Did Gingrich’s and Perry’s failure to hurt Romney with their class-warfare rhetoric bode ill for Obama in the fall?
President Obama should be very worried by the backlash against these attacks, real or perceived, on free-market capitalism. The White House’s divisive class-warfare strategy of running against free enterprise, against the “1 percent,” was given a test run by Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Perry, and it failed miserably. Not only was Mr. Romney given the opportunity to preview that line of attack and prepare accordingly but, more importantly, the voters soundly rejected it.
Democrats will claim that these Republican primary results do not necessarily reflect the sentiments of general election voters, but not so fast. New Hampshire has an open primary, and 45 percent of its primary voters were “undeclared” as to political party. Independent voters are unquestionably rejecting the ahttp://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/morning-jay-what-make-obamas-approval-bounce_617121.htmlssault on free enterprise. What’s more, Mr. Romney received a higher percentage of voters, despite the large GOP field, than either Mr. Obama or Hillary Rodham Clinton did in 2008.
I don’t think it will slow them down. It’s all they have, really. They’ll go ahead, and rationalize that Newt and Rick just didn’t do it right. They knew the words, but Obama sings the music.
[Afternoon update]
How to explain Obama’s approval bounce?
As we can see, Ronald Reagan blew Jimmy Carter out of the water in 1980 (then Walter Mondale in 1984) because he won substantial support among Democrats. However, the party more or less consolidated its base vote starting with Michael Dukakis in 1988, and this is pretty much all Obama has managed to do in the last two months. His relentless, partisan campaign of this winter has only moved him into Dukakis territory.
Good luck with that.
Rand,
Interesting analysis, but your statement
[[[Not only was Mr. Romney given the opportunity to preview that line of attack and prepare accordingly but, more importantly, the voters soundly rejected it.]]]
Is not accurate – it should be “the voters in the Republican primary elections” soundly rejected it. But those voters will likely vote for Gov. Romney in the general election regardless of what the Democrats do.
The key question is will the independent voters who actually decide elections reject it. This recent national poll of a race between President Obama and Gov. Romney would indicate it is having an impact with a 19 point swing towards President Obama by independents since the attacks on Gov. Romney started.
http://images.coloradoindependent.com/PPP_Release_US_0117925.pdf
[[[The most movement is with independents, who favored Romney by 9 points in December and Obama by 10 now.]]]
PPP is a Democratic polling company, but polling expert Nate Silver of the New York Times found that its surveys in 2010 actually exhibited a slight bias toward Republican candidates.
Well that’s mildly humorous, in a dull sort of way. Keep trying Thomas, eventually you’ll post something that isn’t dull. Stopped clock and all that.
The latest Rasmussen has it Obama 44 and Romney 41. This is with Obama currently being coddled by the media and Romney being beaten-up by his opponents.
You know what you call an incumbent stuck below 45%? Toast.
You think 44 percent is bad now Thomas, wait til gas hits $5 per gallon this summer!
I thought the Keystone Pipeline was an opportunity for the President to come up with a Triangulation Strategy, but I guess the President has made his decision to anti-triangulate.
With respect to attacking Mr. Romney for being a heartless corporate raider, it reminds me of Arlo Guthrie’s trying for a psychiatric disqualification during his draft physical (from his Alice’s Restaurant saga), where he started yelling, “I wanna kill! I wanna kill!” to which the Army screeners replied, “That’s our man!”
Y’know, our guys could really drive a wedge separating the Union guys and gals from Mr. Obama over this pipeline thing, not just for the jobs building the pipeline but for the mass quantities of hydrocarbons this thing could bring to power the trip in the ol’ pickup out to the mountain lake pulling the power boat.
But our guys are going to bring up how swell Governor Walker’s, Daniel’s and Kasich’s union busting was/is and negate any pickup over the pipeline. And we will do this because our side is about as dense about wedge issues and triangulation as Mr. Obama right now.
Curt,
It is amazing how blind and hostile the Republican Right is to anything that disputes their view of reality. No wonder the Republican primaries are such a joke to the rest of the nation.
Pot, meet kettle…
The lastest Rasmussen numbers would seem to indicate that Newt’s attack on capitalism did in fact work against Romney (though since it happened after the last debate it could also be attributable to Newt’s top notch performance in that debate). Newt isn’t always right but he’s too smart to start an attack of this nature if there weren’t some indication somewhere that people would be receptive to it. The fact that class warfare is now working on Republicans as well as Democrats, and that neither party is willing or able to explain or defend capitalism indicates that even if Obama loses, the America we knew and loved is gone and won’t be saved simply my removing the Marxist in Chief.
Mark,
On the other hand it may just indicate that the public, including many moderate Republicans, are just rejecting the Republican Right’s class warfare argument and are buying into the Democrat’s argument that the Republican Right agenda is an attack on the Middle Class. The huge number of signatures in the recall drive for Gov. Walker appears to be evidence for that.
The huge number of signatures is mostly evidence of how corrupt the recall process is, and how powerful the unions are. Many bragged about signing multiple times.
Triangulation Rand, Triangulation!
The interests of the union people are not those of the Environmentalists. Mr. Obama just abandoned the unions over the Keystone Pipeline. Triangulation!
Rand,
Your update is interesting and confirms that President Obama has realized there is nothing he will be able to do to make the Republicans happy, so why bother.
[[[Clearly, most of Obama’s improvement in the last two months has been with Democrats. This makes sense, as the president has been campaigning from the left lately: battling congressional Republicans, ending the war in Iraq, fighting over controversial recess appointments, stressing tried-and-true Democratic themes in his stump speeches.]]]
The one difference is that President Reagan was no so scary to the Democrats as the current Republican field is, except for Gov. Romney, so most will likely hold their nose and vote again for President Obama.
Indeed, there is nothing Mr. Obama can do to keep Republicans happy. But if he OK’s the pipeline, some union people would be happy. It would also have an important effect on the direction of oil prices. No, the pipeline won’t solve our energy problem, but the right ‘tude by Mr. Obama could have a big effect on markets as such things are decided by psychology. If he can have falling oil prices by election time, and if the Right Blogosphere can maintain its defense of you-know-who, Mr. Obama is golden.
This will NOT make independants happy, espacially when gas approaches $5 per gallon and the Republicnas start beating the shit out of him wiht ads highlighting his varis gaffes and stupid positions on energy.
The hurt energy prices will put on Obama’s campaign will necessairly skyrocket in all 57 states.
Your update is interesting and confirms that President Obama has realized there is nothing he will be able to do to make the Republicans happy, so why bother.
What an idiotic comment. Unless by “able to do” you mean from an ideological standpoint. He could have made Republicans happy by approving Keystone, but he apparently wasn’t “able to do” it. He could have made Republicans happy by not ramming through ObamaCare, or pushing cash for clunkers, but he didn’t seem to be able to do that.
Since there still has been no decision on Keystone that is not relevant yet.
But even if President Obama hadn’t push through health care do you honestly think Republicans would have voted for him whatever Republican candidate running against him? If so I have a bridge to sell you 🙂