Team Obama has spent the last couple of weeks pummeling Mitt Romney over his long-ago leadership of Bain Capital and that Romney is (wasn\u2019t this the revelation of the year) wealthy.<\/p>\n
Yesterday the Obama people were comparing Romney\u2019s former company to the villain in the new Batman movie, whose name is the \u00a0homonym Bane. \u00a0The poodle press has lapped it up. \u00a0You\u2019d think the presumptive GOP nominee was suffering mortal blows.<\/p>\n
Here is my question: Is this barrage of over-the-top charges (that Romney is guilty of a felony, for example) and insults (where do I begin?), hurting the president?<\/p>\n
Remember that Mr. Obama came to office promising to become the great healer. \u00a0\u00a0A major part of his 2008 appeal was the prospect that he would bring our divided nation together. \u00a0Of course many found in his very person hope that his election would help us transcend once and for all a division going back to the 17th century. \u00a0But beyond that, his manner and rhetoric suggested that he would be a new Eisenhower, ushering in an era of comity, in which he worked with all sides, extending respect to the positions of all, and to the extent possible fashioning a new national consensus.<\/p>\n
Set aside for the moment the finger pointing on which party was obstructionist \u2013 though it does seem to me that a president who dismissed the policy concerns of opposition party\u2019s congressional caucus with a curt \u201cI won\u201d (didn\u2019t they in their elections, too?) got off on the wrong foot, at least for consensus building.<\/p>\n
But here\u2019s the point. No matter what the missteps of the last four years or who was responsible for Washington\u2019s state of stalemate, the harsh and vengeful tone of the president\u2019s campaign leaves in tatters the foundational elements of Mr. Obama\u2019s public identity. \u00a0In most circumstances, that would be considered a fatal political strategy.<\/p>\n
A friend who knows Illinois politics better than almost anyone tells me that scorched earth politicking is standard operating procedure for the president\u2019s political right-hand man, David Axelrod. \u00a0We can expect every kind of beyond the bounds attack on Romney before this is over, he warns, including attacks on the theology of the GOP nominee\u2019s faith.<\/p>\n
But, again, this kind of rip-America-apart tactic constitutes an about-face in the president\u2019s identity. \u00a0Is that a strategy for victory?<\/p>\n
Polling reinforces my doubts. \u00a0The campaign of vilification has been underway for more than a month now. \u00a0What has been the movement in the polls? \u00a0Virtually nothing. \u00a0\u00a0Rasmussen\u2019s tracking has Mr. Romney a little up. Gallop\u2019s gives an equivalent edge to the president. \u00a0Considering the intensity and cost of the president\u2019s assaults, that\u2019s not a good sign for the White House.<\/p>\n
So here is my assessment, offered in the heat of summer when we all want to get away from our key boards and hit the pool, or the hiking trail, or the beach (which I intend to make moves toward right after I file this column): The president\u2019s Bain is evil, Romney is Mr. Greedy 1%, and all you people who were part of starting new enterprises \u201cdidn\u2019t do it\u201d (as the president amazingly said a few days ago) \u2013 all of this venom is undermining the public identity that made Mr. Obama such an appealing figure four years ago.<\/p>\n
If I am right, the results will hurt the president in November far more than Governor Romney.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Team Obama has spent the last couple of weeks pummeling Mitt Romney over his long-ago leadership of Bain Capital and that Romney is (wasn\u2019t this the revelation of the year) wealthy. Yesterday the Obama people were comparing Romney\u2019s former company to the villain in the new Batman movie, whose name is the \u00a0homonym Bane. \u00a0The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[92],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-1279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politicalcommentary-campaign-2012","tag-hugh-hewitt"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1279"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1388,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1279\/revisions\/1388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarkjudge.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}