Wow, that would be a great photo if that were true. Unfortunately, there is no way to verify this. I can't date it or see him. It just looks like two black and white photos of crowds. And I'm no fan of Obama. Just saying. . . . A picture is worth a thousand words, and if you didn't put those words up there? I would have no idea what I'm looking at. Nice trick. What's with the asterisk?
It was originally posted at the Drudge Report: http://www.drudgereport.com/flashoo.htm. But you're right, you can't really date the pictures by looking at them. If it's a fake, I'm sure it will be identified as such soon enough.
I am sure if it were real, it would have been in the real media by now. The picture represented as taken in 2011 appears to be from the 1950's when people dressed up in suits to attend these kind of events. Only the president and the Secret Service do that these days. It appears to be a pretty obvious fake to me. The other clear tell about the purported 2011 picture, is the poor quality of picture. Even a simple cell phone camera produces a better picture and they don't use flash bulbs as they did in the 50's. And there is no Obama in either picture; not to mention that the picture purported as being taken in 2011 appears to have decades of oxidation on it - kind of inconsistent with it being taken in 2011. Grudge is known to fabricate his materials. So unless the right wing starts drooling over this picture, I think it gets no attention. It will just get dismissed as more right wing BS.
Looks like the photo is indeed real. http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pit...4.html?_s_icmp=NetworkHeadlines#ixzz1afYgOfss
From a recent article on Obama's prospects for re-election: http://thehill.com/opinion/columnists/david-hill/191211-obama-fails-all-viability-tests
I remember your similar postings in 2008. You see where that got you. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! By the way, Obama's latest job approval ratings are up a full 5 percent - near 50 percent and the campaign is just getting started.
Analysis or Campaign Messaging? There are a number of things to consider in this piece, because 2012 might well be so interesting a year as to rewrite the presuppositions for future elections. We should note that the opinion piece was written by David Hill, who has worked as a pollster and activist for the Republican party for over twenty-five years. In that context, his analysis is pushing a political message, but there is nothing specifically wrong with that. Mr. Hill asserts, of whether Obama deserves re-election, that, "Voters have closed their minds — and the book on this president." It ensures that when Obama faces a Republican nominee, the undecided voters in early polling will eventually vote against an undeserved reelection." Yet, as Lynda Waddington reports for The Iowa Independent: In an earlier poll on Oct. 5, Obama was given a negative 41-55 percent split, but falls within the margin of error in today’s offering at 47-49 percent. When asked if Obama deserved reelection, 52 percent of survey respondents previously said “no,” but are now willing to give the Democrat a second look. Obama has made gains against his potential GOP rivals: • 47 – 42 percent over Mitt Romney, compared to a 46 – 42 percent Romney lead October 5; • 52 – 36 percent over Rick Perry, up from a 45 – 44 percent tie last month; • 50 – 40 percent over Herman Cain, who was not included in a matchup last month; • 52 – 37 percent over Newt Gingrich, who was not matched last month. “Obama seems to be improving in voters’ eyes almost across-the-board,” Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said in a statement. “He scores big gains among the groups with whom he has had the most problems – whites and men. Women also shift from a five-point negative to a four-point positive. “Whether this is a blip, perhaps because of the death of Moammar Gadhafi and the slight improvement in some of the economic numbers, or the beginning of a sustained upward move in his popularity isn’t clear and won’t be for some time. Nevertheless, the movement allows the White House a sigh of relief, for the president’s approval had been stuck in the low 40s for some time and even a temporary upward move is good news for the folks at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.” So it seems that Mr. Hill, in declaring voters' minds—and the proverbial book—closed on President Obama's chances for re-election, chose to push message instead of pursue objective analysis. The question of the country's direction is always a tricky one. Mr. Hill is not out in the boondocks to suggest that incumbents don't get reelected when so many people are dissatisfied with the direction of the country, but he also presumes, in this analysis, that voters will solely blame the president. For instance, Waddington notes of the latest Quinnipiac poll that Democrats lead the House of Representatives inquiry; true enough 42-34 is hardly a number to crow about, since the undecided bloc is 24%. Still, the GOP's numbers are falling off, and the Democrats are picking up some of those opinions. Meanwhile in terms of Obama's re-election, the question is less clear than Mr. Hill would suggest. While RealClearPolitics shows Obama trailing a generic Republican in its rolling average by three points, the president leads all the potential Republican challengers. The RCP averages as of October 31: • Obama 45.9 | 44.1 Romney • Obama 48.2 | 39.8 Cain • Obama 49.8 | 39.2 Perry • Obama 50.3 | 36.7 Gingrich • Obama 47.6 | 41.6 Paul • Obama 51.8 | 37.6 Bachmann • Obama 45.7 | 37.0 Huntsman • Obama 45.0 | 34.0 Santorum It would seem, then, that Mr. Hill's analysis is more about messaging: The numbers say that voters don’t think he deserves