Sorry about the lack of posts but between the Jewish Holiday, travelling to DC, and just getting hammered with work, I haven't been able to stay up to date. Anyway, I love the far left screaming at President Obama for two huge issues - The War in Afghanistan and Health Care Reform. Why? Pretty simple actually. Obama won a lot of fickle grips to get elected President. Using stats from the book How Barack Obama Won:
- 44% of the country is considered moderate and Obama won 60% of them
- 33% of the country is considered conservative and Obama won a shocking 20% of them
- 18% of the country was aged between 18-29 and Obama won 66% of them
- 11% of the country was a new voter and Obama won 69% of them
Historically, new voters stick with their initial vote but (just a hunch), the 2008 election was so engaging and so new media focused, that I believe we reached a turning point and you can't assume old models. The youth voters can be very fickle and either stay home because the movement isn't what they thought it was or their information sources now start writing differently. The youth is digitally connected and use Facebook, Google, Blogs, and mobile, so what do you think they'll see when the Left's Digital Warlords start attacking the anointed one?
Those moderates (if you are one, don't take offense) don't have solid digital political homes. What kind of information do you think they'll find online now? Conservatives who won't give Obama any advantage and the Left hammering him on the Afghanistan War and Health Care.
First on Afghanistan. I think Obama did the right thing by boosting troop levels. As Obama said on the campaign trail, the war there is urgent and he believed we took our eye off of it in favor of Iraq. He campaigned on it, gave great speeches and debate answers but now fortunately for the GOP, he is tied directly to the war there. This drives the Left crazy because they supported President Obama under the assumption that he was anti-war (really anti-Iraq war); he telegraphed his desires in the War, but I guess Code Pink and the rest of them ignored it as an empty campaign promise. Now his favorite puppy in Congress Nancy Pelosi says that Obama will have to rally the votes in the House without her help.
Now onto the Health Care debate in the Senate. You probably already know that the Public Option is dead in the Senate and that includes the lowering of the age qualification for Medicare. So this sends the super Loony Left led by Keith Olbermann into a fit because the only way to get a Health Care reform bill passed in the Senate is to do what these nutjobs like Olbermann don't want which is meaningful reform without a Public Option. Olbermouth joins Governor Dean (not someone I agree with, but someone I respect), Daily Kos founder, and Huffington Post (another person I usually dont agree with but respect) as a chorus of Left Leaders who want the current bill killed. Even President Obama's own Obama For America email list is having big trouble with the public option going away. Why? Because they aren't getting what they want, and they believed that Obama the Campaigner was in favor of a Single Payer Option.
When your supporters turn on you on major policy moves in this Digital World, it leaves a nice digital footprint for eternity. Even Obama's campaign manager David Plouffe knows that this in-fighting isn't good because he knows that Obama is losing support from the middle (already lost it for those crazy conservatives that voted for him) and if he can't rely on the Loony Left from increasing support and pushing out content, Obama has problems. The more pragmatic moves that President Obama makes that piss of the Left, is good news for moderates who regret their vote and Republicans.
PardonMyFrench,
Eric
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