I keep hearing the Right Wing say that Obama has lost the youth vote, or that they are not as enthusiastic as 2008, but I have yet to see it.
The Atlantic thinks that Obama's strategy of reaching out for the youth vote might have also have another, more subliminal, agenda:
What Obama's really doing may be more about optics: the symbolic value of all those pictures and video where he's surrounded by fresh-faced, enthusiastic young adults. Every one of those images, and their repetition, drives home his association with the new generation, the future, and the transformative promise of progress -- the mantle of hope that he's straining so hard to reclaim after a strenuous, wearing first term. It's of a piece with his new slogan, "Forward," and his campaign's portrayal of Mitt Romney as the candidate of the past. The cheering crowds of young people are there to serve as a stirring, hopeful sight to older voters, whether they're remembering their own youthful aspirations or thinking about the future that awaits their children and grandchildren. And it's an effect Romney can't summon, as evidenced by his appearance at an Ohio college last week: Some students appeared to struggle to remain conscious as Romney delivered a lengthy riff on office supplies.
Well if that is indeed Obama's strategy, I think it's working.
(Photos courtesy of the Obama Diary.)
That really made my night! Thanks, Gryphen, for a smile after a really hard Friday.
ReplyDeleteI don't think you have to be a woman, to have enough intuition to detect just what a weasel Romney is.
ReplyDeleteAnyone with a pea brain or better, is able to sniff out a habitual liar, when one is stinking up the joint like Mitt does.
And the YOUNGER a person is, the more likely they are to have an innate sense of the phoney.
So far, every young person I see near the President, appears to be uplifted by his presence.
Really tells you something.
Remarks by President Obama on college affordability, Arlington, VA, May 4, 2012
ReplyDeleteTHE PRESIDENT: You guys shouldn’t have to pay an extra $1,000 just because Congress can’t get its act together. This should be a no-brainer. This is something that we need to get done.
So the good news is, the Senate will vote next week on a bill that would keep student loan rates from doubling. And some Republican senators look like they might support it. I’m ready to work with them to make it happen. But unfortunately, rather than find a bipartisan way to fix this problem, the House Republicans are saying they’re only going to prevent these rates from doubling if they can cut things like preventive health care for women instead. So --
AUDIENCE: Booo --
THE PRESIDENT: That’s not good. We shouldn’t have to choose between women having preventive health care and young people keeping their student loan rates low. (Applause.)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/04/1088782/-Remarks-by-President-Obama-on-college-affordability-Arlington-VA-May-4-2012
He is wonderful. I don't agree with everything, but when would you? He has made the best of a horrendous situation, and things ARE improving. And the poor rich GOP is beside itself trying to derail an express train with a pea shooter. Or trying to catch a thoroughbred while riding a mule. And now I see the new strategy is to stalk Obama's appearances and then have Fox show the Obama crowds as Romney's. Such class these people don't have. A feel a blowout coming....and the Kochs can take their money and shove it.
ReplyDeleteHey, remember a few days ago when the President was in Afghanistan and the right was certain that longterm presence there (thaNKS TO BUSH'S imcompetency) was going to be doom for Obama? umm, not so much.
ReplyDeleteThe only distraction was the constant photography noise in background. I love that he is not afraid to talk about Michelle and Obama taking out school loans. It does humanize his desire for an education.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, clearly he's unable to capture the attentions and imaginations of youth. You know, I cannot recall a President who has been told "I love you" as much as this guy. And you know something? I love him too!
ReplyDeleteThe man has soul...and how could you not love that?!?
Ditto, ditto, ditto. It is so wonderful to hear crowd shout-outs of "I love you" to President Obama. Yes, I love him too.
DeleteHmmm...which would be more significant to me if I were the President?
DeleteDozens of shouts of "I love you" from crowds of thousands of screaming, clapping, cheering young people
OR
One angry, middle-aged, wealthy white guy yelling "You lie!"
Yup...I'd go for the young people. After all, they'll be around for many more years but the angry old white guys are (thankfully) dying out.
Our President outsmarts anyone else that wants to run against him. All the GOP are just jealous and they can't figure out how to get the best of him so they spin 180 degrees on any topic when he's winning points.
ReplyDeleteO/T for those who can't get enough Palin:
The Sarah Palin Defense Strategy
George Zimmerman’s lawyer is using social media like a pro.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2012/05/george_zimmerman_s_social_media_strategy_.html
Nobody cares about Zimmerman. Get lost.
DeleteAnon @ 6:14 - O/T has always been welcome by us IM'ers. It's pertinent to our unifying cause, to criticize someone we don't even know. (LOL)
DeleteYour link to the Atlantic doesn't work :-(
ReplyDeleteShould be fixed now.
DeleteYour link to the Atlantic isn't working :-(
ReplyDeleteWhat the Right Wing is doing is trying to create a false narrative that Obama does not have as much support as he did in 08. They are laying the foundation for the theft of the election. If they can repeat enough the false story that voters are no longer behind him, then it will be that much easier to convince the mass public that pre- and post-election polls were wrong and that the final, uncertifiable results on the e-voting machines are accurate. The latest round of ALEC written voter suppression laws will disenfranchise millions of Obama voters in the 2012 election. The lack of impartial oversight during the elections and the stridently pro-republican Diebold machines will work together to change the results of any election, as we just saw demonstrated in the Anchorage election.
ReplyDeleteThe only way to get around these tactics is to bring out massive, well-publized support for the President. Support so mighty and strong that any falsified election result would be immediately questioned.
