Run As A Centrist, Govern As A Lefty

David Brooks commented yesterday on Obama's unprecedented plunge in popularity (and he wrote before the latest Rasmussen poll).  Charles Franklin at Pollster.com drudges up 'honeymoon' polling data back to Eisenhower to inform us that, although Obama has plunged precipitously, the case can be made that Wild Bill Clinton fell even faster.

And, contra Brooks, not all Presidents fall.  Just to pick a name almost at random, Ronald Reagan ran on a promise to cut taxes and raise defense spending, did so, and saw his approval rise.  Getting shot helped, too.

MORE:  Mickey Kaus was excellent rebutting Brooks on Obama's health care strategy.

Comments

[PD]

Getting shot helped, too.

You just know some lefty is going to write a post alleging that TM is attempting to incite violence against the president.

[gmax]

So TM, you are saying that the example you want to hold up is a politician that says what he will do and then does exactly that?

How do you expect progressive to get elected following that model? Its not like they arent able to understand what George McGovern taught them about being honest about progressive policies.

Much better to hide it, change the subject, come up with some slogan that sure tests out well in focus groups, and lie repeatedly if you must.

After all unlike a parliamentary system, the term is fixed at 4 year and the voting public's memory of the last liar is such that you can sneak into office every third election or so...

[Jack is Back!]

TM,

Surely you aren't suggesting Obama get (ahem) in order to improve his ratings?

But I just don't buy this sudden buyers remorse on the part of Brooks and his so-called right of center ilk (this is a matter of geometry in that the center is really offset to the left to begin with). Anyone with any sense of curiosity would have known from his (O's) life experience, writings, associates, missing years and missing data, his Chicago political upbringing and more that he wasn't running from the center. Willing to talk to our sworn enemies unconditionally is ignorant, naive and something only a lefty of unequalled proportion would suggest. Know Brooks wants to be excused for his own naivete. Not from me, Mr. Bowtie.

[Ignatz]

Obama didn't run as a centrist.
He did what he's still doing; he talks all over the map, some of which sounds centrist.
But to the extent he ever has specific proposals they are always leftist. They were in his campaign and they are today.

[gmax]

Depends on who he was speaking to at that time. Behind closed doors in San Fran to wealthy progressive types, no doubt that was a leftie's lefty. No so much on the trail though, it was all Hope and Change all of the time, with of course some Roman column props sprinkled in as needed to season.

[Jack is Back!]

gmax:

There is an old saying:

"If you can't dazzle 'em with bullshit then bullshit 'em with dazzle".

Also, "sell the sizzle not the steak".

And if anyone wants to get fired up to go out there and knock some heads together and tackle the issues head-on without resorting to a "hail Mary" pass then watch LUN

[bgates]

Just to pick a name almost at random, Ronald Reagan

Jonah quotes First Read noting Gallup says that Obama is still at 51% approve, and points out that Reagan slipped below 50% in his 10th month in office.

The key is to get this joker well below 50% in his 22nd - 46th months in office (and if that starts a little early, I don't think it will get old).

[boris]

"Obama didn't run as a centrist"

Agree. He just used his moderate reassuring voice that doesn't scare the white folk.

That he was actually nowhere near the center was all too obvious and he made no effort to hide his "bitter clinger" and "get in their faces" agenda. That he was less strident with some groups does not excuse the willfull blindness of a lot of people who really should have known better.

[Original MikeS]

Duplicity:
a. Deliberate deceptiveness in behavior or speech.
b. An instance of deliberate deceptiveness; double-dealing.

[Neo]

Run As A Centrist

Obama ran as the "Rorschach" candidate.
What Obama failed to realize is that a Rorschach test no longer works when you give the painting a name.

[matt]

Obama changes his message dependent on to whom he is speaking. We used to call that bald faced lying.

[gmax]

Matt

But never in polite company. Making Sh!t up?

[Thomas Collins]

Well, it appears as if the English speaking world has at least one real leader still in office. See LUN.

[MayBee]

He did what he's still doing; he talks all over the map, some of which sounds centrist. But to the extent he ever has specific proposals they are always leftist. They were in his campaign and they are today.

Amen.

[Jack is Back!]

Thomas Collins,

Perfect! He's a cross between Ross Perot and Joe Arpaio. And he proves to be careful what you wish for. Blair created those positions to cement power for Labor and what they got was a free-wheeling, free-speaking, no nonsense pragmatist.

Cheers,

[Stephanie "the Ice Pick"]

TC...seems as if Palins are popping up all over the globe.

Would you consider Palin the female Arpaio?

[Jane the lynchpin]

TC, (Dave, Rocco)

Did you guys hear that Andy Card may be running for Ted's senate seat?

