. This country should be ashamed. I wanna throw up,” he said, adding “Obama, he’s a piece of s**t. I told him to suck on my machine gun.”
As for his view of women:
“Obama, he’s a piece of shit. I told him to suck on my machine gun. Hey Hillary,” he continued. “You might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless bitch.”
“What’s a feminist anyways? A fat pig who doesn’t get it often enough?”
In a 1994 Rolling Stone interview Nugent said:
“You probably can’t use the term `toxic c**t’ in your magazine, but that’s what she is. Her very existence insults the spirit of individualism in this country. This bitch is nothing but a two-bit whore for Fidel Castro.”
On Asians and “foreigners” in general:
“…Yeah they love me (in Japan) — they’re still assholes. These people they don’t know what life is. I don’t have a following, they need me; they don’t like me they need me… Foreigners are a******s; foreigners are scum; I don’t like ’em; I don’t want ’em in this country; I don’t want ’em selling me doughnuts; I don’t want ’em pumping my gas; I don’t want ’em downwind of my life-OK? So anyhow, and I’m dead serious…”
And then there are his comments on race:
“My being there (South Africa) isn’t going to affect any political structure. Besides, apartheid isn’t that cut-and-dry. All men are not created equal.”
“I use the word n****r a lot because I hang around with a lot of n****rs, and they use the word n****r, and I tend to use words that communicate,” he said.
Let’s just say that Ted Nugent is not the face of the new Republican Party “brand” that many Republican leaders have been trying so desperately to project since their November election disaster.
Nugent presents the same problem for Republicans as Todd Aiken did when he explained how the female body shut down pregnancies that resulted from “legitimate rape.” Even though many Republicans don’t entirely agree with people like Nugent and Aiken, their comments are toxic for the Republican Party brand. They drive away women, African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, young people.
And when it comes to the issue of gun violence, who would you rather have as your spokesperson, Gabby Giffords or Ted Nugent? Which of these two do you think would poll more favorably among the vast majority of Americans?
Nugent’s mouth is like a machine gun that riddles his own troops with friendly fire. The problem is that it is very hard for the Republican establishment to stop people like Nugent and Aiken. In fact tonight, we will be treated not only to the traditional Republican response to the State of the Union address — but two additional Republican responses: one by Tea Party Senator Rand Paul and the other by ultra-extremist Ted Nugent.
From Nugent’s point of view, it makes perfect sense to grandstand at the State of the Union and to go around making violent, outrageous statements. It drives his popularity and visibility among the narrow strata of the population that share his point of view — his fan base.
Recently the NRA posted a video that criticized the President for having tougher security for his children than ordinary people have for their kid’s schools. Most people thought the commercial was over the top — that bringing the President’s children into the political debate was out-of-bounds — and was ineffective in moving persuadable voters.
But that wasn’t the point. The video was not intended to persuade. It was intended as red meat for NRA supporters. It was intended to recruit members, raise money and mobilize the NRA’s base.
And that is the Republican problem — with the gun violence issue and so many others.
Tea Party activists have every incentive to stoke the anger of their base, make outrageous statements, and mount primary challenges that drive the Party out of the country’s mainstream — even though those actions simultaneously weaken the attractiveness of Republican Party candidates in general elections. And worse yet for the Republicans, those actions destroy their chances of attracting young people who will determine the Party’s future.
In the near term, people like Ted Nugent are dangerous to a Democratic society. Ted Nugent is a hateful, demagogic figure that builds his own career by belittling and attacking others. In hard times, his scapegoating and racism can find a following.
But every time Nugent opens his mouth he also helps to create lifelong Progressives who would never dream of being associated with the hatred he espouses — or with the political party that countenances him.
The Republican establishment funded and fueled the revival of the Tea Party after Barack Obama was elected. They did everything they could to legitimate otherwise fringe points of view. Now they are paying the price.
What is it they say about riding the tiger? The odds are good that you might be consumed by it. Or in the case of Nugent perhaps the better analogy would be a mountain lion. Nugent was once quoted saying:
“Vegetarians are cool. All I eat are vegetarians — except for the occasional mountain lion steak.”
By: Robert Creamer, The Huffington Post, February 12, 2013
“From A Failed And Flawed Man”: Dick Cheney’s “Second-Rate” Personnel Assessments
It struck me as amusing last week when former Vice President Dick Cheney, complaining about proposed measures to reduce gun violence, complained there “isn’t adequate regard for the rights of law-abiding citizens.” Given Cheney’s track record while in office, it seemed like an odd thing to say.
