Just when you thought you had gotten Joe Freaking Lieberman out of your face, his essence reappears in the man he mentored in the Senate, Barack Obama.
>:(
Many here on Kos have been saying the same thing, but The Los Angeles Times provides a thorough breakdown of Barack Obama's last-minute, desperate attempt to try to appropriate John Edwards' populist message for himself:
LAT: Obama trying to take Edwards' message
The opening 2 paragraphs:
He knocks CEOs who "dump" employee pensions while "pocketing bonuses." He laments Maytag workers who "labored all their lives only to see their jobs shipped overseas." He recalls humble beginnings and says his experience is "rooted in the lives of the people."
That kind of hard-driving populism has formed the core of John Edwards' campaign for president. But those words have come this week from Barack Obama -- one of Edwards' chief rivals for the Democratic nomination -- who has recalibrated his campaign to appeal to working-class voters before Thursday's caucuses.
My own take on Obama's strategy: It's WAY too transparent, and it is much too late in the game to be trying to hijack someone else's message. As was apparently the case with using Oprah on the campaign trail, I believe this ploy will backfire on Obama and is likely to make him seem unsure of his own theme and willing to say whatever he thinks will secure him more votes.
In the world we live in now, voters have access to far more information than in the past. It is very easy to search YouTube or Google for past Obama speeches and see that he has clearly and distinctly shifted the focus of his speaking from bridging partisan divide in Washington to this Johnny-come-lately appeal to Joe and Jane America.
A bit more from the LAT article:
Obama's focus on the former North Carolina senator became apparent last week, when he criticized Edwards for ads on his behalf that have been paid for by a labor-union-affiliated political committee.
Edwards long has criticized the influence of such organizations, and Obama was seeking to undermine Edwards' claim of being a Washington outsider who would fight special interests.
Then Obama, a supporter of free trade, launched a television ad in Iowa that talked about the devastation left by an American business that moved its plant to China.
The shift came into even sharper view Friday as both men crisscrossed Iowa. They even made simultaneous, late-afternoon stops in the working-class town of Clinton.
"You've got CEOs making more in 10 minutes than workers make in an entire year," Obama said.
If this weren't such an obvious move by Obama, it would almost be almost humorous.
Almost.
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All of us have seen the Iowa poll data. The trend lines, the shifts.
Two candidates are moving up; one is moving down:
Latest Iowa polling data from ARG
December 24, 2007 - Iowa Caucus Presidential Preferences
IOWA
Democrats --- Dec 16-19 ----- Dec 20-23
Biden --------------8% --------------8%
Clinton ----------29% ------------34% -- (+5%)
Dodd --------------3% --------------2%
Edwards --------18% ------------20% -- (+2%)
Gravel -----------------------------------
Kucinich -----------2% --------------2%
Obama ----------25% ------------19% --- (-6%)
Richardson --------7% --------------5%
Undecided ---------8% -------------10%
There are similar polls from other sources. The almost universal commonality among the various surveys is that Obama is trending down in Iowa, and has been for several weeks, while Clinton and Edwards are trending up during this same period.
That is, Clinton and Edwards are taking Obama's potential votes.
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So, if you're Team Obama, how do you try to combat this precipitous decline in support for your candidate?
Simple: You try to take the core message of one of the other on-the-rise candidates and wrap yourself in it.
As the Times article points-out, this is precisely what Obama is attempting to do.
Unfortunately for Obama, the Times and innumerable other media outlets and individuals with internet access are easily able to compare and contrast what the focus of Obama's pitch is now -- as he attempts to halt his dramatic decline in Iowa polling -- with what it was but two weeks or so ago.
Advantage: voters.
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I have posted the following cartoon fairly frequently in various diary comments over the last week or so:
Though the cartoon was originally intended to be facetious, it is appearing more prescient by the day -- the 'USS Obama 2008' vessel appears to be sinking, rapidly.
As I have also mentioned in several comments, Obama's tactic of attempting to take Edwards' themes for himself reminds me of his Senate mentor's ploy of trying to paint himself as the 'anti-Iraq War' candidate two short years ago:
Joe LIEberman's BS ad about Iraq War
Shortly after losing the Democratic primary in August Lieberman’s message on the war seemed to soften. In his first television commercial following the primary Lieberman said, "I’m staying cause I want to help end the war in Iraq in a way that brings stability in the Mid-East and doesn’t leave us any more vulnerable."Click here to watch the one-minute commercial. But one month after that commercial he gave his Iraq policy speech, which called for an increase in military personnel. Lieberman said he wanted to triple the number of U.S. soldiers embedded in Iraqi units and called on the U.S. to get tougher with Iraqi leadership.
I didn't like politicians who will say anything they think will help them get elected two years ago, and I don't like them now.
Joe Lieberman altered his public tune on the Iraq War after he lost the Dem primary to Ned Lamont; Barack Obama is changing his message now because he is falling like a stone in Iowa polling.
This ridiculously obvious ploy to use Edwards' message is the latest in a series of Team Obama mis-steps, the list of which includes the disgusting comments by Obama top strategist David Axelrod that tried to attach Hillary Clinton to the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and Obama's own, equally offensive remarks attempting to minimize Mrs. Clinton's foreign policy experience by talking about Clinton's having 'had tea with' Ms. Bhutto.
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Conclusions:
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As a potential presidential nominee, Mr. Obama makes an excellent Senator, or law professor.
This, however, isn't a vote for best teacher.
When the Iowa caucus gets underway next week, Democrats who have been waiting 7 incredibly long and bleak years will begin the process of selecting the person who will represent our party in the general election of 2008.
After two terms of Bush antagonism, and two years of a defiant, intractable Republican Congressional minority, we Dems aren't particularly concerned with our potential presidential candidate's pie-in-the-sky speeches about overcoming partisan divide.
We are, however, quite captivated by our potential candidates' pledges to take on big corporations who could give a bleep about their workers or the average American.
Thankfully for those of us not sold on Obama -- who is already hinting he isn't sure he'll run for president again in the future -- his camp's political tin ear kept them from grasping the appeal of Edwards' message until very recently, thus making it highly unlikely that the voters will be swayed by this last-minute change in stumping tactics from the Illinois Senator.
Based on the recent data and trends, Iowans are increasingly looking towards Edwards and Clinton and away from Obama.
And not a moment too soon, either.
Because not only are some of us not sold on Obama, but I would say that absolutely no Dem wants to see a repeat of the year 2000 electoral 'school(ing)' that Bobby Rush put on Obama come the 2008 general election. I know I don't.
Obama lost that contest by 31% points! Yes, you read that right: THIRTY-ONE!! In a 3-way contest, to boot!
Barack Obama is a highly intelligent, ambitious man. He seems like a great guy. I'm sure he's a wonderful husband and father.
But he is not who I want to be my presidential nominee.
And his disingenuous attempt to steal John Edwards' central campaign themes -- at the last moment, as Obama's Iowa poll numbers are dropping by-the-second -- and employ them as his own has only reinforced my decision.
This is a desperate gambit from an obviously distressed Team Obama.
One which, I am certain, the good people of Iowa will find as blatantly cynical as I do.