So there it was, front page, the announcement about Barack Obama’s campaign strategy for 2012.
I didn’t immediately look at the details as I was waiting for my coffee to brew. After all, I had just written a column about the similarities between Obama’s and FDR’s re-election campaigns.
So, I thought to myself, the announcement has to declare the ultimate survival of the middle class.
The middle class is the easiest to embrace because everyone believes themselves to be part of that group.
Unless you run a hedge fund, have a personal jet at your disposal, or received an invitation to the economic summit in Davos, you more than likely consider yourself part of the mass.
When Walter Mondale wanted to tax the rich, it was defined as a couple making more than $150,000.
At least the bar has been raised by $100,000. Even those folks making Mondale’s level or Obama’s level consider themselves middle class.
For Obama, it has to be “us” against “them” and the bigger the “us” the better. I also thought the time had come for Obama to separate himself from his Wall Street banker buddies.
Big business in general has to be painted as “the forces of privilege and greed.” He has to continue to call on Congress to “wage unnecessary warfare” against “our resplendent economic autocracy” which thought “power for themselves, enslavement for the public.”
Much of the rhetoric can be taken from a speech given by any Occupy Wall Street participant.
I’m sure he’ll use such phrases as “economic royalist,” “privileged princess,” and “over-privileged.”
I thought to myself as the coffee finished brewing, he’s certain to declare “private enterprise” has become “privileged enterprise, not free enterprise.” Coffee finally brewed, and now time to look at the details of the campaign. However, I thought, I’m sure he’ll have to add that the election will be a contest between “the millions who never had a chance” and “organized money.”
As I started to read the details of the campaign, I couldn’t help believe that his message was a good one.
Who wouldn’t be angry at the actions of Goldman Sachs, Ben Bernanke, Jon Corzine and a host of others?
Then I realized, I was starting to fall into the same trap as millions of others. The current problems have been created by the current leaders with a lot of help from the usual gang of Washington hangers-on (Tim Geithner, Larry Summers, etc.)
Much like the Federal Reserve which creates the bubbles and then tries to sell them, so does Barack Obama.
It’s a great strategy, create the mess and then step away while pointing fingers back at others.
I didn’t have to read the rest of the newspaper story since I had already read about FDR’s strategy in 1936.
Obama’s and Roosevelt’s campaigns will be identical, right down to the quotes above. By the way, all quotes taken from 1936 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I’m sure it will convince many, but for me, I will have already seen the outcome, and the picture is not a pretty one.
Now, for another cup of coffee.