Obama's Roll-Out and Reaction

On the 5th, President Obama rolled out the start of his campaign with his Forward video and two rallies in Columbus, Ohio and Richmond, Virgina. In Ohio, he drew 14,000 to a stadium which could hold 18,000, and in Richmond he held a rally at Virginia Commonwealth University before another 7,000. From participants it was inspiring and it renewed their commitment to the campaign.


Participants said that while the enthusiasm may not be the same as in 2008,they truly feared any return of the Republicans and said that their major problem would be the voter identification laws. If you watched the rallies on the internet, you noticed again that the attendees looked like all of America.


As part of their strategy, the Romney campaign decided to pre-but again the President's speech and mocked the rallies as if they were half empty. Cute but there were embarrassed more by the Romney rally in Pennsylvania, which only managed to fill a room with older white people. In Romney's return to Cleveland, he draw ,according to their campaign, between 300-500. Instead of matching the Obama campaign in numbers, the Romney people hit the airwaves with attack ads--which frankly didn't make any sense--either in meaning or in political point.


We are going through another election where the GOP either refuses to study the organization of their opposition or simply believe the SuperPacs can buy it. For the cognoscenti, the opening rallies of the Obama campaign were notable for a single feature--those in the stands were already committed to campaign organizing. It was like a national broadcast staff meeting of the campaign organization. In other words,everyone there had assignments and had specific tasks for the months ahead. Somehow this organizational aspect of the Obama campaign escaped the GOP last time and seems to have been avoided this time.


Naturally, the MSM had to downplay the opening of the campaign.  The Washington Post ran a long piece on how the registration of Hispanics and African-Americans has rapidly declined since 2008. Not receiving equal coverage was the Obama campaign's answer in raw numbers about how these declines have already been made up since 2010. Of course, the young are disillusioned with President Obama. 


Polls already are showing a national horserace but at the state levels showing President Obama increasing leads. The first PPP poll in months in Iowa had Obama ahead by 10 its and in Ohio ahead by 7. Colorado, another so called "Swing State" again showed Obama on top as all previous polls did. In National polls you have ranges from Obama ahead by 7 and those with Romney ahead by 5. 


The so-called equalization by Romney is said to be a result of him being the Republican nominee and uniting the base. But Tuesday's three primaries wins by Romney indicated that the unity has quite been achieved. He still barely got over 50% when he was not contested. So the puzzle remains why the difference between national and state polls.


Missing from any news coverage--and perhaps the Obama campaign is better off because of it--was the President's speech to the Asian-Pacific-American community where he welcomed the first Asian Federal judge he appointed and recognized others from that community which enjoy positions. During 2008, he had an aggressive campaign among Asian-Americans which stripped the Republicans of that small but influential community.


We are entering the bad season for Obama--the time when odd ball rings happen. My general rule of thumb is that whenever the President is seen his polls go up. When he is away or not visible to the public, his approval sinks.


Since he announced, the Romney campaign has tried a variety of tactics to gain advantage, some of them ludicrous. Romney, still burned by the Obama ad saying he would not have gone after bin Laden, decided to take credit for the auto bailout himself. This only generated wonderful internet videos of all his past statements about letting Detroit go bankrupt. It seemed he was just caught up in flaps after flaps. In trying to promote outreach to the Hispanic community,his campaign announced that his positions on immigration were still evolving. So I guess he might abandon his position on "self-deportation", his vow to veto the Dream Act, and his embrace of Arizona's immigration law. Then Fox News announced their launching Fox Hispanic channel only to be upstage by Univision.


Romney's campaign themes have not gained traction. But I suspect you will see his campaign make an effort to out-Obama with an outdoor rally to commemorate the Tenth Anniversary of his involvement with the Olympics at Salt Lake City. After all it would be mandatory for all the Mormons to appear for their candidate. The problem might be the optics would resemble a Leni Riefenstahl film--all white Aryan faces. Maybe that's the secret code message for his campaign.