| Morning Jolt – October 3, 2012 By Jim Geraghty Here's your Wednesday Morning Jolt. Enjoy! Jim The Obama Tape. . . Not Quite a Yawn, But No Game-Changer So for most of late Tuesday afternoon, the buzz was about a video mentioned, and increasingly touted on Drudge, about a 2006 speech by one of the candidates — later revealed to be Obama. The tape can be found here. There is a bit of irony in hearing Obama begin by demanding, "cut the bureaucracy, cut the red tape" when his presidency has featured so little of such efforts. And yes, the tone is different, more explicit and strident, than the Obama we've seen the past four years: "The people down in New Orleans they don't care about as much!" Obama shouts in the video, which was shot in June of 2007 at Hampton University in Virginia. By contrast, survivors of Sept. 11 and Hurricane Andrew received generous amounts of aid, Obama explains. The reason? Unlike residents of majority-black New Orleans, the federal government considers those victims "part of the American family." . . . This theme — that black Americans suffer while others profit — is a national problem, Obama continues: "We need additional federal public transportation dollars flowing to the highest need communities. We don't need to build more highways out in the suburbs," where, the implication is, the rich white people live. Instead, Obama says, federal money should flow to "our neighborhoods": "We should be investing in minority-owned businesses, in our neighborhoods, so people don't have to travel from miles away." AG Conservative: "So Obama basically had the same intelligent commentary on Katrina as Kanye West." Sister Toldjah sums it up: "It was a Democrat talking point that Bush let black ppl die after Katrina. Never heard Obama say it until now." Of course, we've seen Obama, his party, his Justice Department, and his allies insist that requiring voter ID is an attempt to bring back Jim Crow laws. The Cambridge Police also "acted stupidly"; if Obama had a son, he would look like Trayvon Martin; and so on . . . Remember: "In May 2010, he told guests at a private White House dinner that race was probably a key component in the rising opposition to his presidency from conservatives, especially right-wing activists in the anti-incumbent "Tea Party" movement that was then surging across the country," and plenty of Obama's allies have charged opposition to Obama's policies is driven mostly by racism. Heck, Eric Holder, within a few months of taking the job as attorney general, labeled all of us "a nation of cowards" when it came to discussing race. The notion that Obama is willing to wade into racially charged topics and take a viewpoint that reinforces the deepest suspicions in the black community, and indict the "establishment" and large swaths of white America as driven by racial animosity and bias . . . well, nothing new. As Frank J. observes, "So is that the accent Obama picked up from the mean streets of Honolulu? What did his typical white grandmother think of it?" For the purposes of history, every bit of Obama's past that has yet been unrevealed is worth exposing and examining. But for the purposes of beating him in November, his record as president will be the determining factor. Americans, don't judge Obama by a six-year-old speech. Judge him by four years of failed policies. As John Podhoretz puts it, "Tape. Snooze. 8.1 percent unemployment. Not snooze. Benghazi coverup. Not snooze." Guy Benson observes, "The video probably won't move many votes, but it could have in the '07/'08 primary...had the attending media deigned to report on it." John Tabin: "There's definitely something to the DC's story, but it's a story about media bias last cycle. Not sure it's that relevant to this election." Josh Trevino: "Media isn't reacting to protect Obama. Media is reacting to protect media." Richard Grenell: "Hillary Clinton is going to want a re-vote after seeing this 2007 video." The News Much Bigger Than a Six-Year-Old Speech Reuters: "Within hours of last month's attacks on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya, President Barack Obama's administration received about a dozen intelligence reports suggesting militants connected to al Qaeda were involved, three government sources said. Despite these reports, in public statements and private meetings, top U.S. officials spent nearly two weeks highlighting intelligence suggesting that the attacks were spontaneous protests against an anti-Muslim film, while playing down the involvement of organized militant groups." It was a cover-up, an attempt to lie to the public. My Prediction of Tonight's Debate Questions "Governor Romney, now that Todd Akin is officially your party's nominee for Senate in Missouri, do you renounce him and urge voters to reelect Senator McCaskill, or do you prefer the election of a man who believed rape could not cause pregnancy?" "Governor Romney, what about your gaffes?" "Mister President, what about Governor Romney's gaffes?" "So, why aren't you releasing more tax returns, Governor Romney?" "Debate prep