reelection, he has no meaningful accomplishments, and the nation is headed off in the wrong direction under his watch. He is simply not viable by any measure. That’s an empirically informed, hard-nosed judgment. And this is the message Republicans need to hammer away at. It's the message they need to sell. It is a notion they hope to repeat again and again in hopes that voters will respond by turning to the GOP. The big question for Republicans, though, is how they conduct themselves in the next year. While one cannot account for unforeseen events of tremendous magnitude, Mr. Hill's approach depends on the questionable presupposition that voters will blame Obama and the Democrats, and thus reward Republicans. What it does not consider, though, is the question of how voters will respond to the 2010 midterm and the results their votes brought. To wit, did voters who put Republicans into office really vote for debt default brinkmanship? Was there any consideration of "divided government" in the outcome, or was the point of voting for Republicans to empower an absolutist right-wing agenda? Did voters demanding some semblance of "smaller" government really intend to empower local Republicans to manipulate building codes to close medical facilities in order to satisfy the evangelical Christian right wing? Were they voting for jobs and the economy, or sending conservatives to Congress to redefine rape? Did they want Republicans to take tax issues out of states' hands? The underlying question, then, is what voters wanted in 2010 compared to what they got out of the deal. That question is absent in Mr. Hill's analysis. Indeed, if the underlying theme—that Obama is over and done, and definitely will not be re-elected—was true, it seems unlikely that the president would presently be enjoying what comfort the polls might offer—i.e., that no real Republican candidate is winning in the opinion polls right now. One would think that if voters' minds and books are closed, and the judgment is against Obama, that at least one of the accidental comedy troupe known as the GOP presidential field would be able to mount a steady, broad-spectrum lead in the polls. In that sense, we might find Mr. Hill's analysis lacking. That is, it seems more a campaign fantasy than a useful and objective consideration. ____________________ Notes: Hill, David. "Obama fails all viability tests". The Hill. November 1, 2011. TheHill.com. November 2, 2011. http://thehill.com/opinion/columnists/david-hill/191211-obama-fails-all-viability-tests Waddington, Lynda. "Quinnipiac poll: Obama, Democrats gaining ground". The Iowa Independent. November 2, 2011. IowaIndependent.com. November 2, 2011. http://iowaindependent.com/63199/quinnipiac-poll-obama-democrats-gaining-ground RealClearPolitics. "President Obama vs. Republican Candidates". (n.d.) RealClearPolitics.com. November 2, 2011. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/president_obama_vs_republican_candidates.html
Aye That seems pretty clear. Or, at least, so says me. Anecdotally: My brother is considerably more conservative than I am, though he rejects political labels. Over a decade ago, he took umbrage at being labeled a Republican, so one of his friends asked, "Well, why do you always support Republican candidates? Why do you always vote conservative on ballot measures?" Indeed, it changed his political rhetoric. And then, of course, came the Bush years. By the 2004 election, he was reduced to expressing his sympathy for Bush's reelection: "But Kerry just ran a horrible campaign!" By 2008 it was clear that he was a roving independent looking for any politician who wasn't (A) as corrupt as he saw the Republicans, and (B) as incompetent as he saw the Democrats. Last week, over a family dinner, my mother wondered abstractly about the number of television adverts put up by the Latter Day Saints. My brother and I responded in stereo: "Because Mitt Romney is running for president." And then, of course, all the explanation about how the two Republican candidates closest to sane were both Mormons. Huntsman, we agreed, didn't have a chance, but Romney was the only one of the declared candidates who stood a chance against Obama. In the course of that discussion, I said something about Obama going into the election on the ropes, which my brother promptly snorted aside. "What?" I asked. "What president isn't on the ropes if he's going in at nine and a half percent unemployment?" The answer, my brother suggested, was the extremely low quality of the GOP field. And, yeah, that gives me some small measure of hope. Indeed, in the context of Clinton, and now Obama, being the "best Republican president ever", it makes a certain amount of sense. Outside the bluster of Beltway culture and the armchair pundits, one can reasonably posit that President Obama has done ... well? okay? not bad? The economy is what it is, but given the state of Congress, there are plenty who think Obama's term has not been a complete disaster. But the question persists whether that will be enough to carry him to reelection. Still, though, Romney is the only GOP candidate who seems capable of taking on Obama. It's hard to figure, in that context, why Huntsman isn't getting some support. Sure, the guy is just a bit strange on occasion, but his gaffes haven't been nearly as bad as Romney's. Strangely, as I scroll through my Cagle RSS feed, there appear to only be three cartoons since October 20 that deal directly with Mitt Romney. Sure, he appears in a couple of collective reviews of the GOP candidates, and is pointedly absent from one—which would make a fourth "Romney" cartoon, given its message—but talk about getting no respect. For the most part, cartoonists aren't even bothering to pick on him right now.