But these remarks from the weekend were even more striking.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Saturday night that President Barack Obama has jeopardized U.S. national security by nominating substandard candidates for key cabinet posts and by degrading the U.S. military.
“The performance now of Barack Obama as he staffs up the national security team for the second term is dismal,” Cheney said in comments to about 300 members of the Wyoming Republican Party.
Cheney, a Wyoming native, said it was vital to the nation’s national security that “good folks” hold the positions of secretary of state, CIA director and secretary of defense. “Frankly, what he has appointed are second-rate people,” he said.
There is a certain oddity that underpins Cheney’s whining. For many political observers, the fact that so many national security policies from the Bush/Cheney era are still in place is cause for alarm, though Cheney himself seems eager to suggest this administration has departed radically from his predecessor.
But really, that’s just scratching the surface of what’s wrong with Cheney’s odd perspective.
Whether you agree with their positions or not, there’s nothing even remotely “second rate” about John Kerry, Chuck Hagel, and John Brennan. These are experienced, capable individuals, with considerable expertise in their areas. Indeed, Kerry has a broad diplomatic background and was very nearly the president; Hagel is a decorated veteran and sage voice on the use of force (Cheney never got around to serving in the military before becoming the Pentagon chief); and Brennan actually served in the Bush/Cheney administration.
If the former V.P. has specific complaints about these nominees, I’d love to hear them.
But the real kicker here is Cheney’s confidence in his ability to make personnel assessments. Obama’s team, in Cheney’s mind, is “second rate,” but his team — filled with notorious names like Rumsfeld, Addington, and Libby — which oversaw some of the most spectacular failures in recent memory, was top tier?
Seriously?
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, February 11, 2013
“Heads-Up”: Republican Post State Of The Union Whining Today
Here’s a heads-up: After President Obama delivers his State of the Union address tomorrow, Republicans will wave their hands in front of their faces and whine that it was viciously, horribly, frighteningly “partisan.” And what will this partisanship consist of? Hold on to your hat here. He’s expected to argue for the same policies he has been arguing for and pursuing for the last four years. If the Republican members of Congress restrain themselves from shouting “You lie!” during the speech, it’ll only be because of their superior breeding and manners.
This, of course, is a follow-up to Obama’s inauguration speech, which was condemned by Republicans not because he said anything mean about them, but because he talked about some of the policies he prefers. That, you see, is “partisanship,” and when the other side does it, it’s beyond the pale. So in today’s Politico, under the headline “Obama’s State of the Union: Aggressive,” we read, without any particular evidence for the assertion, that the SOTU “will be less a presidential olive branch than a congressional cattle prod.” Surely this will be the first time a president ever used the speech to encourage Congress to pass legislation he supports. “That strategy has its dangers,” the article goes on. “If Americans perceive Obama as too partisan, he’ll lose a serious share of his personal popularity.” All that’s missing is a quote from Bill Galston explaining how the President is courting doom by not adopting Republican policy positions (I assume Galston was busy over the weekend).
You might say that because he originally ran for office promising to bring Republicans and Democrats together, Obama has a special responsibility to be accommodating to the other side. But let’s not forget that nearly every president comes into office promising to bring Republicans and Democrats together. Remember George W. “I’m a uniter, not a divider” Bush? Bill Clinton said it, too. But Obama seems to get an unusual amount of criticism from both his opponents and folks in the media for doing the same things that every president does, with every article an opportunity to remind readers that in 2008 he ran promising to bring people together.
Let me offer a prediction about tomorrow’s speech. There will be a good deal of now-familiar language about how he’s open to ideas from anywhere, and how if we all just be honest with each other we can come up with common-sense solutions to our problems. He’ll make a couple of good-natured jokes at his opponents’ expense (something Ronald Reagan particularly loved to do in his SOTUs). And he’ll go into numbing detail about his policy agenda. In other words, it’ll be a lot like every other SOTU in the last 20 or 30 years. And afterward, Republicans will cry that it was the most partisan State of the Union speech they’ve ever heard, and claim that they were all ready to work with him, but after being so terribly insulted, they just have no alternative but to oppose everything Obama wants to do, hold up his nominees, and proclaim him to be the enemy of American values.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, February 11, 2013
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