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Hillarysworld -> We Told You So The Kool Aid Recovery Forum -> W.H. political team stumbles, bumbles (Politico 6/2/10)
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TOPIC: W.H. political team stumbles, bumbles (Politico 6/2/10)
Jen the Michigander


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W.H. political team stumbles, bumbles (Politico 6/2/10)
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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38067.html

They toppled Hillary Clinton, crushed John McCain and managed to get the first black man elected president of the United States.

But now a series of recent missteps just keeps getting worse for Barack Obama’s political operation, already under fire from inside the party for losing its golden touch.

The second-guessing of the White House political shop — which is coming in part from top House Democrats — was sparked anew late Wednesday by news that the White House tried and failed to coax another Democratic Senate candidate out of making his race by dangling administration jobs in front of him.

In a possible repeat of the Joe Sestak episode in Pennsylvania, insurgent U.S. Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff of Colorado said deputy White House chief of staff Jim Messina reached out to him — with a wince-inducing e-mail that is now public — with three possible jobs in September 2009. Obama wanted to keep him out of a race against Sen. Michael Bennet, the White House’s favored candidate.

Taken together, the Sestak and Romanoff cases suggest a White House team that is one part Dick Daley, one part Barney Fife.

They undercut Obama’s reputation on two fronts. Trying to put the fix in to deny Democratic voters the chance to choose for themselves who their Senate nominees should be is hardly consistent with the idea of “Yes, we can” grass-roots empowerment that is central to Obama’s brand.

Some of these journalists are so dense! Obama wouldn't be in the Oval Office today if the Democratic voters had had the chance to choose their own presidential nominee.

I am PUMA, hear me roar!

Obama’s been rebuffed by would-have-been top-tier Senate candidates in states — North Carolina and Illinois — where Democrats now face an uphill fight this fall.

House Democrats lost a special election in the liberal Hawaii district Obama grew up in, and they have griped that the president didn’t do more to help ease one of the candidates out.

And the White House failed to head off bitter Senate primaries for three Democratic-held Senate seats — in Arkansas, Colorado and Pennsylvania — that Republicans could snatch away this fall. Last fall, Obama vacillated on how much to help Democratic gubernatorial candidates in New Jersey and Virginia — he worked hard in one case and kept his distance in another — and the party was routed in both instances.

One senior House Democrat said it is baffling “how one group of people can be so good at campaigning and so bad at politics” — a phrasing nearly identical to that of a second veteran House Democrat who expressed the same sentiment.

Lawmakers say the White House seems capable of handling only one issue at a time — a stunning contrast to the candidate whose campaign promised that he could “walk and chew gum” at the same time in 2008.

Now this senior House Democrat said he’s worried that the White House isn’t able to handle multiple major challenges.

“They’re paralyzed,” he said. “It potentially loses the House.”

The timing of the Romanoff news is especially unwelcome, since Obama is already under fire for a similar case involving Sestak and for his handling of the BP oil spill, which is drawing rebukes even from some fellow Democrats.

The new case seems likely to step up Republican calls for a full investigation of the White House political operation. Seven Republicans from the Senate Judiciary Committee have already asked the Justice Department to open an investigation into the Sestak matter, and Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele called for independent investigation last night.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who has spearheaded the charge for an investigation into White House actions, said the revelation has “irrevocably shattered” the Obama brand.

“Clearly, Joe Sestak and Andrew Romanoff aren’t isolated incidents and are indicative of a culture that embraces the politics-as-usual mentality that the American people are sick and tired of,” Issa said in a statement.

The damage to Obama’s brand might have been lessened if the White House gambits had been successful. But Sestak defeated Sen. Arlen Specter, despite endorsements from both Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, who recruited Specter to change from Republican to Democrat. Earlier this year, Sestak talked derisively of being approached about a job by the White House to keep him out of the race against five-term incumbent Specter.

The White House confirmed on Friday that it was chief of staff Emanuel who asked former President Bill Clinton to approach Sestak with a discussion about an unpaid advisory position.

In Colorado, Tim Knaus, a former two-time state Democratic chairman, said that while negotiating jobs with potential candidates is nothing new in politics, the White House made tactical errors in its overt approach to Romanoff.

He said the perception that the White House attempted to nudge Romanoff out of the race could give the cash-strapped former House speaker a needed jolt of momentum at a critical point a little more than two months before the Aug. 10 primary against Bennet, who is leading in the latest polls.

“This just has to give him a second wind. It gets volunteers going. I don’t know who told the White House they should stick their nose into Colorado politics. What a dumb thing to do,” Knaus said. “The activists don’t want to be told what to do. They don’t want it shoved down their throats or they’ll do the opposite.”

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freespirit


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"Some of these journalists are so dense! Obama wouldn't be in the Oval Office today if the Democratic voters had had the chance to choose their own presidential nominee.

I am PUMA, hear me roar!"

Stamp! Tell it, sista!!

"One senior House Democrat said it is baffling “how one group of people can be so good at campaigning and so bad at politics” — a phrasing nearly identical to that of a second veteran House Democrat who expressed the same sentiment.

I would say it's no mystery - O's campaign people were good at rigging elections - that primarily requires having a lot of campaign money and not a lot of scruples, but actually running a country requires experience and concern for that country.

Lawmakers say the White House seems capable of handling only one issue at a time — a stunning contrast to the candidate whose campaign promised that he could “walk and chew gum” at the same time in 2008.

Now this senior House Democrat said he’s worried that the White House isn’t able to handle multiple major challenges.

“They’re paralyzed,” he said. “It potentially loses the House.”"

A House Dem said that?! Wow, it is a new day. Obama no longer walks on water.

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