[maryrose]

All a person had to do was look at how he voted on the Born Alive amemdment in the Chicago legislature. When I brought it up at work people were surprised and then voted for him anyway.

[Thomas Collins]

Jane, I didn't hear that. I think he would be competitive against Joe K. or Vicki K., but I still think the Dems would hold the seat.

Jack is Back, if Arpaio had Perot's money, he would have a chance of becoming Prez on a third party ticket.

Stephanie "the Ice Pick", I am partial to Palin's brand of politics and leadership, so I would say that Arpaio is the male Palin!

[Fresh Air]

BGates---

I seriously doubt he's got a 51 percent approval rate if you use a poll of LV re-weighted for current party ID. Using last November's ebb tide for the GOP will probably yield an automatic bump of +5 for the Mediacrats.

Put it this way, how many people who voted for McCain have told you they were sorry they didn't vote for Zero? He's got nowhere to go but down.

[bgates]

FA - that may be. I only talk to rabid partisans about politics, so I haven't heard anybody say they regret their vote either way.

[Thomas Collins]

I certainly wouldn't try to turn JOM into a tax blog, but I thought you all might be interested to know that a taxpayer actually tried to convince the United States Tax Court to use Google to confirm one of taxpayer's factual claims (the Tax Court declined the request). See LUN.

I suppose next is asking judges to accept as facts stuff on Facebook and MySpace! :-))

[gmax]

Must be a pretty big contingent of buyer's remorse if RAS and Zogby are right. 46% and 42% versus the 52% that HOPEfully pulled the lever and now have a CHANGE of heart.

[jr565]

Why is it that all the so called conservative elites, who looked down their noses at Sarah Palin (Brooks, Buckley et al.) the ones who suddenly are arguing that he isn't the Obama they thought he was. Yes, he is, they are just dim bulbs who can't see the forest for the trees.
Meanwhile all the rubes were saying from day one, the guy is a radical.For people so smart, you have to wonder how they could be so stupid?
Thanks Brooks, thanks Buckley.

[bishop]

Tomorrow, will be the anniversary of the Speech where all of this was laid out, there
has been no small level of derangement that
arose in order to counter it. As we see from the memeorandum block, they are still at it, but they have resorted to third string players to throw the trash. Honesty is not terribly appreciated in politics

[RezkoRezkoRezko]

It just goes to show when you have basically every media outlet except for FNC and talk radio lying for you you can still fool a lot of people. Somehow it became the narrative that Palin is a racist for saying Obama is friends with white leftwing terrorist Bill Ayers. It was a smear to bring it up. A smear?

And the Obama-Rezko land deal needs to be given more scrutiny again. Who knows what other Rangelian deals Obama signed up for before he became a serious candidate for president.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

Breaking News Alert from the WaPo:

Obama to address joint session of Congress on Health Care

President Obama will give an address to a joint session of Congress next Wednesday on health care, Democratic officials say.

[Trouble]

I hate to say it, but this almost makes me hope that the economy stays on its heels for a further 3 1/2 years. With the exploding deficit and the Fed's "policy" of "fiscal easing" (i.e. crank up the printing presses), this probably is exactly what will happen, though.

However - I can't believe anyone would be serious about Joe Arpaio running for president. Penn & Teller did an excellent fisking of Sheriff Joe in their "Bullsh!t!" series that ran on Showtime awhile back. Seems that Sheriff Joe forgot about this little thing in the Constitution called the 4th amendment....

[Porchlight]

Tuesday - Obama talks to the kidz in the schoolz
Wednesday - Obama talks to the kidz in the Congrezz

Should be a fun week.

[bishop]

We're not that particular about the 4th Amendment, consider all the popularity of cop shows, and/or action dramas like '24.
We're talking more of a type with Joe, former BNDD officer. You can't possibly think continuing on this path is a good
idea, unless you're from the Argentine
Currency Board

[Extraneus]

Speaking of fun, I'm really starting to like this Van Jones. He should have his own blog.

Green Jobs Czar Says ‘White Polluters’ Steered Poison Into Minority Communities

[Ranger]

President Obama will give an address to a joint session of Congress next Wednesday on health care, Democratic officials say.

Posted by: Sara (Pal2Pal) | September 02, 2009 at 03:43 PM

Good God. Is he trying to imply that this issue is on the same level of importance as a declaration of war?

[Rob Crawford]

Good God. Is he trying to imply that this issue is on the same level of importance as a declaration of war?

Nah. He's just deeply in love with the sound of his own voice.

[Ignatz]

--Is he trying to imply that this issue is on the same level of importance as a declaration of war?--

It is a declaration of war. On us and on our country as we have known it.