really is a 'drag,' isn't it, Mister President?" My Prediction of Questions That Will Not Be Asked "So, do you really believe that nobody in the senior levels of the Justice Department thought Fast and Furious was worth mentioning to Eric Holder?" "Did you see the Univision report on Fast and Furious? Does our government owe the people of Mexico an apology or restitution for such a dangerous, reckless policy decision that cost many Mexicans their lives?" "No, really, Mister President, after 13 attacks on our consulate in Benghazi and repeated requests from diplomatic staff on the ground for more security, why does Susan Rice still have a job after offering a line of bull to the American people?" "Mister President, considering how far off your projections of job creation from the stimulus were back in 2009, why should the American people have any faith in your promises now?" Biden Channels Kruschev: We Have Buried You! No parody of Joe Biden will ever equal the real thing: "This is deadly earnest, man. This is deadly earnest," the vice president said. "How they can justify, how they can justify raising taxes on the middle class that has been buried the last four years — how in Lord's name can they justify raising their taxes with these tax cuts." Minnesota Ronin: "Was that the shovel-ready job they talked about?" Guy Benson: "I swear, they still think it's 2008." (Er, Guy… there's some evidence that in Obama's mind, it's always 2008.) By the way, how the heck does "deadly earnest" differ from plain old "earnest"? And how can you "raise taxes with these tax cuts"? And am I the only one who feels like some crazy person has wandered into the vice presidency, and there's some sort of giant national practical joke going on that I'm not in on? Hey, joke's over guys. It's just not funny anymore. Later in the afternoon, Paul Ryan pounced: "Vice President Biden, just today, said that the middle class, over the last four years, has been 'buried.' We agree. That means we need to stop digging by electing Mitt Romney the next president of the United States." Oh, I can't wait for that vice-presidential debate. Ryan is going to dunk on him. Jim Pethokoukis points out that Biden is right: "According to an analysis of Census Bureau data by Sentier Research, August 2012 median annual household income of $50,678 — 5.7% lower than the median of $53,718 in June 2009, the end of the recent recession and beginning of the "economic recovery." The End of the Cold War and the Triumph of the Cool Pop-Culture Celebrity President One of my recurring one-liners is that voters shouldn't decide their president based upon which guy the Black Eyed Peas are singing about. This is less about that particular group than the phenomenon of which candidate is deemed more "cool", and which political figure inspires the most admiration from our national arbiters of "cool," e.g., movie stars, musicians, and . . . er, professional athletes. A couple of readers disagree that Obama's 2008 win was driven by enthusiastic celebrity endorsements and the aura of pop-culture coolness around him, and undoubtedly there were quite a few factors. But let's turn the clock back to 1962: Every American, and perhaps almost everyone in the world, goes through a near-death experience as the United States and the Soviet Union nearly come to war over missiles based in Cuba. Americans flock to churches fearing the End of the World; the experience is seared into the memories of people old enough to grasp how close everyone came to the end of everything. Look at the men nominated by the parties between the Cuban Missile Crisis and the end of the cold war: | Year | Democrat | Republican | | 1964 | Lyndon Johnson | Barry Goldwater | | 1968 | Hubert Humphrey | Richard Nixon | | 1972 | George McGovern | Richard Nixon | | 1976 | Jimmy Carter | Gerald Ford | | 1980 | Jimmy Carter | Ronald Reagan | | 1984 | Walter Mondale | Ronald Reagan | | 1988 | Michael Dukakis | George H.W. Bush | Year Democrat Republican 1964 Lyndon Johnson Barry Goldwater 1968 Hubert Humphrey Richard Nixon 1972 George McGovern Richard Nixon 1976 Jimmy Carter Gerald Ford 1980 Jimmy Carter Ronald Reagan 1984 Walter Mondale Ronald Reagan 1988 Michael Dukakis George H.W. Bush Some of these men had potent political charisma, but most didn't. Most were older, most had been in national politics for a while and were perceived as well-established leaders, and most had served during World War II in one form or another. The two biggest differences between the world I grew up in — from the late 70s to the early 90s — and today are the disappearance of the Cold War and the emergence of the Internet. You don't realize the intensity of the Cold War's impact on our political culture until you marvel at how quickly dynamics and expectations changed after it ended. In America after 1962, every time you went into the polling place for a president, you were looking for a man (yes, only men in those years, other than Geraldine Ferraro being a heartbeat away from the presidency) whom you would trust to be in the Oval