The Fierce Urgency of Town Halls and Political Galas

When President Obama popped in at yesterday's White House press briefing, he gave the impression he'd be personally involved in intense budget negotiations with Republicans to avert what many believe is an imminent government shutdown.

Hovering Above It All

But according to the official schedule released today, the president will be leaving town right after lunch - first, for a Town Hall event in Philly and then to a fundraiser for Al Sharpton in Manhattan.  I guess his "team" will be handling the crisis in  his absence.... the latest in a line of absences both physical and political.  As Kevin Drum of Mother Jones puts it: "Obama has long followed a strategy of letting other people fight pitched battles for awhile and then parachuting in towards the end to act as peacemaker."

But his re-election campaign beckons, so never let a crisis get in the way of a good town hall.  Obama plans to meet with workers at Gamesa, a Spain-based wind turbine company with a factory in Pennsylvania that constructed the Allegheny Ridge Wind Farm.  Since Hispanics will be a key voting bloc in 2012, the President is going a-courting now.  And then, on to his second foray into the Big Apple in less than a week, a political payback of sorts to Al Sharpton at the National Action Networks gala at the Sheraton Hotel.  Sharpton was initially a Hillary supporter, but made up with Obama before the convention.

The president arrives at Kennedy Airport at 5 p.m., just in time for the evening rush.  Local news outlets are treating the story as A Traffic Gridlock of Epic Proportions.  New Yorkers tend to get irate when a president breezes into town at  inconvenient times on an increasingly consistent basis.  But that's okay. Irate New Yorkers will get the chance to let off some steam next weekend (4/15) in what promises to be a gala mass demonstration in Union Square against the banksters and the kleptocrats.  Somehow I don't think any politician of either political party will be in town for the occasion.  

They call the presidential route through Manhattan a Frozen Zone.  And despite all the heated rhetoric coming out of D.C., the budget talks seem to be in the deep freeze as well, at least as far as Obama is concerned.  Here's what he said yesterday:

"The only question is whether politics or ideology are going to get in the way of preventing a government shutdown.  Now, what does this potentially mean for the American people?  At a time when the economy is just beginning to grow, where we’re just starting to see a pickup in employment, the last thing we need is a disruption that’s caused by a government shutdown.  Not to mention all the people who depend on government services, whether you’re a veteran or you’re somebody who’s trying to get a passport or you’re planning to visit one of the national monuments or you’re a business leader who’s trying to get a small business loan.  You don’t want delays, you don’t want disruptions just because of usual politics in Washington.

So what I said to the Speaker today, and what I said to Leader Reid, and what I’ve said to the two appropriations chairs, is that myself, Joe Biden, my team, we are prepared to meet for as long as possible to get this resolved."

Only, he'll be MIA for a total of 10 hours today.  His defenders, or apologists, will likely continue to say he's no-drama Obama, the only grown-up in the room, he likes to stay detached, he knows what he's doing.  In one respect, he's like an annoying helicopter parent, always hovering near the children's activities but never getting directly involved or, heaven forbid, getting angry or showing who's the boss.

Kevin Drum said he likes to parachute in at the last minute.  But I'm afraid that this time, he's merely bailed out.


** Update, 7:05 p.m.  The New York Times now reports that Obama will meet with House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid  immediately upon his helicopter landing tonight at 8:45 p.m. I guess the three-minute quickie phone call he made to Boehner before blowing town earlier today didn't do the trick.

Talking Points for Obamabots

Now that thousands of you have already signed up for Obama '12 and are champing at the bit to work those phones a year and a half before Election Day, here's a script I just unearthed to help you connect one-on-one with the undecided folks in the heartland. If they tell you they won't be voting for Obama, here's what you say:

If you don’t support Barack, you’re enabling the Tea Party

People who criticize the president are racists.

He was a left a mess by Bush and he's doing his best to clean it up.  He’s been trying to drive the car out of the ditch. He has to deal with circumstances beyond his control, every minute of every day.  Give him a break. He’s only been president for 26 months and we’ve had 200 years of bad governance.

Lily Ledbetter, Lily Ledbetter, Lily Ledbetter.

If you don’t support Obama, then Sarah Palin/Newt Gingrich/Michele Bachmann will become president and the world will end.  Is that what you really want?