[ke_future]

okay, dumb question. definition of LUN as used on this blog?

[bgates]

President Obama will give an address to a joint session of Congress

I hope they've reminded him what "joint session" means around there....

[Extraneus]

Link Under Name. Just means you can click the person's name to get where they're pointing. (Easer than anchor tag, and is the box under the comment box that says "Web Site URL".)

[Porchlight]

okay, dumb question. definition of LUN as used on this blog?

Not a dumb question at all! It means "Link Under Name." Click on the commenter's name and it'll take you to the article they're discussing.

[Porchlight]

sorry Extraneus, I knew someone was going to beat me to that! :)

[Extraneus]

The combination of both comments really exceeded the sum of the individual comments themselves in terms of overall coolness, particularly after that pic bgates posted.

[bgates]

Extraneus, the fun part isn't the shot at "white polluters", it's when he blames "white environmentalists" in the same breath.

Post-racial!
Unity!

[DebinNC]

That pic of Obama reminded me of his mediocre school record. Will his speech to kids include a "Don't do what I did" component? I doubt it.

It's a good thing he's showered money on GE, because his Wed. speech will preempt NBC's ratings winner America's Got Talent. Plus, it also coincidentally preempts uncompensated Fox's popular Hell's Kitchen.

[Porchlight]

particularly after that pic bgates posted

Heh. I never get tired of that picture.

[Jack is Back!]

Whoa, Nellie!

I saw Clarice's and Jane's question about the Afghan Embassy on another thread and now FNC website has it up including the photos. LUN

I wonder how the boys in the Castro are going to let the One slide by on this? I know how: its a bunch of young white males (no diversity there) not poor oppressed natives of the religion of peace. Yessiree, this shall pass without a whimper. In fact, Hollywood just starting working on a sequel to Animal House based on these shenanigans. Boys will be boys.

[Thomas Collins]

Whoops! Looks as if I am in trouble with Trouble for mentioning Arpaio as a possible candidate for Prez. I guess we all have our views as to folks who shouldn't seriously be considered for Prez. For example, I don't think that anyone would take a candidate for Prez seriously if the candidate was a first term US senator whose sole executive experience appears to be Harvard Law Review Prez, community organizing with respect to affordable housing (which venture was acknowledged by The Boston Globe not to have worked out that well), and school reform that apparently didn't improve education of the actual students (who we must remember should be the beneficiaries of reform, not folks who can pad their resume with some supposed school reform position). . . . Oh, what's that, you say? . . . . Our current Commander-in-Chief had exactly that much prior executive experience? . . . . Never mind. :-))

As to the Fourth Amendment, post-modern Dems are a much greater threat to the civil liberties of law abiding folks than Arpaio types.

[bad s##t]

Jack is back, did you catch this?

“Beyond basic decency standards, the situation at Camp Sullivan ..."

[Rob Crawford]

bad s##t -- the line you excerpted is begging for completion:

“Beyond basic decency standards, the situation at Camp Sullivan ..." is indistinguishable from some of the neighborhood parties thrown in San Francisco.

(Seriously -- check out some of Zombietime's photo essays.)

[Ranger]

Hot Air has a post up about just how much of an Epic Fail this is turning into:

http://hotair.com/archives/2009/09/02/cnn-poll-majority-now-oppose-obamacare/>CNN poll: Majority now oppose ObamaCare

[bad s##t]

I saw the pictures linked at FOXNEWS and couldn't believe what I was seeing, Rob.

[Sara (Pal2Pal)]

School Children Asked to Pledge to Serve Obama?

“I pledge my service to Barack Obama.”
“I pledge to be a servant to our President.”

Sorry, I, and my kids, pledge allegiance to "the flag and to the Republic for which it stands," not to some effing politician, even if he is the temporary President.

[Ranger]

“I pledge my service to Barack Obama.”
“I pledge to be a servant to our President.”

I think instead the kids should be asked to recite:

We have fought that there should be no more kings in this land.

[centralcal]

I see Jonah Goldberg at NRO's Corner is linking Tom Maguire again today.

[Whitehall]

"Getting shot helped, too."

Didn't they make a movie about that - "Tap the Dog" or somesuch?

As to the public school speech for Tuesday, my local high school district office hasn't gotten any official word and has nothing scheduled. People are calling them asking about it though.

[Porchlight]

The school thing is going to be a major bust. If official notice hasn't gone out to the schools yet it's way too late. It'll be completely half-assed from lack of organization, if it happens at all.

Then Barry does the joint session speech on Wednesday fresh off the embarrassment of the day before. Then it's September 11th and the country will have steam coming out of its ears over "National Service Day." Then on to 9/12!!!

[Jack is Back!]

