The preezy of the United Steezy is making me quesy.
I’m not troubled by President Obama’s slow jam with Jimmy Fallon, who dubbed the commander in chief “preezy” during Obama’s appearance on late-night TV. No, preezy is making me queasy because his nonstop campaigning is looking, well, sleazy — and his ad suggesting that Mitt Romney wouldn’t have killed Osama bin Laden is just the beginning of it.
In a political culture that long ago surrendered to the permanent campaign, Obama has managed to take things to a whole new level. According to statistics compiled for a book to be published this summer, the president has already set a record for total first-term fundraisers — 191 — and that’s only through March 6. Measured in terms of events that benefit his reelection bid, Obama’s total (inflated in part by relaxed fundraising rules) exceeds the combined total of George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter.
It’s not just the gatherings officially categorized as campaign events. To a greater extent than his predecessors, Obama has used the trappings of his office to promote his reelection prospects even while handling taxpayer-funded business.
According to the same book, “ The Rise of the President’s Permanent Campaign,” by Naval Academy political scientist Brendan Doherty, Obama was the first commander in chief in at least 32 years to visit all of the presidential battleground states during his first year in office. He has kept that pace, devoting nearly half of his travel to 15 swing states that account for just over a third of the population.
The election is still six months away, but it’s increasingly difficult to distinguish Obama’s political events and speeches from the official ones.
This was the case on Monday, when he spoke to a group of trade-union leaders at the Washington Hilton. The event, the morning after he and Clinton made a joint fundraising appearance, was ostensibly an “official” speech to the AFL-CIO’s building trades section. But it was a campaign rally in everything but name.
The audience members shouted out Obama’s “Yes, we can” slogan and chanted, “Four more years.”
“I’ll take it,” offered the president, who unloaded on congressional Republicans for not spending money on infrastructure projects.
“Time after time, the Republicans have gotten together and they’ve said no,” he said.
“Boo!” the audience responded.
“I sent them a jobs bill that would have put hundreds of thousands of construction workers back to work,” he continued.
“Boo!” the audience repeated.
“I went to the speaker’s hometown,” Obama said, referring to a trip to House Speaker John Boehner’s battleground state of Ohio, “stood under a bridge that was crumbling.”
“Let him drive on it!” somebody shouted.
“Maybe he doesn’t drive anymore,” Obama joked.
Predictably, Boehner has been complaining about the president’s campaigning. He said Obama’s team should “pony up” and reimburse taxpayers for trips to three colleges in swing states last week. Boehner called Obama’s traveling “pathetic.” The Republican National Committee formally asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate the president’s travel.
The Republicans will get nowhere with that, just as Democrats failed when they made similar complaints about George W. Bush. Rules separating the official and the political are flimsy, and even when a president’s campaign reimburses the Treasury, it’s for a tiny fraction of the cost, which includes $179,750 per hour to operate Air Force One.
In fairness, it’s not entirely clear what choice Obama has. As with his blessing of a super PAC after condemning such groups, the alternative is unilateral disarmament. Also, his fundraising total has been inflated by a rule change that allows him to hold events that jointly benefit him and the Democratic Party (although his total number of fundraising appearances still eclipses that of each recent predecessor). Republicans, meanwhile, are determined to block the president’s agenda, so it’s an effective use of time to campaign for their defeat.
Still, Obama’s acquiescence to an intolerable status quo raises a question: Shouldn’t presidential leadership be about setting an example?
Instead, he is erasing the already blurred lines between campaigning and governing. During his “official” speech to the union group Monday, he hailed Tim Kaine as “the next United States senator from the great commonwealth of Virginia,” and his partisan speech spurred audience members to shouts of “Vote ’em out!” and “Gotta throw ’em out!”
“Not everything should be subject to thinking about the next election instead of thinking about the next generation,” Obama said of the Republicans. “Not everything should be subject to politics.”
He should follow his own advice.
The truth without personal attacks! Well done, well done!
what a croc!