He was solely responsible for the repeal of DADT. He inspired the Egyptian Revolution. He had to give tax breaks to the rich to save the middle class down the road. Because of him, we will all, someday, have the privilege of buying private health insurance.

He is the only grownup in the room. Everybody else is a child. 

A third party candidate or primary challenger will just be a spoiler.

He is playing three dimensional chess, so give him the benefit of the doubt. You should trust him because he has a higher IQ. than you do.

He has to pander to the corporations now, so he can become the true progressive he wants to be during his second term.  He has to pretend to love Wall Street because without their money he couldn't get re-elected.  That's how politics works.  Can I put you down for $25?

Some people just don't appreciate nuance. 

Pragmatism is the greatest virtue ever invented.

He’s the only thing standing  in the way of a total fascist takeover of the Supreme Court.

Have I left anything out?

Killing Me Softly With his Re-election Announcement

As expected, President Obama has announced he is running for re-election.  I first heard about it from Michael Shear in the New York Times, who characterized the announcement as "soft and low-key".  I felt bad that I didn't get a personal email from the president to tell me this himself, but silly me forgot to check my spam folder - and there it was, right under the Proactiv message.

I read it through, and predictably gagged.  And mean girl that I am, I couldn't resist rifling through the garbage can of my imagination and picturing what his first draft might have said before his PR flacks cleaned it up for the bland vanilla palates of the voting public.  So here, reading between the lines, is the original Barack email:

Karen --

Today, we are filing papers to launch our 2012 campaign.

We're doing this now because the politics we believe in does not start with expensive TV ads or extravaganzas, just forget about that multi- million dollar fundraiser I had last week that barred the press and public but with you – with chumps people organizing block-by-block, talking to neighbors, co-workers, and friends. And that kind of campaign takes chutzpah and an idea-bank chock full of bullshit time to build.

So even though I'm focused on the job you elected me to do, which entails serving my oligarch lords and masters and the race may not reach full speed for a year or more, even though I have never really stopped campaigning and wasting billions of gallons of jet fuel campaigning on the government dime the work of laying the foundation for our campaign must start arbitrarily, a date we just picked out of mid-air today.

We've always known that lasting change wouldn't come quickly or easily. It never does.  And I never really intended it to, at all.  But as my administration and folks across the country fight to protect the progress we've made -- and make more spin and empty promises – we need free labor and unpaid interns  to begin mobilizing for 2012, long before the time comes for me to begin campaigning in earnest. What I have been doing up to now has been insincere campaigning.  The earnest campaigning involves me trying to pretend I love my Democratic base, and it’s hard.  Change will not come easy.

As we take this step, I'd like to share a video that features some folks like you who are helping to lead the way on this journey. Please take a moment to watch:

(  Ed. note. I am not embedding the video.  It is widely available everywhere.  It is inescapable.  It will make your computer melt  And I am not a "folk", dammit! )

In the coming days, supporters like you will begin forging a new organization that we'll build together in cities and towns across the country.  It is an organization of the imagination, in your own minds.  It will have nothing to do with me. And I'll need you to send me your hard-earned dollars and work for free to help shape our plan as we create a campaign that's farther reaching, more focused, and more innovative than anything we've built before.  It is time to rebuild the Obama is Jesus meme of the 21^st century, to reinvent the Obama Personality Cult to draw in as many unthinking Obamabots as I possibly can.

We'll start by doing something unprecedented: coordinating millions of one-on-one conversations between supporters across every single state, with scripts that we provide and you will stick unquestioningly to,  reconnecting old friends, inspiring new naive ones to join the cause, and readying ourselves for next year's fight.  I still have that valuable email list from 2008.

This will be my final campaign, at least as a candidate. Of course, I am counting on all of you to demand a third term and just do away with any more campaigns.  Just make me king.  But the cause of making a lasting difference for our families, our communities, and our country has never been about one person.  I can’t be number one free world leader without legions of fans. And I it will succeed only if we work together.

There will be much more to come as the race unfolds. Today, simply let us know you're in to help us begin, and then spread the word: like good little culties.

http://my.barackobama.com/2012

Thank you,

Barack