So this is one of the tropes that is common in these GOP back-patting pieces - the attempt to forecast the election by examining Obama's popularity in a vacuum. It neglects the obvious, salient fact that we have a two-party system, and so that a vote for one candidate is always and exactly a vote against the other candidate. The question of Obama's basic popularity misleads then, because it doesn't ask the same question that the election does, which is "do you prefer Obama to this other, specific Republican?" ... and this is the other common canard: comparing Obama to "a generic Republican." This question also does not ask the same question as the election will - it pits a real candidate with a real record against a blank-slate "Republican" that respondents are free to project their preferences onto. So it's again apples-and-oranges: it's comparing the number of people who'd vote for Obama, with the total number of Republican (and right-leaning independent) voters. Meanwhile, the actual election will pit Obama against a specific Republican with a specific record and agenda. I do not expect that we will see truly useful polls until the GOP primaries are finished and there is a specific candidate with a specific platform to compare with Obama.
Convincing Us That It's Over Before it Starts? Aye. I blew up, rather inelegantly on one of our conservative neighbors a couple weeks ago in The Cain File because I perceived him as attempting the same sort of manipulation we see from Dr. David Hill. Perhaps because of the two-party constriction, part of the challenge is to be able to go into the election proper saying that Obama is widely recognized to be troubled, over, done, finito, khattam-shud. And in this, part of the danger the GOP faces is that conservatives keep pushing the edge just a little bit farther, presuming that voters will never catch on. But this is a strange cycle insofar as, while virtually any president facing unemployment over nine percent and three-quarters general dissatisfaction with the direction of the country looks forward to a sisyphian reelection campaign, the GOP appears to have played a desperate hand. With the nation having watched the right wing's desperate play to unseat Obama in 2012, to the point that Republicans are now working to undermine American recovery and prosperity, the gamble is that the people will blame Obama and the Democrats alone; this Dr. Hill's "analysis", such as it is, seems shot through with this presupposition. And yet the GOP is unable to field a strong candidate. As such, reinforcing the suggestion that Obama is destined for defeat in 2012 is a potentially powerful tool; if they can create in the swing voters' minds an impression that there is no point in voting for Obama, it is all to the GOP's benefit. It's not really analysis. It's pure campaigning. That's why I tore our neighbor a new one a couple weeks ago, and that's why Dr. Hill's article does not make for credible analysis. I guess in the internet age, we might call it spreading a meme.
fixt Romney and Obama's positions are too close to each other. What are the substantive differences? The point spread between Romney and Obama is 1.8, between Paul and Obama, it's 6. Paul is far more likely to peel off Obama supporters and independents than Romney is. Frankly, Paul is a gift to the Republicans, they are idiots if they don't take it. It is the corporate establishment that doesn't want him, and that same corporate establishment is doing everything it can to obscure and ridicule his positions so the average republican primary voter remains ignorant of his views. Who do you think those tea party protestors and OWS marchers would support? Romney or Paul? Any astute and honest political scientist could make an easy call. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! The republicans best chance, looking at those polls? It's obvious. In the final analysis, when it isn't a popularity contest, and if you want to talk about issues, if the republicans really want to win, the choice for their candidate is clear. But nah, they are as controlled by the same special interests as the democrats, and that is why they will end up representing and pushing essentially the same policies while the country continues sinking down the drain for the majority of its citizens while the elites profit. :bugeye:
The obvious point And Jesus is returning. Next Saturday, in fact. I think Ron Paul's stance on the Federal Reserve and the Departments of Education, Energy, Commerce, Health and Human Services, and the IRS would probably hinder his efforts to win a lot of "independent" voters. It certainly won't help him with Occupy protesters who see the unchecked greed of capitalism as a major reason for the erosion of American quality of life. As I've said, and as you demonstrate: Ron Paul, and Ron Paul's supporters.
