Obama to play offense, defense in early primary states as Republicans fight among themselves

[alp227]

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Even without a Democratic challenger, President Barack Obama is planning an aggressive role in early primary states. His operatives are already moving in, organizing volunteers and raising money to answer Republican attacks and do what they can to weaken the GOP’s strongest challengers.

With the election 19 months away, Obama’s campaign could keep a low profile while Republicans pummel each other. But he won’t be content to watch passively as his potential rivals duke it out.

Three of the earliest-voting states — Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada — will also be strongly contested in the fall of 2012. Likely Republican candidates already are assailing Obama there, and his aides say they can’t wait months to respond.

“Issues are going to be joined there, statements are going to be made, points are going to be raised,” top Obama adviser David Axelrod said in an interview. “It behooves us to make sure that facts are well represented.”

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama_to_play_offense_defense_in_early_primary_states_as_republicans_fight_among_themselves/2011/04/06/AFVFHuqC_story.html

[Arkana]

1. The early months are the most dangerous for an incumbent in a Presidential

reelection because there's very little to gain and a LOT to lose.

Glad to see he's being proactive.

[Gman]

4. New Hampshire convinced LBJ not to run again

[peacebird]

2. Obama has to show his stripes in the current budget battle with congress & the 2012 budget battle

IF he stands up against the GOP desire to cut more taxes on the rich (Ryan says top rate to drop) while balancing the budget on the backs of the elderly and the poor, then I would consider working for his re-election.

IF he abandons Dem principals and agrees to balance the budget on the backs of the elderly and poor (accepting the GOP/Koch agenda) then I will not work to re-elect him.

As a point of note: we donated more than we could afford last Pres election cycle to Dems, AND worked on the ground for them. We are very disappointed, but realize that Repub rule would be worse (thanks TeaParty, Ryan, Walker, etc for making THAT so crystal clear) so we WILL vote dem.

But we WISH the dem we voted for was really a DEM not a freaking corporatist DLCer like Obama and Hillary....

[Omnibus]

3. Will he run as a Democrat?

At this point, if he wants to be re-elected, Obama has to start courting the left wing of the party (aka the real Democrats). That's a tough proposition, given the way he's thrown us the finger repeatedly (no public option, Gitmo, bankster bailouts). Will he start standing up to the Republicans in Congress for once, or will he continue to give them half of what they want, then negotiate to give them the other half and declare victory?

I don't have a lot of hope...

[PSPS]

5. I, for one, will be tuning out the utterances of "The Silver Tongued Charlatan"

[sofa king]

6. Imagine the Venn diagram of that headline.

I think it would look like Kristina Hendricks in Saran Wrap. Print headlines used to be frequently amusing, but thanks to the Internet and a rampant lack of editing, they've become routinely silly. To illustrate my point, just play a little Mad-lib with it:

Obama to play _______, _______ in early primary states as Republicans fight among themselves

Try to use mutually contradictory words, like happy/sad, up/down, drunk/sober, and so on, and note how little the information content of the headline changes. Other more random choices also yield fun results: house/guns, doctor/Starcraft 2, Elvis/Joan Rivers.