If you are referring to Obama , I agree !
That I am,you notice all the free press how they are bring up Obsama, just to make political points. You think he went out there and did himself. Another 4 years of him and we will be bankrupt.
We already are bankrupt! Another 4 years of him and we will be calling each other comrade!
Yes, Reagan and Bush 41, got us on the road to bankruptcy, Clinton balanced the budget, and then Bush 43 pushed us off the cliff. Obama hasn’t been able to undo the disaster Bush 43 left us with, at least not yet. Both parties are partly to blame, but by and large the Democrats have been at least as fiscally responsible as the Republicans, maybe more so.
Right-wingers ranting about how we’re on the road to “socialism,” and how we will soon be calling one another “comrade,” are so incredibly lame.
Most right-wingers think “socialism” is an all-purpose insult, and they use the word without knowing that it has an actual meaning. Socialism is the collective (usually governmental) ownership of the means of production. I don’t know of any Democrats who support socialism.
Here are the facts:
Under President Reagan, what is usually forgotten is that the Democrats were primarily in charge of the spending during his 8 years in office, and that the total of all 18 debt ceiling raises was less than 2 trillion dollars (about 1.86 trillion).
President George H. W. Bush raised it 4 times for a total addition of about 1.35 trillion.
President Clinton raised it 4 times and added an additional 1.8 trillion. (He did not balance the budget, but he did sign a balanced budget after being pushed into it by the Republican controlled Congress, the polls and the need to get reelected)
President George W. Bush raised it 7 times and added nearly 5 trillion, with half of that total in the last two years of his administration when the Democrats were in control of both houses of Congress. (The so-called disaster that Bush left Obama was caused in large part by the total Democratic control of both houses of Congress in his last two years in office. They had a majority and did all that they could to get their agendas through, and Obama voted for every one of them. And Pelosi and Reid wouldn’t even let Republican bills out of committees for floor votes.)
Thus far, President Obama has raised the debt ceiling 5 times, adding an additional 5+ trillion to the cap, with no end in sight for his overspending. And all of this in less than 4 years. (And now that the Republicans have the House, there have been several dozen bills passed that would help workers, small businesses, and the economy. But, since the Dems hold the Senate, Reid has tabled over 30 of these bills so that he and the President can blame the Republicans for the mess we’re in. And so many gullible idiots fall for their deceitful rhetoric.)
It’s time for this madness to stop. And in November it will.
Did you get those figures from the Maine Heritage Policy Center website?
EJ, you write: “It’s time for this madness to stop.” The madness is one party blaming it on the other all the time — you give a distorted and one-sided picture. As I said above, both parties have contributed to the mess.
Another problem the refusal of Republicans to consider any new revenue. The Bush tax cuts, coupled with the Bush wars, and the recession he left us with, have been disastrous.
Yes, Obama has spent a lot, and yet he hasn’t spent enough — you spend yourself out of a recession. That’s what works. Britain’s Conservative Party cut government spending, trying to get their deficits under control, and now as a result they’re back int recession, what is called a “double dip” recession. Because the British Conservatives cut spending, their economy went back into recession, and so their revenues are down, and so they’re really not succeedeing in balancing their budget.
The Obama stimulus helped, but it was too small. Our recovery is weak, but compared to Spain, Portugal, italy, Greece, Britain, Japan, etc., we are the best of a poor lot. Remember, one reason our economy is weak is because our trading partners are in recessions, and so they aren’t buying many exports. Once the economy is growing sufficiently, then we can cut spending.
You cannot spend your way out of a recession. It’s never worked in the past, and it isn’t working now. The stimulus was only half spent, and the rest is locked up in the treasury waiting to be spent. The stimulus was a waste of taxpayers money.
Conservatives say, “FDR’s New Deal spending didn’t get us out of the Great Depression; only World War II got us out of the Depression.” Well, duh! What did we do in World War II? Massive deficit spending! FDR’s New Deal helped, but it wasn’t big enough to completely get us out of the Depression. Only the massive spending during World War II was enough stimulus to the economy.
