Super PAC strategists lament that Americans "“still aren’t ready to hate this president”

[KurtNYC]

This article goes back 2 months but I thought it was worth another look because I think we are seeing a different version of the strategy playing out.

A slick, colorful, professionally bound, 54-page proposal for a $10 million attack on President Obama for his association with the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright is being considered by Chicago billionaire Joe Ricketts, according to Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rutenberg of The New York Times. The funding would be funneled through the Super PAC Ending Spending Action Fund. The proposal, which apparently is one of several being looked at, is titled “The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama: The Ricketts Plan to End His Spending for Good.”

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/17/1092403/-Voters-who-aren-t-ready-to-hate-Obama-yet-may-get-help-from-billionaire-s-Super-PAC-in-doing-so

( Love that title btw. You can read it with a meaning like 'continue any spending for bad but end Obama's spending for good.' )

Hate is a hyperbolic word but I think if you flip this over and look at like-ability then Obama is way above Romney. He is charming, funny, easy and very real. They can't get Romney up, can't get their base excited about Romney so they are trying to tear Obama down.

In the strategy implied by the white paper, it would seem they intend to try and move more people into a state of feeling pity, distrust and fear of Obama. That is sneakier because it doesn't feel like hate to the mainstream. The strategy is to sell this as, not hate or racism but a kind of concern or worry. To set that up they may be trying to get the haters to push the boundary of discourse so that this safer feeling, faux-concern thing can gain ground and seem like the middle position.

One example is the way they are using Trump to make Romney seem like less of an asshole. Romney gets to have a position like "well I don't want to see his birth certificate but let's just say I have some other (vague and unnamed) concerns about him' and because Trump is to the Right of Romney, the theory goes, Romney seems less extreme.

Romney is NOT going to talk about any policy specifics and he doesn't want to take questions about his governship, his investments or Bain. Romney's strategy is to be sort of glowingly vague and speak in nice sounding generalities for the next 3 and half months. Meanwhile, he and surrogates will continue to champion a position like this nonsense:

forces out of Obama’s control, that shaped the man, have made him completely the wrong choice as president in these days and times.”

Dare I say that it is kind of a clever strategy, the pity thing. It is like the nicest way to be nasty. It won't work for a variety of reasons but the 2 big ones to me are 1) Obama is far more self-made than Romney so opening that up is a mistake (as was the Rev Wright stuff) and 2) voters aren't ready to hate this OBL-killing, ACA-giving President anytime soon but I know who they ARE ready to hate if they pull more shit like this.

[russspeakeasy]

1. Thanks for the reminder.

"He's skinny, but he's tough".