When looking back over the course of the last 4 or 5years at the number of times that we’ve been lied to by Barry "Almighty’, it strikes me as being more than just a little odd that the center piece of his revised strategy would consist of nothing more than to begin to focus on calling Mitt Romney a liar. It’s this new strategy that has been implemented ever since Barry had his ass handed to him in the first debate. Now I realize the last thing that Barry wants to discuss is his record from the last four years, but it seems that simply calling Romney a liar isn’t much of a strategy. I’m curious about something, how is exactly when you’ve made a career out of lying, that you suddenly feel it appropriate to freely label someone else as being a liar?
So after his debate debacle, Barry is changing his strategy against Mitt Romney, aides are conceding the fact that Barry must find a crisper way to ‘sell’ his agenda and counter his opponent without getting lost in the weeds. And at the heart of Barry's new message with less than five weeks to go: simply label Romney as a liar. It’s a theme that we can expect, perhaps, to be expressed in softer terms by Barry than by his aides, to drive Barry's advertising and messaging for days. Wednesday night's debate revealed that Barry, when without his teleprompter is far from being the orator he been made out to be, but his aides insist he emerged with a real opening to target Romney's assertions.
"Gov. Romney may dance around his positions, but if you want to be president, you owe the American people the truth," Barry declared in his first post-debate appearance, a Thursday rally in Denver where he displayed a level energy that was conspicuously absent in the debate. His statement was really an odd thing to hear coming from the man who has spent nearly his entire time in office doing nothing more than to lie to the American people, about everything. The new line of attack is based on the Barry campaign's contention that Romney, while sharp and commanding on the debate stage, delivered a series of statements that don't stand up to factual scrutiny. Frankly what has Barry done in the last four years that can stand up to even the slightest level of serious scrutiny? That is if the media was to even bother.
The obviously slimy character, David Plouffe, the Barry adviser who ran his 2008 campaign, called Romney's performance "probably unprecedented in its dishonesty." Again, coming from someone the caliber of Mr. Plouffe, that’s more than just a little ironic. Barry's entire 2008 was essentially one lie after another. Barry’s campaign was quick to release an ad raising questions about Romney's honesty, arguing that he didn't level with middle-class families on how his tax plan would affect them. "If we can't trust him here, how could we ever trust him here?" the ad says. A campaign official said Barry's team had its strongest fundraising month of the 2012 election cycle in September.
At the same time, the Barry campaign was forced into its own difficult assessment of Barry’s rather dismal performance, with no shortage of critical outside opinions. There were any number of excuses floated, from the altitude, he was distracted, even that he had the flu. Those close to Barry said he was so intent on answering questions and not letting Romney rile him that he came across as wonky and lacking punch. "Obviously, moving forward, we're going to take a hard look at this, and we're going to have to make some judgments as to where to draw the line in these debates and how to use our time," said David ‘My Mommy Was A Communist’ Axelrod, Barry’s senior campaign adviser. We were told "adjustments’ would be made for the next outing.
Plouffe put it another way when discussing those adjustments to be made: "We just need to account for Romney's dishonesty." But Barry had other problems, driven in part by a debate format that does not play to his strengths. He did draw distinctions with Romney on a host of issues central to the campaign, but often did so by seeming to talk to moderator Jim Lehrer more than the audience or the man trying to take his job. Barry’s aides acknowledged that the president delved more deeply into the intricate details on policy than they had planned and fell into one of the patterns they had most hoped to avoid — long-winded answers that lacked a clear emotional connection with voters.
Coming out of the debate, in his advertising and his speeches, Barry immediately started hammering Romney for a lack of specifics on his tax plan, and for not being clear about how he would replace Barry's health care law and Wall Street regulations. But how, exactly, does one go into the relevant specifics in the two minutes allowed during a debate? Sounding none too concerned about Barry’s debate drubbing, aides said it was not at all clear that Romney's debate win would translate where it matters, into votes. Well it certainly has changed the dynamics of the race, at least for now. Axelrod said the immediate data gathered from voters showed they gave Romney the edge in performance but broke evenly on how it influenced their vote.
Plouffe said the real measure for Romney was this: "Is he going to take the lead in Ohio? If he doesn't, he's not going to be president." The next presidential debate is in New York on Oct. 16, followed by a final one in Florida on Oct. 22. Now I think the Romney campaign realizes that one debate win does not an election win. But Romney was successful in his initial outing, mano-a-mano, with Barry in seizing the moment. But now is not the time to rest, a lot of hard work remains. And if Barry thinks all he has to do is to call Romney a liar, then it must be pointed out to the American people exactly how it is that the man they elected four years ago has lied to them repeatedly and how that directly relates to our current sad state of affairs.
No comments:
Post a Comment