Obama’s stimulus was good, it has helped — the economy is creating jobs, employment is up and unemployment is down, consumer confidence is up, consumer spending is up, auto sales are up, and the stock market is up — and yet many problems remain, like a weak housing market. The Obama stimulus was too small, and it relied too heavily on tax cuts.
You complain, “The stimulus was only half spent, and the rest is locked up in the treasury…” EJ, I didn’t expect you to complain that the federal government isn’t spending enough money! So, by your measure, we have begun an economic recovery based on spending only half of the stimulus package. Imagine how much better we would be doing if we had spent it all!
Look at what the Conservatives did in Britain — they cut spending, sending Britain back into recession. And polls show that the Conservatives are very unpopular because of their spending cuts and the double dip recession they created with those cuts in spending..
During WWII, this nation came together like never before. The whole nation united under our flag and for one cause. The whole nation sacrificed much of their own comforts and needs for the needs of our troops. There was rationing, war bonds, national pride, and a whole lot of praying going on during WWII. America was a different nation, and the American people were a different people.
I don’t think the Americans of today would unite for another world war. The mindset and attitude in this nation has turned inward and is so blatantly selfish in so many. This selfishness and attitude is shown through the progressives in government, the OWS demonstrators, and many on the government teat. The mere idea of sacrificing causes riots. The very idea of cutting benefits causes violence. The mention of trimming our government spending causes the politicians to lie their faces off in order to retain their power and positions.
America is in dire straights, and the blame lies primarily with the progressive movement. And, as I’ve said many times before, the progressives pushing this agenda are on both sides of the aisle.
The madness is the spending by both parties. However, the Dems had both houses of Congress for 4 straight years and blew every spending record out of the water.
You should follow the President’s advice too, Dana, and think about the next generation instead of the next election.
And there are those who still believe this
guy is the best thing since karl marx.
Oh please, the false outrage is ridiculous. Like Bush didn’t campaign and spin while in office. Or every other PResident before them. Give me a break..
If you actually read the article, it answers your question.
What’s troubling is that Obama is breaking all campaign fundraising records, and he’s doing it primarily on the taxpayers’ dime. All he and his wife have to do is plan a stop along a route that can be classified as part of their duties, and we end up paying for the entire trip. But, they’re the king and queen, so they aren’t questioned.
Another thing; if Obama and his party are so sure he is a shoe-in for another 4 years, then why is he campaigning at all? After all, President Reagan managed to win a second term with absolutely no campaign fundraising events at all. And he won by a landslide. Doesn’t President Obama often compare himself to Reagan? Or is that Lincoln? Either way, ain’t no way he’s anything close to either one.
Hey, at least we now know that he is negotiating with (aka: paying off) the Taliban! He won’t even negotiate with the GOP, but he will give billions to terrorists.
Wasn’t it courageous of him to hold his last campaign event in Afghanistan? He flew in at 3am and flew out at 4am.
It’s good we didn’t send Congress there, they would have gotten nothing done.
He won’t negotiate with the GOP?! He tried, time and time again, to negotiate with the Republicans. They refused. Don’t tell lies, please.
Obama has yet to govern anything. He doesn’t know how to get out of campaign mode. If, by some stroke of bad luck for America, he gets a second term, he’ll be lost because he won’t have a reason to campaign. And he just can’t seem to break out of that mold. In other words, he’s hit his glass ceiling.
The only difference between the Republican and Democratic parties is the speed with which their knees hit the floor when corporations knock on their door.
/////
When Obama came to Bangor in ’08, he campaigned like a rock star. Unfortunately, he has governed like a rock star. A lot of self promoting and no results.
The thing I love about the Obama campaign is they’re not allowing the filthy lies of the Republicans and their super-schmuks to gain a foothold, they quickly check them, and send them back to hell where they rightfully belong.