Bad S##t,

Yeah but had a brain lock and forgot the connection - oh the torture this must be putting Sully through. He wants to look at those pictures and lick his lips but he also has to come out and find a way to blame Bush and his homophobic administration. Then when I saw Hillary's statement about investigating this behavior I thought: She is going to send Bill. The perfect person to investigate hedonistic partying by young white males.

[bishop]

Yes he's waging war on this country, suppressing our energy development, trying
to muzzle our media, even considering redesigning our entire food system; according to Marion Nussle (sic) and Rosa
DeLauro

[daddy]

TC, Phone Nome!

They've finally figured out what's behind the ">http://community.adn.com/adn/node/143292"> disappearances of various folks over the years up in Northern Alaska, so figured you might want to pass it on to you know who.

[bishop]

Daddy, they're wrong it's the zombie vampires I thought everyone knew that

[matt]

So we get Obama on prime time twice next week. This really is nothing but propaganda.

[Ignatz]

--This really is nothing but propaganda.--

Yeah matt, but like all bad propaganda all it does is energize his opponents and lethargize (new word?) his pals.

[daddy]

Well Narciso, since Nicole was hitchhiking south to ColdFoot Camp this week, I figured I'd cover all bases, so I warned her about vampires and aliens on a comment to her blog.

Just FYI,

First hour of Fagan today was 10 minutes of how he really, really, really ,really didn't want to have to attack Sarah Palin today, then spent the next 30 minutes perusing every sentence of Levi's Vanity Fair story and taking it as complete Gospel, and Levi being the supposed up-front guy in this whole affair. Simply sickening. And come next election cycle, it'll be nothing but bitching and moaning from Fagan about where the heck are the good Conservative candidates.

Simply pathetic, but very predictable.

[hit and run]

TM:
Charles Franklin at Pollster.com drudges up 'honeymoon' polling data back to Eisenhower to inform us that, although Obama has plunged precipitously, the case can be made that Wild Bill Clinton fell even faster.

You know, http://thevimh.blogspot.com/2009/08/disapproved-even-further.html>I already covered this a couple weeks ago:

Obama started higher than Clinton [cue joint pic]. But both have dropped almost exactly the same number of points on their approval (and added the same number of points to their disapproval) from where they started at inauguration.

Only -- Clinton started rebounding. And Obama?

Well.

[wuzzagrunt]

"I suppose next is asking judges to accept as facts stuff on Facebook and MySpace!"

TC, we had 4 of 9 SCOTUS justices who accepted data cited from Michael Belisles' Arming America. By that standard, Facebook and MySpace should be considered authoritative sources, and Wikipedia should be considered definitive.

[Thomas Collins]

Wuzzagrunt, I appreciate your point. Certain judges aren't too particular about sources as long as the sources support their preconceived notions.

Daddy, I saw your post about Nome on Working Near Santa. Actually, I suspect Nicole! :-))

By the way, daddy, I know you won't want this publicized to your adult beverage guy companions, but Nicole was impressed by your feminist scholarship a few posts ago at Working Near Santa. I'll keep it quiet! :-))

[Terry Gain]

Obama's problem (other than his uncontrollable mendacity) is that too often he allows himself to be influenced by the far left base of the Democratic Party (himself).

[Stephanie "the Ice Pick"]

??? Obama's problem is that he is influenced by himself.

Hokay...

Who else would a narcissist be influenced by?

[Papa Ray]

"Getting shot helped, too."

Not to worry, the backers of Obama have a commitee working out the details. Currently they are having a problem finding a liberal that is a good enough shot to assure that Obama will not be injured in any way.

I'm sure that they will work it all out about the time Obama's approval ratings hit minus 30.

Papa Ray
West Texas

[Frau Schiessgewehr]

Papa Ray, will there be an Axelturf smear to blame Shotgun Cheney?

[Mars vs Hollywood]

Obama ran as the "Rorschach" candidate.

Oh, if only.

Interesting point about Obama's poll track mirroring Clinton's. That's not much comfort, as Clinton had two terms and was a formidably powerful and popular figure.

Of course, one of the sources of Clinton's strength was a Republican Congress, which both restrained his worst policy instincts and gave him something to run against.

It'll be interesting to see if history repeats in 2010.

[JM Hanes]

Ranger:

"Is he trying to imply that this issue is on the same level of importance as a declaration of war?"

Nah, it's just the only way he can still get a block of free prime time coverage from the networks.

[Elliott]

Wednesday - Obama talks to the kidz in the Congrezz

Doubtlefs on Wednefday, Barack Huffein Obama the fecond, Prefident of the United States, to the reprefentatives of fame, in Congrefs affembled, upon medical iffues fhall foliloquife his moft wife reconfiderations.