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Marco Rubio's chances of becoming Mitt Romney's running mate just got a little worse. Granted, he is still a senator from Florida -- the biggest prize among the "battleground" states this November. But Rubio's signature issue was just completely and brilliantly co-opted by President Obama, which tends to significantly lessen Rubio's value to Romney as a vice presidential choice.
Obama is positioning himself as the candidate in the race who tells the truth to the American public, and contrasting himself with Romney's unsupportable spin. Obama should keep up this pressure, and sprinkle every speech he makes with such "this is not political spin" statements. It is an effective rhetorical tool for him to use, and I would encourage his re-election team to use it as frequently as possible. Sooner or later, the media may even take notice.
Where are the grand messages of the campaigns? Being held in reserve for the post-convention season, perhaps? That's at least an understandable answer, but ultimately not a very satisfying one. Neither Obama nor Romney has yet clearly articulated what their big ideas are for the next four years, and both of them are missing the chance to pound their message into the American psyche for the next two or three months.
So, anything happen while I was away? Well, we'll get to all of that in due time, but today I'm going to indulge in some random reactions from the Netroots Nation conference instead. If this sort of thing does not interest you, then I guess you should check back tomorrow.
I certainly said a lot more than just this to the guy, but then again I can't complain, since he ran with one of the quotes I gave him. Would have been nice if he had spelled my name right, though....
[Program Note: Continuing our look back to four years ago, here is one of the more fun columns I've ever had to research. This originally ran on June 6, 2008.]
[Program Note: We continue with our look back to what was happening four years ago in the 2008 election during June. The following was certainly a fun column to write, and originally ran on June 5, 2008.]
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[Program Note: From today until next Monday, we will be re-running columns as we attend Netroots Nation. We decided that it was worth a look all the way back to the 2008 election season, so we just went back to June, 2008 and dug a few columns out. The first of these ran on June 2, right before the final Democratic primary of the year. Barack Obama had yet to "cross the finish line," but he was a lot closer than Hillary Clinton. So turn your thoughts back to four years ago, and enjoy my final primary pick of the 2008 season.]
-- Chris Weigant
I'm putting together column re-runs for the next week here, but I am bowing to popular pressure and declaring what could be a first for this site -- and actual open thread, to discuss the Wisconsin election results. Have at it...
May was not all that exceptional a month for Barack Obama, poll-wise. Both approval and disapproval rates were up slightly, but not significantly. It is a bit odd to have both numbers increase within the same month, but this is mostly due to the fact that the numbers themselves are so close to being even (statistically, this does odd things right around the point where they perfectly balance).