Today's early headlines probably aren't helping his headache.
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| Image from foreign policy.com |
"The private sector is doing fine" remark is dominating the news. It is not going away. And it must make the president a little sick to know that his rival is reveling in every second of it.
The president is learning a painful lesson: As a politician, it is disheartening when your opponent finds an effective campaign weapon to discredit you---it is beyond devastating when you hand the weapons to your opponent with words straight from your own mouth.
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It has been a rough couple of weeks for the president. It all began when he unveiled his campaign focus: Attacks on Mitt Romney's business record and his desire to discredit Romney's private equity credentials as legitimate experience for the oval office. Last month, Obama pledged that Mitt Romney's business record "is what this campaign is going to be about."
His strategy began to crumble however, when the resistance came from his most trusted allies. Newark's Mayor and rising star for the Democrats Cory Booker poked the president in the eye when he sat on Meet the Press and said that the president's attacks on private equity made him sick. When he said, "If you look at the record of Bain Capital, they have done a lot to support business, grow business. This kind of stuff is nauseating to me on both sides...Enough is enough. Stop attacking private equity..."
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| WILLIAM B. PLOWMAN / NBC |
Then last week, former President Bill Clinton undermined the president when he said in reference to private equity industry, "I don't think we ought to get into the position where we say this is bad work; this is good work." Clinton went on to say, "A man (Romney) who's been governor and had a sterling business career crosses the qualification threshold for the presidency."
If "this is what this campaign is going to be about," it certainly loses credibility when it it makes even your closest friends sick.
Things progressively got worse with the following events:
- May's dismal Labor Department report showing that the economy is slowing and unemployment rates are actually rising.
- Scott Walker's ability to hold off a recall election in Wisconsin despite a huge Democrat grass root campaign and endorsements from top Democrat officials.
- Despite Obama's open opposition to extending the Bush Tax Cuts, which are set to expire at the end of the year, former President Bill Clinton discredited Obama when he said that he was actually in favor of extending them.
- Mitt Romney beat Obama in fundraising dollars by $17 million.
- Polls show the two leaders tied in every swing state.
But last Friday, the president did more damage to his campaign than all of these events combined. How? He played right into the narrative that Mitt Romney wants to create that Obama doesn't understand the economy. He believes that Obama can't help our economy because he doesn't understand private sector and remains too focused on the government solving our economic problems.
Early last Friday, President Obama called for a spontaneous press conference. I am sure he was hoping to redirect focus away from the events of the past two weeks and instead, use the media to show leadership and command of our economic crisis.
Things didn't exactly go as planned. In just a few simple words, he exposed a window to his core beliefs: Obama is a liberal politician who wants a bigger government.
In the press conference, Obama chastised Congress for failing to pass legislation which would help public sector jobs and then defended that stance because, "the private sector is doing fine."
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| Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images. |
Pundits have been quick to brush off the president's remarks as nothing more than a "gaffe" and have been quite willing to defend him by saying, "What the president meant to say..." or "The point the president was trying to make was that the private sector is performing far better than the public sector."(Washington Post).
The Republican National Committee however, immediately pounced and released this powerful ad saying, "How can President Obama fix our economy, if he doesn't understand what's broken."
Today, Mitt Romney released this powerful campaign ad. Citing that in the month of May, 300,000 more people joined the long-term unemployed.
I have a feeling if we were to ask those 300,000 people, they would not tell us that the private sector is "just fine." It isn't. The private sector is growing at an extremely slow pace of 3%. Sorry Mr. President, this isn't "just fine."
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The president tried to repair the damage and several hours later he said, "It is absolutely clear that the economy is not doing fine. The economy needs to be strengthened. I believe that there are a lot of Americans who are hurting right now. The question then is, what are we going to do about it?"
What he failed to say? How he plans to be the one to do it.
Truth is he has spent $4 trillion dollars trying and his efforts have not worked. His stimulus bill didn't stimulate the economy. His efforts to create jobs have provided only a temporary and artificial boost to jobs. It didn't last. Even his efforts to strengthen public sector jobs have all failed.
How are we supposed to believe that a second term would be different?
Obama no longer has the luxury of his party's control of the House and Senate. The past two years have shown that Obama is nearly incapable of bipartisanship. Furthermore, his incessant finger pointing at Republicans has burned the bridges for future cooperation. Somehow the president has failed to accept that it is very difficult to get someone to rally behind you when you have blamed them for every one of your own missteps.
Why would things be any different in a second term?
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President Obama's statement on Friday was not a gaffe. I don't believe for one second that it didn't accurately reflect his core beliefs. His only "mistake" was that he revealed it in a room full of reporters just a few days after declining jobs numbers.
My advice for the president and his team? Embrace your convictions. Quit acting like Obama is someone he is not. He has become a politician who is no longer fighting for his convictions. He is out of sync with himself and it is obvious that he is not campaigning on his core beliefs. This may come as a shock, but no one is surprised that this president advocates a bigger, stronger government.
Former President Lyndon B. Johnson (Note: this will probably be the only time I ever quote Mr. Johnson), he once said something very powerful about the importance conviction. He said, "What convinces is conviction. Believe in the argument you are advancing. If you don't, you're as good as dead."
I firmly believe that the more this president exposes his convictions and core ideology, the less in line it will be with the average American.
The more the president exposes his core beliefs, the more Mitt Romney's message of prosperity, stability, moral spending and job creation will resonate. The more the president reveals himself--the more it helps Mitt Romney.
So, I would invite the president to continue to make statements that the private sector is doing "just fine." Believe me, Mitt Romney and his allies are doing everything they can to place him back in it. Come January 2013, Obama can let us know firsthand just how "fine" it is.
Go Mitt.
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