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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

The awesome predictability of Conservative spin

On October 12th, our TDS commentator James Vega made three predictions about how Conservatives would respond to an Obama victory. He predicted that they would argue:

1. “the American people don’t really support Barack Obama (they were tricked)…”
2 “true conservatism was not really rejected by the American people (just the overly timid and bumbling John McCain)…”
3. “The Obama administration will be described as basically “illegitimate” and conservatives will assert that they therefore have no obligation to support it”

Now here are some quotes from conservative leader Brent Bozell, interviewed by Fox News after he emerged from a major meeting of top conservatives today in Virginia:

1. “The American people are fiscally conservative, and the fascinating thing, Bill, is that Barack Obama ran as a Reaganite and won over the public as a fiscal conservative.”
2. “Conservatives didn’t play a role in this campaign. This was a moderate Republican against a liberal — a left-wing Democrat, and the left-wing Democrat beat the moderate Republican.”
3. “Barack Obama does not have the mandate to enact the left-wing agenda he wants to enact…”
Interviewer: what if some of these Senate races that still hang in the balance go the Democratic way? …Would you consider that a mandate?
BOZELL: — There’s no question of the power that they now have in Washington. The point is that the American people are still on our side.

Geez, maybe we oughta see about getting some royalties here.

One comment on “The awesome predictability of Conservative spin

  1. ducdebrabant on

    Yes, they’re all saying he has no mandate. The problem is, it doesn’t matter what they’re all saying. He does have a mandate. Can he blow it? Can the public turn against him? Sure. So can any President, even one with a huge mandate.
    The Republicans will only benefit from the unpopularity of Obama’s policies if Obama’s policies prove to be unpopular. If they prove popular, the Republicans can try and sell that “overeaching,” “no mandate,” “misread the public” argument all they want to, but it’s only true if the public votes against the party in 2010 (and even then, it may be anger at the Congressional Dems and not at him) or against Barack in 2012.
    At the moment, it’s as if they’re trying to hypnotize the Democrats into thinking they didn’t win these majorities. “Don’t you dare act as if you have a mandate, don’t you dare try and do anything, look at the watch, listen to my voice, your eyelids are getting heavy …. ”
    You know what? Obama has plenty to do just fulfilling the promises he ran on, and he does have a mandate for those. I don’t know whether they think he doesn’t, or they just think he’s got a secret bag of proposals he’s never breathed a word about, like putting Alistair Crowley on the five dollar bill.

    Reply

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