You certainly have a point, and I readily agree that the weakness of the Republican field is currently Obama's only hope. Nevertheless, comparing Obama to previous presidents would suggest his prospects for re-election are bleak: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203804204577014102546447814.html I think Romney is likely to get the nomination and, assuming he gets it, all he has to do is be an inoffensive alternative to Obama to win.
Romney is part of the problem. People are starting to get it now. "Corporations are people, my friend" The Mitwit
Oh boy, an opinion piece by George Junior's brain (affectionately referred to as Turd Brain by George II). And why is it not suprising to find Rove once again promulgating the Republican Great White Hope theory of the 2012 election. The facts are, President Obama has a pretty darn good record to run on. He is about 50 percent in the latest job approval surveys an up by more than 10 percent from the previous job satisfaction surveys. And unfortunately for Republicans, we have a new ECB president ( Mario Draghi) who unlike his predecessor knows something of economics. Today, he lowered interest rates by a quarter of a percent. Add to that, the fact that Europe may finally solve it's banking crisis and the economic prospects for the US are suddenly getting much better for next year. Bad news for Republicans/Tea Partiers, great news for the nation and the world; Europeans are now doing what Obama, the Dems and Bernanke have done. And the US economy is now growing at a rate of 2.5 percent.
One thing to think about there - election in bad economics, tend to be bad for incumbents. But the GOP already took the house and some of the Senate in the midterms, exactly by running against incumbents under a bad economy. So it seems to me that all those Tea Party Congressmen are in serious trouble - they're no longer "outsiders," don't have any achievements they can point at, the economy is still bad, etc. Problem for Obama is that "I couldn't fix things because the GOP wouldn't let me" is not exactly the sort of campaign slogan that screams "leadership" even if people buy into it. On the other hand, the assumption that the economy will necessarily still be in the crapper a year from now may not be so hot. Yeah, unemployment will still suck and I'm by no means expecting any miracles, but if the EU can get and keep their shit together through the end of this year, there's a certain chance that the trajectory will have appreciably changed by next November and that the issues driving the campaign will be something else.
Sure, but 4 years ago everyone said a black man could never be elected President. Point being that "shitty" is by now the new "normal" state of the economy, so it's not clear to me that voting patterns will track those economic indicators like they used to. Those are from times where people viewed any deviation from fast growth and full employment as an anomalous fuck-up, and meanwhile the focus of public anger seems to be more and more on the big banks and corporations these days. Granted, Obama has a liability there for bailing them out, but it's not the sort of thing any Republican can capitalize on. But I think that if the economy is seen to have turned a corner (no chance it'll be fully recovered) by a year from now, it won't represent much of a drag on Obama. I also think that Obama is strong on foreign policy, especially compared to any of the GOP contenders (who rank between "not-quite-adequate" and "is this a fucking joke?" on foreign policy), although it is always a toss-up as to how much that will figure into a given election. Yeah, absent some kind of fireworks this seems the clearly likely outcome. I'm less sanguine about his chances. He will have a hell of a time energizing the GOP base, and evangelicals are largely cold on him. Romney needs the electorate (collectively, not just one or the other party) to decide it needs to punish Obama in order to have a chance. Otherwise, what is he really going to say he'd do differently than Obama? He can't attack ObamaCare, because it's modelled on Romney's own program, he can't attack Obama for being too friendly to big business and the rich because he proposes raping the middle class to help them out, he can't go the foreign policy route against the guy who killed Osama Bin Laden and Qaddafi, he can't push for stimulus, gays in the military is a settled issue... what does that leave? Abortion? Prayer in school? I just don't think it's going to work to make it a referendum on Obama. He has to make voters actively prefer him to what Obama will be offering, and I don't see how he does that.
I think most Tea Party and OWS protestors that are educated understand the difference between capitalism and corporatism. Real dyed in the wool, true blue Americans, left, right or center, understand there is nothing wrong with capitalism. They know that it is corporatism that is the root cause of America's ills. Those government departments do more to protect special interests and government power and bureaucracy than they do to protect the American people. Educated Americans know that. The number one job of government these days is to grab more power for itself and enlarge its sphere of influence and authority, not look out for the welfare of the people. You are just like the media and the intellectual elite. You don't want to debate the issues, you want to control the debate. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
