Obama, Clinton: Focus and Win

12 June 2012 |permalink | email article

The Stunning Excuse about Bill Clinton, offered by his aides, is while still “mentally sharp, the former president is older and a step off his political game.” An exultant Fox News bannered this headline: “Once shunned Clinton emerges as the GOP’s election year ally.” The issue was not Hillary—and for once, the network of the reactionary right was right. Robert Shrum, the longtime political consultant who has worked many famous Democratic campaigns, weighed in with The Daily Beast on a series of unhelpful comments, notably defending Mitt Romney’s business career as “sterling” and suggesting the with his record as governor, Romney “crosses the qualification threshold.” Maybe it’s in the nature of Democrats that they never miss and opportunity to panic; Republicans by contrast are a least publicly steadfast. “ Shrum recalled the vital distinction being two kinds of private equity and the power of the issue when he was Ted Kennedy’s strategist in his 1994 Senate race against Romney who held a 1-point lead; on Election Day he lost by a landslide. In 2012 in places like Ohio and Michigan, the workers in Obama ads, speaking in their own words as they did the Kennedy ads two decades ago are far more compelling than Clintonian reservations about the propriety or political wisdom of such chatter. Romney still can’t talk about this critique except in the briefest and most awkward ways. “No campaign can afford a multitude of competing strategies—not even if one of them is the president who brilliantly brought the party out of the desert of 12 years of defeat.” Shrum’s message: “So Bill, give advice—but not in the media. You can make the right kind of difference in this election—for Democrats.” 

Briefs—At their private conference, the justices of the Supreme Court will decide Thursday whether and how to take a second look at the Citizens United campaign finance decision. The odds are about one in a hundred they will do nothing. Justice John Paul Stevens, who has retired, also dissented and said the Supreme Court’s First Amendment jurisprudence had become incoherent since Citizens United and required revision.…The Court on Monday refused to hear an Obama birth certificate challenge, handing perennial American Independent Party challenger Alan Keyes yet another ignominious defeat.

Read ‘em and weep

“Ronald Reagan would have, based on his record of finding some degree of common ground, as would my dad—they would have had a hard time if you define the Republican party—and I don’t—as having an orthodoxy that doesn’t allow for finding common ground….Back to my dad’s time and Ronald Reagan’s time—they got a lot done with a lot of bipartisan support.”—Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida, said both Republican presidents would have had a difficulty time getting nominated by today’s ultra-conservative Republican Party. I would be shocked if broadcaster Ron Reagan, the Great Communicator’s son, on hearing about Jeb Bush’s comments, would not second them.

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