Americans don’t like their Presidents being unfairly criticized and sometimes the White House even plays on this unfairness game by planting people in audiences to heckle the President, to make it appear he is being picked on. These are usually controlled political party meetings where the planned interruption makes for good political theatre. The President usually handles these interruptions with calm because he has foreknowledge of the whole stunt.
Don’t pick on our President
Regardless how many faux pas GW Bush made in the minds of many he could do no wrong. (Remember he couldn’t quite get that story right about "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me" and photographers captured an un-presidential moment when he tried to give German chancellor Andrea Merkel a massage?). GW Bush was klutzy for sure, but don’t pick on him, he is our President!
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Another given is that Americans generally don’t vote FOR a Presidential candidate, they vote AGAINST the candidate they fear will do them the most harm. The current President didn’t get elected so much on his campaign promises as he did by the knee-jerk public reaction to George W. Bush and his weapons of mass destruction and end-of-term financial crisis.
And maybe the current President has his own blunders like the Solyndra and the Obama-car embarrassments where the Federal government offered guaranteed loans to companies that failed or are failing (GM has only sold six-thousand Chevy Volt Obama cars). But regardless, the President is trying to do something for them, disenfranchised voters often perceive.
If Obamacare prevails in the Supreme Court challenge, Obama gets credit, and if it fails, Obama rallies a whole segment of voters who feel at least he was trying for them, despite the fact such a plan would eventually bankrupt Medicare. The masses of uninsured don’t see Obamacare for what it is, a raid on the private insurance pool of younger/healthier insured to pay for the uninsured which really ends up being a payoff to doctors, hospitals and drug companies. Said that way, I’m not sure so many would vote for it.
October surprises
So how do you unseat a reigning President who by the way can pull off an October surprise, like a war with Iran, or a terrorist attack, to create public insecurity that gets incumbents re-elected?
Don’t forget, this President got rescued from a horrible public approval rating by pulling a rabbit out of his hat – an undeserved Nobel Peace Prize. And when the President and the Federal Reserve Bank chairman, Ben Bernanke, briefed the nation on financial matters in a Thursday press conference in early May of 2011, the markets began to tumble and gold prices soared on speculation the Fed was planning to print more money to dig itself out of the nation’s financial grave. By Monday it was anticipated the stock market would crash. How did the federal government side-step this impending crisis? The White House pulled another rabbit out of its hat with the Sunday evening announcement that 9-11 terrorist Osama din Laden had been shot and killed in Pakistan. So it’s likely the administration has lots of other publicity stunts like this up its sleeves.
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One way to dethrone a reigning President is to keep pouring out the negative stories that don’t involve the President at all. That way they don’t appear to be propaganda by the opposing party. A continued barrage of negative stories about the federal government can finally push voters to say they "have had enough" and they will opt for the other guy.
Appeal to Wal-Mart moms
Whatever influence is exerted over voters, it had better be directed to single mothers (so called Wal-Mart moms) who are demographically expected to sway the outcome of the election. The problem is this particular segment of voters is more swayed by issues that affect them personally than what is good overall for the country.
Some examples
To get back to my claim that every negative news story involving government takes votes away from the incumbent, let me offer some examples and comments on how they might play out in the ramp up to the 2012 election.
The Secret Service forgot to pay
For instance, that the President’s royal guard, the Secret Service didn’t pay their bill for prostitutes at an overseas hotel in Colombia, and that up to 20 women were involved, is quite an embarrassment. It’s not the moral outrage – it is the short-changing of the girls who have to work the streets for a living that will probably rile the public. This is the way the public thinks about these things. If the President said he was going to make sure these working girls got their money he would have probably won more votes. The President has mistakenly backed the Secret Service chief however.
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Or how about the lavish $823,000 party the General Services Administration held in Las Vegas, an event conducted by an agency that is supposed to save the government money! The GSA boss in charge of planning that event got a $9000 bonus afterwards. This kind of news story ends up as a negative in the minds of Americans who wonder who is running the show there in Washington DC. Republicans are not attempting to pin this one on the Democrats.
Government intrudes in yard sales?
Or how about this one: the federal government is thinking of snooping on and sanctioning yard sales where dangerous or recalled products are being sold. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission is butting into this part of hometown America probably at the behest of some behind-the-scenes player that makes political contributions, maybe a large retailer who knows yard sales cut into their revenues. Gees, you lose your job and you try to drum up a few dollars to pay the bills with a yard sale and the revenuers are at your door! This all adds to the total negative load that is building up in voters’ minds. A Presidential contender ought to be jumping all over this one. So far it hasn’t hit the political radar screen.
Insider trading
Of course, nothing riled the public more than the fact Congressional representatives were using their position to obtain advance information that would affect the price of stocks and then using this insider information for their own gain and saw nothing wrong with buying or selling shares in advance of a positive or negative event. You go to jail for this, unless you are a U.S. Congressman. The bill that got passed that now forbids insider trading by Congress simply skates past any past wrong-doing. No Congressman is being asked to forfeit his ill-gotten gains, nor resign. Congress got the tail pinned on its hind end on this one, not the President.
Department of Homeland Insecurity
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But these kinds of issues are often seen as unfounded conspiracy theories. Why the government is here to protect us, right? It’s not likely to sway a large number of votes. But when one looks at all what DHS does and it can’t even protect a man from killer swans, it becomes the brunt of so many jokes that this can sway votes.
Distraction as political theatre
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE Fed Up: How To Beat an Incumbent President by Bill Sardi
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