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Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign theme was “change we can believe in” but after three years of leading the government which has only grown more partisan Obama has lost the change mantle to Mitt Romney.
The new NBC/WSJ poll found that more people now believe Romney would be better changing business as usual in Washington than Obama. The poll found 36% think Romney would do a better job of changing Washington while just 29% think Obama would do a better job.
The fact that the challenger is seen as better able to change Washington than the incumbent isn’t unusual, but it does highlight the problems the Obama team has choosing a message for this year. They simply can’t run on the same themes they did in 2008. They likely don’t even want to reference them because that only highlights the fact that Obama completely failed at what is arguably the core promise of his first campaign.
Politicians should know that if they are going to make something the foundational message to their campaign, the electorate is going to expect them to deliver on it. That is why it is inherently shortsighted to make the promise something like, creating bipartisanship or changing Washington, that can only be accomplished by having your political opponents actively help you deliver it. Your opponents naturally have every reason to not want to help you, especially if you are the one going to get almost all the credit. Ironically Obama, by running on his ability to change Washington, probably increased the incentives for the GOP to not work with him.
52 Comments
Ping pong ping pong
Same ol’ stuff and nonsense
O my. Who are they polling? Mentally Challenged 2nd graders?
Maybe he can use ” Change that only Wall Street can count on” as his next campaign slogan. The rest of his change and progressive speech is pure horse butter. If reelected he will go after the social safety net with a vengeance, we are much better off if he loses than we are with him having nothing to lose for the next 4 years.
His strategy is still “we suck less”. And it’s probably good enough to beat Mitt.
Boxturtle (Msg to Obama: You keep using the word “change”. I do not think it means what you think it means)
In order to know that, we have to know who’s paying for the poll and what results do they want.
Boxturtle (That should earn me some cynicism points!)
Neither of those are great numbers. They really say that 64% of folks believe that Romney will not change the way Washington works, and 71% think that Obama will not change the way Washington works. I think that’s like saying 68% of the people think that neither of the duopoly candidates will change the way Washington works with a random margin of error between the two.
The public is closer to the Occupy position on this issue.
I wouldn’t say we are better off with either one of these guys. They are both likely to dismantle the safety net in the name of cutting the deficit. What do they say these days? Oh yeah, “fiscal consolidation”.
What exactly is the occupy position on this?
Nah, that’s just asking for some facts.
So tell me, if the GOP didn’t “work” w/ Obama how is it that he accomplished so much of the GOP agenda?
Oh… wait…
I guess he didn’t need the GOP to enact Republican legislation…
hmmmmmm…
so… who are you going to vote for?
so Rupert Murdoch and Comcast/GE conduct a poll, who wants to believe either of these fascist organizations on anything ?
the author’s analysis of Obama’s crazy strategy of “changing DC” is exactly correct. He gave Mitch M and Boehner/Cantor the incentive to oppose everything he tried. Obama’s whole strategy was idiotic. Coming into power with a mandate for huge changes, he shifted to a strategy that could only succeed if the rethugs let it succeed ? How stupid is that ?
I guess you can go to Harvard and still do some really stupid things.
So this poll finds that most Wall Street Journal readers think Romney is a better choice?
Jon, if the poll had used the exact words “change you can believe in,” Obama’s numbers would have been better. /s
Choice and Change are words we should ban from this election unless….Jill Stein 2012 :)
It is quite heartening to see that the public thinks that Barry is just as full of shit as Mittens. Maybe there is hope, after all.
Plus–I’m not sure that the poll indicated that “change” would be necessarily be meant as “change for the better”.
I mean, if we had a President Mittens who was endorsing Paul Ryan’s budget instead of kabuki’ing against it (later to cave in the interest of “bipartisanship”) that would be “change” of sorts.
-stewartm
Polls nerver mind,but that’s the true,nothing has changed during 3 years, i would say everything got worse,from economy to politics to civil liberties.President Obama is trying to find out an slogang for campaingn,the yes we can and the change you can believe in you can throw them in the garbage.
LOL!
As they say, “A cat can have kittens in the oven but that don’t make ‘em biscuits.”
I was at Hooters last night, at the bar. I’ll admit, I had several Dos Equis. But this guy was talking about “anarchy”. . I mean he WAS an anarchist. Normally I just ignore people like that. But, this guy was making some pretty good points…….
Wish Rocky Anderson and Jill Stein had found a way to combine into the start of a real 3rd party.. Hopelessness you can count on is not good with corn flakes and coffee.
Hooters? That’s so fucking low-brow. Do what the rest of us do and check out the ladies in a darkened strip club. Have some class, man.
As USUAL, you’re right. It’s ALL in the DETAILS.
I hear ya’. But it’s on the way home and I had a coupon.
This is the first comment to start out “I was at Hooter’s…” to make a cogent point in the history of blogging. :)
So, have you signed up yet with your local militia?
Lots of those guys are “survivalists” and they, frankly, smell bad.
Can most bloggers pass that test?
Possibly not, But the internet provides a barrier to inocuous odors. I’m not saying that’s the way Al Gore designed it. But thats a prett damn keen “fringe benefit”.
