{"id":12191,"date":"2011-11-29T18:18:04","date_gmt":"2011-11-29T23:18:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=12191"},"modified":"2011-11-30T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-11-30T16:00:00","slug":"obamas-campaign-geniuses-dont-understand-the-basics-of-republican-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/12191\/obamas-campaign-geniuses-dont-understand-the-basics-of-republican-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama’s Campaign Geniuses Don’t Understand the Basics of Republican Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everything you need to know about the Obama political team’s total ignorance of Republican politics can be summed up with one fact: when Obama chose then-Utah Governor Jon Huntsman to serve as his Ambassador to China in 2009, he did so thinking that he was removing a formidable opponent for the presidency<\/a>. Huntsman’s tepid performance as a 2012 candidate — and his total inability to connect with the conservative base — have comprehensively given the lie to that notion, an outcome that the president’s political team could have envisioned if they had actually talked to any Republicans.<\/p>\n

Now, the best minds in the Democratic Party are at it again. With Newt Gingrich leading in the polls in Iowa<\/a> and South Carolina<\/a> — and closing the gap in New Hampshire<\/a> — they’re issuing a new television ad targeting … Mitt Romney?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Reports indicate that the White House is convinced Romney will be the nominee<\/a> and wants to soften him up early. That’s silly for a couple of reasons. First, it shows (as did the Huntsman calculation) that these strategists don’t realize that being the Democrats’ favorite Republican doesn’t automatically launch you to the front of the field. Second, Romney’s continued inability to get above about 25 percent in the polls (his favorability has actually been dropping<\/a> of late) and Gingrich’s surge make it extremely premature to assume a nominee. And third, even if the White House’s hunch is right, what difference is a general election ad airing a month before the primaries going to make?<\/p>\n

The alternative, more Machiavellian interpretation is that the White House wants to weaken Romney in order to bolster Gingrich, who they view as the more beatable candidate. If that’s true, watch this video and ask yourself if this is a man you’d be spoiling for a fight with:<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

If this is how Team Obama plays offense, they better hope they have a hell of a defense in 2012.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everything you need to know about the Obama political team’s total ignorance of Republican politics can be summed up with one fact: when Obama chose then-Utah Governor Jon Huntsman to serve as his Ambassador to China in 2009, he did so thinking that he was removing a formidable opponent for the presidency. Huntsman’s tepid performance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[914,143,2652,160,869],"class_list":["post-12191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-2012-presidential-election","tag-barack-obama","tag-jon-huntsman","tag-mitt-romney","tag-newt-gingrich"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12191"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12191\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12196,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12191\/revisions\/12196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}