How NOT to get Obama re-elected in 2012

[JDPriestly]

From the Huffington Post:

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), the new chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, emphasized Monday the difficult task that he believed Democrats have ahead in getting President Obama reelected in 2012.

. . .

"The time is definitely now to communicate and to show what we've been able to get done so far in his presidency," Clever said. "There's so much that the president has achieved, yet receives no acknowledgement for it. That has to change."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/10/emanuel-cleaver-obama-reelection_n_806968.html

I respectfully disagree with Rep. Cleaver. If the Democratic Party wants to win a second term for Obama in 2012, it needs to focus on the future -- on what HASN'T been done and WHY.

Americans are dissatisfied with the state of the country. If Obama is smart, he will start thinking of all the things that he could accomplish if he had a solid liberal majority behind him the house. He needs to advocate strongly for those things in public.

The "but look at all we have done" strategy works when people feel pretty good about the status quo. But when things are universally headed toward a ditch as they are now, then people want someone who will help them start digging.

I know Obama's most avid supporters think that he has accomplished a lot. But compared to what he needed to accomplish, the Republicans and the interests of big business have successfully prevented him from accomplishing the really meaningful things.

So, I just hope that somehow we Democrats and the Obama White House and supporters across the country can finally understand that if Obama is about to be elected, he needs to run on what he hasn't accomplished, what needs yet to be done and not on what has happened in his first years in office.

That's because most Americans are still hurting, and the horribles that Obama warns us would have happened had we not elected him are not real. What is real is the long list of horribles that have happened and are happening to Americans right now. Obama should tell us what he will do about the real horribles and not what he believes he did about the imaginary ones.

[BlueIris]

1. Interesting.

No, really. Focusing on "what he 'needed' to 'finish'"--namely, the war in Iraq was what got Bush re(s)elected in 2004. I'm not comparing Obama to Bush here, but at least half the conservatives I know who caved and revoted for Bush told me they did it because Bush had to "finish the job" and they had to "help" him finish it.

Personally, I don't feel that there is any way Obama can pull out reelection. And I have really wondered what the presumptive campaign slogans will say if he attempts another run. So, this take on a frame he could use is...again, interesting.

[tallahasseedem]

2. OP Fail...

He's polling over 50%. Sorry to bust your anti-Obama bubble.