Hey guys, this article talked about the influence our 42nd president, Bill Clinton, had on the Obama Campaign against Governor Mitt Romney. The article states that Bill Clinton strongly advised the Obama Campaign to aggressively mark Mitt Romney and his policies as severely conservative, instead of pointing out Mitt Romney's inconsistent and inauthentic. However, the article implies that the path suggested by former president Clinton might not have been the best path for the Obama Campaign to follow for this Presidential Election. One of the down falls to Bill Clinton's proposal emerged when Mitt Romney took non-conservative stances on healthcare reform, abortion and gay rights. The article also defends Bill Clinton by stating that Bill Clinton achieved success with the method he presented to the Obama Campaign. The article makes a great analogy stating that a suggestion from the best is always taken seriously.
The Obama Campaign's first approach against Governor Romney could have been more effective, because Mitt Romney has shown countless cases of showcasing inconsistent and inauthentic policies. Mitt Romney probably believes he can get away with all the changes, because Obama has not been capitalizing on Romney's inconsistency at all.
If I was in Obama's position, I would have definitely taken former President Clinton's advise. Why wouldn't I take the advice of a successful veteran. Even though, the article makes it seem as if Obama's approach could negatively affect his campaign, I do not think it is a big deal. President Obama looked sharp and aggressive with his current approach against Romney in the 2nd and 3rd Presidential Debates.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
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If I was Obama, I would take Former President Clinton's advice because it was good advice. Obviously, to portray someone as something there not is bad, but Romney is already in a hole as it is. With all the slip-ups he has had, portraying him this way would make sense. I would take Clinton's advice, but I still don't see the justice in doing it. I know I just contradicted myself there, but I am not one to call other people names or something they are not. One thing that I found funny/kinda awesome was the word gubernatorial. That is awesome (Tangent, but had to be said).
ReplyDeleteOther than that, Obama has a good campaign going on and so does Romney. I just wish it wasn't bashing each other and more about how they will help the country.
Though I support Romney and hope he does well in the election, I think that if I were Obama, I would have taken Clinton’s advice. The fact that Romney is more conservative is one of the reasons why I really like him so much; however an increasing number of people are becoming more moderate. For Romney to win the election he really needs to show moderate and independent voters that he’s not uber conservative. If Obama pursued attacking Romney on the fact that he said he was a “sever conservative” I think that a lot of moderates would reconsider someone who identifies so strongly with a view far from the center. I can also see why Obama did not pursue the advice, however. I’m sure that during his campaign, Obama said some things that he later retracted or wish he didn’t’ say. It’s the nature of politics that during different stages of the election candidates have to appeal to people of all different ideologies. Maybe Obama understood where Romney was coming from and didn’t want to appear hypocritical.
ReplyDeleteClinton's idea might have actually ended up helping Obama if he used it to conduct himself in the second and third debates. He would call out Romney on policy plans that he changed, usually from a conservative one to a moderate one. All candidates will speak to appeal to moderates so that they will get more votes. Also, Romney has been accused of changing policies over and over again, so if Obama tried to play that to his advantage it probably worked. Romney could easily defend himself from this and use his newly moderate stances to make Obama look foolish if he calls him a severe conservative.
ReplyDeleteBill Clinton's strategy doesn't work if Romney denies all of the claims of him being a 'severe conservative.' So Obama has to then accuse him of being an inconsistent candidate when it comes to policy, something he did more in the last two debates. If Obama shows clips of Romney stating very conservative stances or quoting him, that might be more effective than just calling him a severe conservative. It's hard for Bill Clinton to hurt the Obama campaign since he has pretty high approval ratings at the moment. All he has to do is show up and share his credibility with Obama. Also I read somewhere that Clinton was Obama's debate coach/partner for one of the second two debates so I guess they reached a compromise on the strategy.
ReplyDeleteWell Dan and Dave you have to remember there is video evidence of Romney calling himself a severe conservative so theoretically this strategy should be effective. If presented this Romney would no doubt deny it, but upon presentation of the evidence he would really be caught between a rock and a hard place. With all the flak already surrounding Romney, further proof of him jumping around (normal as it may be in our system) would be detrimental. Given this information I would definitely go with Clinton's advice seeing as though he was one of our best presidents (social issues aside). Also I think Obama has a unique attack here as I am fairly sure there is no way Romney could turn this around on him.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Dan that Obama has changed strategies in the last two debates by attacking Romney's inconsistency more and as a result, he has looked better in the last two compared to the first debate. However, I think Romney is also stuck between a rock and a hard place for this and that Obama would not have done much better had he not taken Clinton's advice. Social issues aside, many of the economic policies Romney is proposing are very conservative, like supporting Paul Ryan's overhaul of Medicare, increasing the defense budget, and lowering taxes on wealthy individuals.
ReplyDeleteIf I were the Obama campaign I would have stayed with the original plan of attacking him as a person who would say anything to win. That generalization just looks like him. The suits, the hair, the big business background. Going after the label of "severe conservative" doesn't work too well when both sides have to run from the more extreme sides back to the middle. Romney has gone scurrying back to the middle of the political spectrum by flip flopping on issues which I think would have been a better angle to play.
ReplyDeleteI think that Obama did not attack Romney's inconstancy in the last two debates, because Romney was probably ready for it, and had a scripted defense and/or attack ready. Obama did not want to open than window for Romney. I do think that throughout the campaign Obama has attacked Romney on his inconsistency. But whenever he does that he gets attacked by Republicans criticize all of the times Obama has changed his mind.
ReplyDeleteThe truth is that positions to change their mind. The best example is Arlen Spector, he changed his views so drastically that went from the GOP the the Democratic Party. He realized that the GOP did not stand for what he believed in. To many politicians are scared to do such drastic moves, because they think it shows inconsistency. And that is true, especially when the changes are so frequent, like in Romney's case.
I definitely agree with Sebastian on this. I sometimes think that the best plan of attack, is the unexpected one. Romney definitely would have been ready had Obama tried to attack him on his inconsistency and then the debates may not have gone as well as they did for Obama.
ReplyDeleteBill Clinton was an excellent president because he was a good leader. A lot of people still love CLinton even after his discrepancies. If I were Obama I would definitely take his advice.
ReplyDelete