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applegrove

(118,022 posts)
Mon May 28, 2012, 10:22 PM May 2012

Hope: The Sequel, for Obama & Co., this time around it’s all about fear By John Heilemann at NY Mag.

Hope: The Sequel

For Obama & Co., this time around it’s all about fear.

By John Heilemann at New York Magazine

http://nymag.com/news/features/barack-obama-2012-6/


"SNIP..........................................................

David Plouffe sits in his White House office, just a few steps from the Oval, staring at an oversize map of these United States. It’s late afternoon on May 9, two hours after Barack Obama’s declaration that his evolution on gay marriage has reached its terminus. The president is down the hall and on the phone, discussing his decision’s theological implications with several prominent African-American pastors—while Plouffe is being queried about its political dimensions by a querulous Caucasian reporter. The map at which Plouffe is gazing isn’t the electoral kind with the states shaded blue and red; as a federal employee, he notes wryly, “I’m not permitted to have one on the wall.” But given the way his head is hardwired, I’m pretty sure Plouffe is seeing those colors regardless.

The question of whether Obama’s new stance narrows or widens his path to victory in November is one that Plouffe and his comrades have been agonizing over since early this year, when their boss returned from vacation and told them he wanted to take the plunge. The possible political benefits are clear: jazzing up young voters, ginning up gay dollars. As are the costs: turning off socially conservative Democrats and independents, particularly in four pivotal swing states—Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina, and Virginia. But as to the net effect of the announcement on Obama’s ability to accumulate 270 electoral votes, his adjutants are unable to render a firm verdict. “I think there is more upside potential than downside potential,” Plouffe says. “But is there a scenario where it’s harder? Yes.”

Such scenarios don’t rest easily with Plouffe, the nothing-to-chance operative who rose to prominence as Obama’s 2008 campaign manager. Since returning to the fold after a two-year hiatus in January 2011, Plouffe has seen his boss’s approval ratings rise (to a high of 53 percent, according to Gallup, after Osama bin Laden’s killing) and fall (to a low of 38 percent after last summer’s debt-ceiling debacle and the downgrade of America’s credit rating) and rise again. But all along, his message to his colleagues has been the same: 2012 was destined to be a corset-tight election.

SKIP .............................................................

Whatever the causes, the consequences for Obama may prove dire. Burton reckons that, in the end, the cumulative spending on the Democratic side will be about $1 billion, compared with maybe $1.6 billion on the Republican side. And while the latter may be exaggerated for effect—other savvy Democrats put the GOP figure at more like $1.3 billion—there’s little doubt in either partisan camp that we are about to witness the improbable development of an incumbent president’s being financially overmatched.

...........................................................SNIP"
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