So let me see if I have this right. Democrats think that by removing any mention of Barry from their many campaign speeches, or seeking ways to otherwise distance themselves from their president, whose approval rating is now somewhere in the basement, they will somehow be able to sufficiently convince enough voters of, what exactly? That they have not been, and continue to be, simply a rubberstamp for every leftwing policy that he comes up with? Or that they don’t support his position on such things as Obamacare, the economy, and taxes? But who knows, this strategy of theirs may yet work.
But I do seem to remember back when Barry first took office in 2009 how it was that congressional Democrats were quite euphoric. We were told that what we were witnessing was the beginning of 20 years, if not more, of solid Democrat rule. With control of the House, Senate and the White House, and high public approval for their new party standard bearer, Democrats eagerly embraced Barry and all the long-awaited policy initiatives he’d surely help them to bring about. To say that they squandered it all, is a statement that, I think, even many Demcrats would likely agree with.
And how it was back then in that first month when congressional Democrats went out of their way to mention Barry during their floor speeches, to the point where they spoke of him 200, or so, more times than did the Republicans. In the next year and a half, the parties referred to the president at similar rates, sometimes with the Republicans having more to say, other times the Democrats. One can reasonably assume, I suppose, that when the Democrats speak of the president publicly it’s in a far more favorable way and when Republicans do it’s, well, not quite as glowing, shall we say.
But as they say, there is no honor among thieves, or in this case, Democrats. Because as the positive public opinion of Barry began to head toward the deck, and I’m doing my best to remain polite here, after his first year in office, the spread between how often Republicans and the Democrats invoked Barry grew noticeably wider. Put simply, the Democrats weren’t mentioning Barry by name nearly as often as were the Republicans. And suddenly that solid 20 years of Democrat rule was starting to look not quite so solid. But as is so often the case, Democrats figured they could fool us.
The gap is particularly notable over the course of the last year according to a group called the Sunlight Foundation, which measures how often any given word is spoken against all words in floor speeches and debates collected by the Congressional Record. Last fall, at the height of the government shutdown and the Obamacare rollout, Republicans were predictably discussing Barry more. But, as we can see, the trend has continued. Much has been written during this election cycle about the Democrats’ efforts to distancing themselves from Barry ahead of the midterm elections.
Some Democratic candidates in tough races regularly emphasize their differences with the president. And Barry is persona non grata on the campaign trail (unless it’s inside those private high-dollar fundraiser dinners). If the number of times they bring him up in front of the C-SPAN cameras is a measure, the Democrats detachment from the president is even evident on Capitol Hill – where every spoken word is recorded forever, so it’s especially crucial to choose them carefully. After all, no one wants to furnish ammunition for any campaign ads that may be run against them.
As my dear departed grandmother used to tell me, "You can’t take back the spoken word." And I’m reminded of the fact that it was also quite often that she could be heard to say, "If you can’t say anything nice about somebody, don’t say anything at all." So perhaps what’s really going on here is that the Democrats simply don’t have anything nice to say about Barry. But, for sure, we must never allow ourselves to be convinced into believing that even though they may not be talking about Barry all that much in public, they are, and very much so, supporting him in private.
No comments:
Post a Comment