The system is broken. Until that is fixed, nothing can change what’s going on in Washington. Specifically until the lobbying firm are shut down, the revolving door between Congress and lobbying firms closed, and megamoney taken out of the electoral system, don’t expect anyone to do anything differently than what is currently going on.
That’s just the way I read the poll. In my reverse interpretation of the numbers from the high number side.
They should have polled the positive change/negative change question. Another reason not to take these polls too seriously.
Yet another example that it takes Repugs to propose bad policy, but it takes Dimocraps to enact it.
Obamafraud lost the “change mantle” about 10 pico-seconds after he was elected, as if he was ever serious about it.
What the heck is Jon Walker doing? We ALL know for sure that Jon’s painfully aware Obama controlled a veto-proof Senate AND House for the first two years. So, would anyone care to ponder why Jon writes this nonsense? “… it is inherently shortsighted to make the promise something like, creating bipartisanship or changing Washington, that can only be accomplished by having your political opponents actively help you deliver it.” How far is FDL willing to go to convince Obama’s team its coverage is “fair and balanced”?
YES!
I just love questions that use the term “changing Washington.” It’s meaningless. An honest change in Washington would be to make every intersection a “Right-Turn Only” lane.
For the record, Obama has indeed changed Washington. It’s vastly more fascistic than it was even three years ago. This, I presume, is what John Kerry meant when he claimed Obama is a “transformational leader.” So in this context, Rombama will also bring more “change” to Washington and may even be worse than Obamney. It’s just plain stupid to talk about “change” without any qualitative terms. What kind of change is it people want? That might be a more useful question.
What’s more important in this poll is the Right Track/Wrong Track question, with 59% voting “Wrong Track.” Per usual, there’s very little indication of how people think we’re on the Wrong Track, except the economy, but there might be more to it than that.
As with most of these polls, what’s most interesting about them is what they leave out.
True enough. But neither of these guys are going to do that. I know you have a lot of faith in the Occupy movement (if that’s what it is?) but I don’t see that taking us anywhere either right at the moment. We may be in for a long dry spell and just watch our safety nets being taken down. That’s change you can believe in.
Proof that Majority does not rule in this Plutocracy. Love the right turn only comment. :)
Jill Stein 2012 Vote your conscience not your fear. Check out her website before you snark :)
Do you mean to tell me that the man who named his left testicle “Fierce” and his right testicle “Historic” has somehow lost his mojo?
New campaign slogan: “We suck less. Really.”
Sadly this statement is now debateable.
I think it is “2012: There’s still room under the bus”
How about, “Vote Obama 2012. Or else you can ride on the roof.”
Old Japanese saying, “At least we ain’t got locust.”
Obama: “While I may be indifferent to the plight of Americans, I never came right out and said it like Romney did.” SUCK LESS ’12
another dkos caliber diary … yawn on jon.
MAYBE the change people were hoping for wasn’t Geithner, Summers, AHIP-Care, PHARMA-Care, AIG-Care?
MAYBE if the Dim-0-Crap$ didn’t hire the same ol same yuppie insider fucks on messaging they could stuffed the f’king lies on bipartisan-shit back into the dark holes those lies come from?
MAYBE I’m kidding when I say “MAYBE”, cuz – people are fed up and there ain’t no “MAYBE” about it?
So, what is the title of the Great K-School Tome of Excuses — “0bummer We Hardly Knew Ye” … Hopey-Changey and Hopey-AK both deserve the same circle of Sell Out hell … at least when the fascists lie to me so they can steal, I didn’t vote for ‘em!
rmm.
DKos has always maintained its goal was to elect Democrats. But during the Bush years, it was more than that; it was a liberal activist site. MCJoan led the fight on FISA in 2008. It was a great community back then. The Rec diaries had great stuff. Now it just follows the horse race. You have a 100% chance your RSS feed will have either Romney or Obama in the diary title. Yawn.
No, no, and no. I thought we decided on “What you see ain’t what you get, and you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!”?
That will make a good bumper sticker for the larger vehicles.
Yep, we’re pretty much stuck until the political culture changes. The Occupy movement at least is making a strong effort at changing the conversation.
Agree on the stupidity of wanting bipartisanship, disagree with the impossibility of delivering change. If Obama had wanted to take a stand on anything and call out obstructionists and point out corrupt problems in the system, he had the popular support to get the population to buy into his claims and stand for things the public wanted. Even if the popular legislation in question didn’t pass, people would have known who to hold accountable in the next election for it.
Obviously he didn’t have any credibility on delivering Change afer green-lighting trillions to Wall Street and making transparently corrupt deals with special interests and corrupt members of Congress to force everyone to buy for-profit health insurance. But there was a time when he did, and he chose never to use it.
In the spirit of coming up with campaign themes in this section, how about Obama/Biden 2012: This Time We Mean It?
If you are going for accuracy, I think Glen Ford of BAR said it best (paraphrasing slightly here):
“Obama 2012: The More Effective Evil”
Hope and Change is about as legit for Obama as Compassionate Conservatism was for Bush. If Obama had any balls he would campaign truthfully on the platform Worse Than Bush