Office when the tense call from the Pentagon came in: "Mr. President, we've detected sudden movement in the Warsaw Pact forces and the Soviets have bombers in the air." The decisions the president made in those moments could literally mean the difference between life and death for millions of Americans. Sure, you had Richard Nixon taping a several-second appearance on Laugh-In and the occasional frivolity, but by and large picking a president was treated with great seriousness by most Americans, because nothing short of civilization as we know it depended upon the man in that chair being able to make the right call. The Berlin Wall comes down in 1989, and within three years, Bill Clinton is wearing shades and playing his saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show. Think about it, this wasn't even a network late-night talk show, this was syndicated. The notion of any of the Cold War–era candidates attempting to pitch themselves in this manner is pretty unthinkable. But within a decade, our political culture had gone cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, with a slew of wacky personas, perhaps better suited for popular culture than governing, running major bids or winning high office, such the two major presidential bids by H. Ross Perot, or Jesse Ventura's winning bid as governor of Minnesota. Guys like John Edwards started getting elected to the Senate; folks who had never been elected statewide, such as former ambassador Alan Keyes and former Education undersecretary Gary Bauer, or folks who had never run for anything before, such as publisher Steve Forbes and former White House speechwriter Pat Buchanan, started running for president, and were treated as at least somewhat serious candidates. Whatever you think of these particular figures, we can agree they would be unelectable to a position of major national responsibility during a tense time period like the Cold War. The pop-culture stuff — the cameos on Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show, the celebrity guests at rallies, the appearances on non-news programs — used to be the frosting on the cake of a campaign. Now it's the cake. Research by political scientists in 2006 summarized: There are several characteristics about the audience of The Daily Show worth noting. First, they are young. Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 years watch the program more than any other age group. Data from the Pew Research Center (2004b) show that almost half of those surveyed in this age group (47.7%) watch The Daily Show at least occasionally. The percentage declines precipitously as age increases. Second, these same youth are relying less on mainstream political news sources such as network news, newspapers, and newsmagazines (Davis & Owen, 1998; Pew Research Center, 2004b). From 1994 to 2004, the 18- to 24-year-old age group spent 16 fewer minutes on average following news on a daily basis (35 as opposed to 51 minutes). A full 25% reported that they pay no attention at all to hard news. Significantly, only 23% of regular Daily Show viewers report that they followed "hard news" closely. Finally, although The Daily Show is not intended to be a legitimate news source, over half (54%) of young adults in this age group reported that they got at least some news about the 2004 presidential campaign from comedy programs such as The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live. Only 15% of Americans over the age of 45 years reported learning something about the campaign from the same sources (Pew Research Center, 2004a). Now, I love political satire and comedy. But news parodies are not news. And now you have a candidate who is a ubiquitous pop-cultural phenomenon: 
National Journal asks how Obama is "defying gravity" in the polls and concludes his relatively strong position is "rooted in voters' dimming expectations for the economy and the federal government." Perhaps. But I think they're underestimating how much Obama and his team have either adapted to changing expectations of the president, or accelerated the change in those expectations, by reinventing the role of president as a permanent pop-cultural icon. A certain number of Americans who do not watch the news but do watch The View see the president on that show joking about himself as "eye candy," and like him. They see him on Entertainment Tonight, and Jimmy Fallon, and doing his NCAA bracket picks on SportsCenter, and grilling with Bobby Flay, and so on, and like him because he's there with the apolitical folks whom they like for their comedy, sports coverage, cooking shows, etc. ADDENDUM: I hear you, Dina Fraioli, I hear you: "I mean, let's be honest . . . the media is going to say Obama is the CLEAR winner tomorrow night. . . . I'm just going to watch for the drinking." My drinking-game rule suggestion: If Romney reacts to an Obama lie by suddenly blurting out, "bull****!", consume your entire liquor cabinet. To read more, visit www.nationalreview.com National Review, Inc. | 
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