NRO Newsletters . . . Morning Jolt . . . with Jim Geraghty
April 27, 2012
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| 1. If You Want to Escape Washington, Mr. President, Let Us Help You!
Sometimes I wonder if I harp on the president's vacations too much. But apparently I'm not the only one fascinated by the commander-in-chief's regular getaways during economic hard times.
As readers of the Campaign Spot know, I'm reading Jodi Kantor's The Obamas, and I'm doing my best not to quote it in every blog post. Kantor is a New York Times correspondent, and I suspect she began this project quite sympathetic to the Obamas. But she's a diligent enough reporter to include everything she finds, including anecdotes that are distinctly unflattering to the first couple and White House staffers.
You may come out of the book a bigger fan of Michelle Obama than you were before. If you think Barack Obama was epically overhyped from the moment he appeared on the national stage, well, there are a few signals that maybe Michelle Obama, for as much as she loves her husband, shares the sentiment. Page 187: "Maybe one day, he will do something to warrant all of this attention," Michelle whispered to Jeff Zeleny, a reporter, as the new senator walked through the U.S. Capitol for the first time, trailed by a large entourage. Anyway, one of the periodic themes in The Obamas is the first couple's recurring desire to escape Washington; their sense that they've somehow been trapped in an endlessly scrutinized life in which none of the presidents' grand ambitions are ever quite realized, and nothing has turned out as they envisioned. I had noticed this tic in Obama's technically-not-campaign rallies across the country since 2009. Inevitably, he tells the usually adoring throngs how great it feels to be out of Washington.
Look, pal, if you hate being in Washington, don't run for president. That is where the job is. The job involves a steady diet of hard decisions that will pit favored political allies against public opinion. It will involve endless wrangling on Capitol Hill. It will involve moments when you'll have to decide if half a loaf is worth taking, or whether it's worth risking the whole deal to get 55 percent of the loaf. If you don't like this stuff, don't spend two years telling us how much we need you in that job.
Anyway, the president's persistent desire to escape is not going unnoticed by swing voters, according to Paul Bedard: Blue collar Democratic voters, stuck taking depressing "staycations" because they can't afford gas and hotels, are resentful of the first family's 17 lavish vacations around the world and don't want their tax dollars paying for the Obamas' holidays, according to a new analysis of swing voters.
"They view everything through their own personal situation and if they can't afford to do it, they can't enjoy it, they don't like Obama using their tax dollars to benefit himself," said pollster John McLaughlin. "In this case, they see him as out of touch. While they are struggling he's not sharing in that struggle and he's basically doing what they can't do on their tax dollars," added the GOP pollster.
He and several other top-tier Republican pollsters, organized by Resurgent Republic, traveled to 11 battleground states to host focus groups of independent and swing voters, mostly Democrats, who voted for President Obama in 2008 but who are now on the fence.
McLaughlin handled blue collar and Catholic voters in Pittsburgh on April 3 and Cleveland on March 20. He found that they are very depressed about the economy and feel that their tax dollars are being sucked up by both the rich and those living on government assistance.
During the focus group discussions about debt and spending cuts, many in his group volunteered criticism of the presidential vacations as something that should be cut. Among the lines McLaughlin wrote down was one from a Democratic woman who said, "Michelle Obama spends $1 million to take the kids to Hawaii," and another who said, "President Obama was the only president to take so many trips."
The theme, said McLaughlin, is that the first family "is out of touch" with working class voters. By the way, in the Kantor book, everyone in the West Wing knew that Michelle Obama's trip to Spain -- you know, the one that cost taxpayers at least $467,585 -- would be a political disaster. But the trip went on anyway.
The precedent of judging a president for his vacations while the country endures crisis is well established, as Ann Althouse reminds us (language warning). |
2. Voters Boo Federal Government, Feel Better about State and Local Pew lets us know that Americans are differentiating among their federal, state, and local governments. And the latter two are regarded much more highly than Washington: Just a third of Americans have a favorable opinion of the federal government, the lowest positive rating in 15 years. Yet opinions about state and local governments remain favorable, on balance. As a result, the gap between favorable ratings of the federal government and state and local governments is wider than ever.
Ten years ago, roughly two-thirds of Americans offered favorable assessments of all three levels of government: federal, state and local. But in the latest survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, conducted April 4-15, 2012 among 1,514 adults nationwide, the favorable rating for the federal government has fallen to just 33%; nearly twice as many (62%) have an unfavorable view.
By contrast, ratings of state governments remain in positive territory, with 52% offering a favorable and 42% an unfavorable opinion of their state government. And local governments are viewed even more positively. By roughly two-to-one (61% to 31%) most Americans offer a favorable assessment of their local government. Allahpundit notices: Independents' view of the federal government is actually less favorable now at 27 percent than it was in the final year of Bush's second term, when it was 33 percent. Interestingly, though, it rose to 39 percent in February 2010, when Congress was on the brink of passing ObamaCare. Does that mean indies have soured on Hopenchange or have they just soured on congressional gridlock? |
3. Your Daily Dose of Romney Propaganda Allahpundit at Hot Air reports a game-changer in the 2012 race: Mitt Romney once saved a drowning dog. You can thank BuzzFeed's Andrew Kaczynski for the front-page thumbnail. In all seriousness, this is a "gamechanger" in the literal sense of that term. Axelrod and his pals are playing a breathtakingly stupid game with the "dog wars" and this anecdote will in fact change voters' perceptions if/when it enters wider media circulation. Romney 2012: Because "dog" plus "water" does not equal "stew."
Oh, almost forgot. He and his sons saved a bunch of people too during this same incident. The dog-saver or the dog-eater, America. Your call.
Saving drowning people isn't even the wildest Romney story out there. My all-time favorite has to be this one, where buttoned-down, white-bread Romney unleashed legendary martial-arts moves that are out of this world: The celebrity news site got a hold of a video (see below) from an individual who claims he was the one thrown off an airplane (it wasn't in the air) for an incident with former GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney Monday evening. If you are new to the story, here's some background.
Anyway, turns out the alleged assailant was Sky Blu from the rap group LMFAO (or at least that's what he says).
Mr. Blu's version of the incident adds some color to the story. It's not as cut and dry as had been previously reported.
In fact, Sky Blu says Romney drew first blood. Well, he said Romney grabbed him after angrily telling him to move his seat up.
"He grabs my shoulder . . . and I just react BOOM get off me!" Blu told the video camera. "He put a condor grip on me. What am I supposed to do?"
"That's like a Vulcan grip," offered his bandmate Redfoo.
"Like a Vulcan grip," Blu concurred. "I'm not your prey. I'm not a salmon going upstream. You're not going to grip me up." Romney 2012: Because America needs a Vulcan air marshal in the Oval Office. |
4. Addendum Rick Wilson offers a helpful hint for aspiring candidates: "Seriously, if you're running for Congress in Florida and you have a ponytail, you're getting yellow-carded." |
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