The Election Wars of 2012: Obama’s Terrible Re- Election Campaign
This election season has been marked by the proliferation of wars. No I don’t mean Libya, Egypt or Syria, I mean the War on Women, the War on Minorities, the war on this and that. Part of the reason for this is that the advent of social media and blogging, which give alternate voices a chance to challenge the mainstream media stranglehold over media narratives.
So now that we have passed the 100 days till election mark, where are we? Is Obama really doing so wonderfully, and Romney really doing so terribly? This is the narrative being cast over all of the events of this campaign season. While we have imperfect tools to measure the success of these wars, we do have them – poll results.
The WAR on WOMEN:
After announcing that Catholics would need to put their religious beliefs aside and follow a government mandate to provide birth control to their employees, the issue was re-fashioned as a conservative “war on women” via the liberal saint of Sandra Fluke. Her congressional testimony began the “Stop Rush” offensive by liberals, which they of course won by forcing many of his sponsors to abandon him. This was in February.
Then another battle flared up when erstwhile Obama adviser Hilary Rosen casually slighted Ann Romney by remarking that she had never worked a day in her life. This was in April. Entrenched twitter troops rushed out of the trenches headlong into no-man’s land and fought to a standstill. The media congratulated the Obamites on out-witting the conservatives.
So who won the War on Women? Obama garnered 56% of the women vote in 2008 to McCain’s 43% [via Forbes]. After his many victorious battles in the War on Women, Obama has victoriously shot UP the charts to… 46% among women [via Quinnipiac]. Damn your white male European notions of negative and positive, Obama is WINNING! By negative 10 points.
The BATTLE of HOT DOG HILL:
This was a slow-burning skirmish on the sidelines between a small garrison of liberals lobbing missiles at at a beleaguered Romney camp with “dog abuse” taunts. After months of reminding the Romney camp that he had once driven to Canada with the family dog on the roof, the Obamarmy was utterly routed by blogger reinforcements to the Romnites. Sergeant Jim Treacher used covert intelligence discovered in Obama’s autobiography about his canine culinary habits, arming his twitter mercenaries to turn the tide.
No polling available among registered voters who own dogs or eat them.
The RACECARD WARS for WHISPS [WHITE HISPANICS]
This theater of war has been less pronounced but has boiled over on occasion. One of the larger explosions was Obama’s announcement that he was ordering as much of the Dream Act to be implemented as possible without having to pass legislation. This was in June. Liberals from all points of the spectrum from left to far left applauded heartily and illegals cried with happiness. Meanwhile conservative Latinos bitterly drank their tequila in their Mexican wrestling masks, while muttering, “remember chimichangate!!“
Again we find that White European oppressor math lies to us, because after such a dazzling display of political warfare, support for Obama has dropped from his 2008 electoral rate of 67% among White Hispanics, or “Whisps” as I refer to them, me, us, to 59% [July Quinnipiac]. Someone find a math system where minus 8 points is a good thing!!
The RACECARD WARS for AFRICAN-AMERICANS
This theater of war is actually a part of a longer war of white Gringos on Blacks that has been waged since the white devil was let loose on this poor world. Within this election season, the largest battle was waged when general Al Sharpton called on black troops to lay down their reason and take up their pitchforks after the Trayvon Martin shooting. Obama did all he could to co-opt the event, even adopting Trayvon, and peddling hoodies for cash.
There was also a short friendly fire exchange between gay activists and religious black leaders when Obama was forced to come out of the closet and become the first gay president. African-Americans bristled under the comparison to the Civil Rights struggles of the 60s, and LGBT activists responded by photoshopping Ku Klux Klan hoods on African-Americans holding Chick-Fil-A bags.
Obama had an amazing 95% of the Black vote in 2008, and has been down as much as 87% among African-Americans, but the latest has him only down to 90% [Gallup-April]. That’s certainly not a huge drop, but why is there a drop at all?
The WAR on BUSINESS!
Here we see the war get personal! The Obama campaign knows it’s advantage is in personal likeability and it’s weakness is his poor record on the economy. In order to really bruise Romney, they must undermine his main claim to readiness for the presidency – his business experience!
They’ve thrown accusations that he outsourced American jobs, that he’s a vulture capitalist, that he bankrupted businesses and gained by cashing in on the misery of poor Americans! He’s actually a vampire! What a jerk!
How has this narrative fared?
Wow.
In a Gallup poll, 63% think his experience in business will help him solve economic problems and only 29% believe he’ll make bad decisions because of it! Think of it this way – if Obama has about 47% support, then even among his supporters, at the very least, 10% go counter to what they’ve been trying to hurt him on! Or to look at it another way, not even Obama’s own supporters are 100% convinced Mitt’s business experience is bad for America. Great job!
Ok. Screw that! Let’s talk taxes – ohh now we have you Romney! It doesn’t matter that you’ve already released hundreds of pages of tax documentation! Obama assaults Romney with accusation after accusation, going so far as to call in big poppa Harry Reid to lie on his behalf on the Senate floor about knowing for a fact that Romney paid absolutely no taxes for ten years!!
This is bound to enrage Americans!
What the… only about 26% of the 46% of Americans that support Obama are convinced by their own leader that the tax debacle made them think unfavorably of R-money?! Are you kidding me?!
Even worse! a majority of Americans believe focusing on Romney’s taxes is a complete waste of time!
No matter! The Obama campaign continues their onslaught! Romney is a rich robot weirdo! He doesn’t even know how sandwiches are made! His wife owns a horse! Americans must hate him!!
And yet, after all the merciless onslaught from Obama’s supposedly brilliant campaign team, Romney has actually gained a few people who think he has presidential personality and leadership quality! And more people agree with R-money on matters that are important to them!
So… how are those narrative wars workin for ya, Obama?
MEDIA COMPLICITY
Despite all this, Obama is still slightly up in the actual electoral map. How is this possible given all the evidence that his campaign is a bust? What IS helping Obama and his terribly run re-election campaign? It’s what conservatives curse daily for making our struggle always uphill – the media.
One of the more obvious examples of media bias was Romney’s supposed gaffes in Europe. Widely reported and mocked were the instances where he made a mistake, but never were they compared to Obama’s ridiculous gaffes while visiting the same countries just a year ago, or when he specifically insulted the Brits. Further, the media made sure to make news if there wasn’t any to report – they rudely shouted their questions while Romney walked from a campaign event, which occasioned the reaction from his aide that then blared across the headlines.
Despite all of this, still political pundits still have the gall to write such drivel as, “Mitt Romney has lost each of the last 40 days, each day in its own way.”
It’s exactly this kind of bias that needs to be fought in order to give Romney even the slimmest chances of an even field in November.