Best way for this to occur? For Biden to exit stage left, and for Obama to bring on Hillary as his running mate. Not only would that re-invigorate his base and bring out all the supporters in favor of truly qualified female candidates, but it would set up Hillary to run in 2016.
Obama has to come out strong in this race, much stronger than he did in 2008, and partnering with Hillary is the best way to do it. Otherwise the combination of Diebold machines, GOP-led recent gerrymandering, relatively paltry amount of positive press coverage on Obama's successes, voter suppression laws, destruction and illegalization of voter organizations like ACORN nationwide and League of Womens Voters in Florida will make it all too easy for the GOP in November to repeat the 2000 and 2004 thefts. And, as long as they can create the false narrative that the public grew tired of Obama, the mass media and public will accept the election results.
He's got to go big, or he will go home. And the entire world will suffer.
Obama/Hillary in 2012.
Get real. President Obama is a team with Biden. Obama/Biden ....2012!
DeleteObama 2012
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Gryphen. Thanks!
President Obama attracts people and inspires people young and old, just like the Kennedy brothers did.
ReplyDeleteI remember Robert F Kennedy coming to my school in 1964, and how it was so much excitement that we were besides ourselves. I remember all of us students scrambling to shake his hand, and being so excited that we were in the presence of a Kennedy. I never will forget that big, Kennedy toothy smile, as he reached out to shake my hand.
This VERY fond memory comes back to me when I see how people young and old react to President Barack Obama.
President Barack Obama....2012! LET'S DO IT AGAIN !
And this nation killed two of them. These guys had it made, could chose their cushy private sector jobs by the dozens, but instead chose to serve their country.
DeleteLow-Branch thinkers like Bristol like to say her ill-equipped mother answered the call of her country by not blinking to an unearned invitation to inexplicable access to world power, but the Kennedy's, not only did they serve their country, they asked what you could do for her too.
My god, how they bled for this country, leading it on the path it should be.
To Anonymous May 5, 2012 07:38 AM
DeleteYou are so right. I agree with you 100%.
Golly Gee, look at all those young white faces. Could it be possible that white people voted for him and might vote for him again?
ReplyDeleteWhat an appealing man! I think what bugs the opposition so much is that he is natural and true to himself with a great sense of humor.
I am so sick of the thinly veiled racist emails that are starting to pour into mailbox from low information family and "friends". Most are so pathetically put together or are recycled from the last campaign. They really make the senders look ignorant but that doesn't seem to bother them at all. It appears to be their natural state.
I have started to blast back all these wonderful photos and links to videos that I see here and on other blogs. This year I am hitting "reply all" so that everyone in their "to" list gets my message to counteract the stupidity.
'''I am so sick of the thinly veiled racist emails that are starting to pour into mailbox from low information family and "friends".'''
DeleteI am glad I don't have friends and family like that.
Take that first picture and put it side-by-side with the picture of Romney and the sleeping students - perfect campaign ad right there !
ReplyDeleteAnd now I see the new strategy is to stalk Obama's appearances and then have Fox show the Obama crowds as Romney's
ReplyDelete--------------------
Are they really ? That's total BS ! That's why they're known as "Fox Lies".
Stop giving Fox ideas. Geez.
DeleteWe were talking about that kick-ass millionaire liberal Stephen King the other day. I just started reading The Stand for the umpteenth time, and came upon this passage:
ReplyDeleteStu was no quarterback, and he was no Eddie Warfield. But it did seem to him as he began his junior year in high that there was at least a fighting chance for him to get a small athletic scholarship. . .and then there were work-study programs, and the school's guidance counselor had told him about the NDEA loan program.
Then his mother had gotten sick, had become unable to work. It was cancer. Two months before he graduated from high school, she had died, leaving Stu with his brother Bryce to support. Stu had turned down the athletic scholarship and had gone to work at the calculator factor. And finally it was now Bryce, three years' Stu's junior, who had made it out.
---
Reading that made me realize how hard it is to make it work, especially with the prospect of graduating in unmanageable debt today. But being smart and being determined has always been an equalizer when it came to education. Stu would have made it work, he would have made it happen. But catastrophic illness sure took the wind out of his sail.
Jack-a-holes like silver spooned Mitt Romney hasn't a clue as to what it takes to make it work without the safety net of a vast inheritance. On the other end of the spectrum, Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich romanticizes light janitorial work, or waiting tables while flitting around five colleges.
President Obama represents how someone who grew up with marks against him in color alone, as well as a challenging home life and money, can make it in America. He is telling these kids that they shouldn't have to mortgage their future just to have a fighting chance in the lifestyle arena. This man can relate, he can inspire, and he can level the playing field so that just anyone can be what they want and hope to be in a functional and meaningful way.
Yippee! President Obama went to my alma mater to address students. Of course I graduated way back in the mid 60s, but still...
ReplyDeleteI wonder who these young people can relate to more easily:
ReplyDelete1. A charismatic young man of mixed race who was raised by a single mother and grandparents, worked hard and took out loans to put himself through college and law school, worked low-paying jobs in (gasp!) community organizing as be built his career, married another lawyer and had two children.
2. A 60-something, stiff, boring, unlikeable white man who was raised by two wealthy parents, had college and graduate school paid for, lived off of trust funds while he started his family and career, made a fortune by buying companies, laying off workers or outsourcing jobs to foreign countries and, more often than not, destroying the companies after the greatest profit had been wrung from them, and spent most of the last several decades holding or running for office, buying multiple lavish homes, raising five children and strapping his dog to the roof of the family car.