Imagine if the Reverend Wright was regarded, across the country, as the Democratic Party made flesh; if he was seen as the authentic voice of the party's base; if senior Democrats felt that they had to praise and defer to him in public.
I need hardly tell you what a disaster that would be for the Democrats.
According to a poll carried out by top Dem strategists Greenberg and Carville, Rush Limbaugh is even more unpopular than Rev. Wright. Which helps to clarify why the White House is pursuing its strategy of singling our Limbaugh as their antagonist, thereby pumping up his already considerable media presence and pinning it to the GOP.
It's a smart strategy - maybe a little too smart. Time's Michael Scherer sounds a stern note of disapproval:
At a time of unprecedented threats to the United States, a time of financial collapse, bank failures and record layoffs, at a time when the credit crisis has not been solved, and the stock market is in free fall, at a time of stagnating wars, rising terrorism in Pakistan and growing nuclear potential in Iran, the White House has done the easy thing. It has asked the American people to focus their attention not on solving the problems, but on a big-mouthed entertainer in Florida. This may be smart politics. But it is also the same petty strategy that John McCain employed during the presidential campaign, the one that our new president promised to rise above.
Spoilsport! As much as I'm enjoying this game, I fear Scherer may have a point. The White House should be careful not to get carried away with its own cleverness and overplay its hand.
This episode is indicative of the difference between the Obama campaign operation and his White House. In particular, it demonstrates the newly influential role of the old Clinton crew: Emanuel, Carville, Greenberg, Begala.
I've no idea if and how much Axelrod has been involved in this game, but it's not the sort of thing he would have cooked up on his own. The War Room gang takes more delight in the sheer sport of politics than the original Obama-ites (you can see that Robert Gibbs is having fun with it too, but perhaps because he really wants to impress the older guys in the playground). Scherer is right to remind us that the Obama campaign was disdainful of such mischief, and sincerely so, I think.
The Limbaugh-baiting is good knockabout stuff and may pay a political dividend. But at some point, the fundamental differences of approach between the original Obama team and the newbies-who-are-oldies might develop into a real source of tension within the White House.
(Photo:
So let's get this straight.
In a time of national crisis the annual convention of the Conservative Political Action Committee -- a gathering by and for Republican stalwarts -- invites Rush Limbaugh as its keynote speaker (an honor last bestowed on then-President Bush). Mr. Limbaugh obliges with 60 jiggling, overblown minutes of anti-liberal, anti-Obama bombast.
And it's the White House that's irresponsibly playing petty politics?
The old political saying is that when your opposition is committing suicide, its best to simply stand aside and let 'em get 'er done. I suppose the White House could be accused of holding the Republicans' jacket as they prepare the noose...but really, until the GOP comes up with another leader, I don't think the Obama Administration is under any obligation to ignore the fact that Limbaugh is, indeed, their most potent spokesman.
(And your Reverend Wright analogy is unfair to both Wright and Limbaugh. The closest analogue to Limbaugh today would probably be Ronald Reagan c. 1964.)
Posted by: Tom | March 05, 2009 at 08:08 PM