Who built it?

A truly great ad from the Romney campaign:



Now, to hammer home this point, day after day, so that the mass of Americans truly learn what Obama believes.

Defining moments

Pat Sajak at Ricochet:

It's as if President Obama climbed into a tank, put on his helmet, talked about how his foray into Cambodia was seared in his memory, looked at his watch, misspelled "potato" and pardoned Richard Nixon all in the same day. It's fun to imagine the hand-wringing that must be going on within the White House as staffers try to figure out how to undo the damage their boss has done with his anti-entrepenurial riff. Defining moments in politics are strange beasts. Sometimes they're only recognized in hindsight, while sometimes they throw the train off the tracks before a sentence has been completed. Sometimes their effect can be contained and minimized, while sometimes their effect on the political narrative mestastasizes. This one is very bad for the White House.

These defining moments take hold most devastatingly when they confirm what a large portion of the electorate already believes. Taken alone, it seems unfair that a single moment, an unguarded remark or a slip of the tongue can carry such weight. They're often dismissed as "gotcha" moments, but when voters are able to nod and say, "I knew it," these moments stick and do terrible damage. We have witnessed such a moment.

Well put. 

Damager in Chief

Paul Mirengoff at Powerline has a insightful piece on Obama's pandering to the Hispanic vote.  One takeaway:

The overriding damage is to our system of government and to respect for the law. In the topsy-turvy world created by Obama’s pandering, the president abdicates his responsibility to enforce the law, leaving states holding the bag. And when states that try to fill the breach, Obama not only punishes them as entities – by ending all meaningful federal cooperation – but also encourages attacks on state law enforcement personnel as individuals.

All of this because Obama needs the votes of Hispanics.

and

What additional benefits and exemptions from obligations would future Obamas confer on Hispanics if they become an even larger portion of the electorate? What new lawless decrees would future demagogues in the Obama tradition issue to satisfy this politically powerful underclass?

The answers should be sufficiently frightening to cause Republicans (and Democrats with a decent regard for our traditions and our system of government) to vow never to grant illegal aliens a path to citizenship.

The Democratic party ceased to be a party to represent the interests of American citizens.  What it has become is an ad-hoc amalgamation of special interests and voting blocs, with the goal of getting enough groups to make up 51% of the electorate.

Sad that it has come to this.

Outsourcer in Chief

One of the campaign mantras of the Obama campaign is that Romney is a "serial outsourcer".  Turns out that a proven outsourcer lives at 1600 Pennsylvania:

The Obama campaign spent nearly $4,700 on telemarketing services from a Canadian telemarketing company called Pacific East between March and June, a Washington Free Beacon study of federal election filings shows.

Pacific East is not the only foreign telemarketing firm raking in cash from the president’s reelection campaign. Obama paid a call center in Manila, Philippines $78,314.10 for telemarketing services between the start of the campaign and March

Scratch a Democrat, find a hypocrite.  Too bad the MSM won't bother to report this.

Thanks to the Washington Free Beacon for the story.

Just another day at the office

From Keith Koffler at White House Dossier comes this schedule for The One's day.

Obama Schedule || Tuesday, June 26, 2012

9:05 am || Departs Boston
11:15 am || Arrives Atlanta
1:25 pm || Delivers remarks at a fundraiser; Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel
2:10 pm || Appears at a fundraiser; Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel
3:35 pm || Departs Atlanta
5:10 pm || Arrives Miami
5:45 pm || Attends a fundraiser; private residence
8:30 pm || Delivers remarks at a fundraiser; The Fillmore Miami Beach at the Jackie Gleason Theater
9:45 pm || Departs Miami
12:10 am || Arrives Washington
All times Eastern

Koffler reported that Obama had already been to over 100 fundraisers already this year.  And another four on this day.  Would someone please tell our president that there's a country to run?  On the other hand, if he's out on the road, there's less chance for him to screw something up again.

Fundraising

John Hinderaker posts at Powerline about the status of fundraising in the 2012 election.  One of his observations:

Democrats are odd: they think it is a fine thing when unions extract dues from members against their will and use that money to advocate for liberal ideas with which many union members disagree. On the other hand, they think it is dirty pool when conservatives spend their own money to advocate the ideas that they believe in.

There's more in the story on the absurd conclusions of the Democrat fundraisers.  Read it.

Today's Bumper Sticker

Found at the Feral Irishman.

Hecklers

Mitt Romney had some hecklers at a campaign stop in Michigan.  And he did a great job of turning the tables back on them:



I like the spirit.  During the primaries, I kept feeling that Romney was playing defense - trying not to lose.  And so the fire wasn't there.  Now, he's playing to win and you can see that he wants to take it to his opponents on the Left.

I wonder what the president's teleprompter would have said in the same circumstance?

Hat tip to Katrina Trinko at The Corner.

With the folk

From the wonderful Mark Steyn at NRO:

According to Brendan J. Doherty’s forthcoming book The Rise of the President’s Permanent Campaign, Obama has held more fundraisers than the previous five presidents’ reelection campaigns combined.

This is all he does now. But hey, unlike those inbred monarchies with their dukes and marquesses and whatnot, at least he gets out among the masses. Why, in a typical week, you’ll find him at a fundraiser at George Clooney’s home in Los Angeles with Barbra Streisand and Salma Hayek. These are people who are in touch with the needs of ordinary Americans because they have played ordinary Americans in several of their movies. And then only four days later the president was in New York for a fundraiser hosted by Ricky Martin, the only man on the planet whose evolution on gayness took longer than Obama’s. It’s true that moneyed celebrities in, say, Pocatello or Tuscaloosa have not been able to tempt the president to hold a lavish fundraiser in Idaho or Alabama, but he does fly over them once in a while. Why, only a week ago, he was on Air Force One accompanied by Jon Bon Jovi en route to a fundraiser called Barack on Broadway.

Read the whole article HERE.

Wintour updated

Powerline brings us an updated version, undoubtedly unauthorized, of the Anna Wintour dinner video.



Too damned good.

More on "The Dinner"

The Obama fundraising New York dinner keeps spawning new articles that skewer the campaign. Pundit & Pundette cite John Podhoretz in the New York Post, then add in their own commentary. First up, bits from Podhoretz:

Wearing a hair helmet that makes her look like a Roman centurion with a ’20s bob, Wintour attempts what might pass for a smile on the planet Vulcan and intones Britishly: “I’m so lucky in my work that I get to meet some of the most incredible women in the world — women like Sarah Jessica Parker and Michelle Obama.”

This seems like grading on a curve in a world that includes Aung San Suu Kyi and my mother, but fine, we’ll let that go.

“These two wonderful women and I, along with the president, are hosting a dinner in New York City to benefit the Obama campaign," she continues. Given her relative lack of fame compared to those two women, Wintour seems to be punching above her co-hostess weight here, but we’ll let that go, too.

But why, pray tell, is Wintour informing the nation of a dinner to which the nation will not be invited, and at which, one might surmise from the eating habits of the rich and famous, the menu will include a salad of three lettuce leaves without dressing with a Tic Tac for dessert?

“It’ll be a fantastic evening, and you can join us,” she says. What? Actually dine with Anna Wintour — a woman who, it is said, will have you fired if you dare to speak to her in the Condé Nast elevator? Will she even bother to look at you? In the commercial, she can barely bring herself to look at the camera.

Of course she will! “We’re saving the two best seats in the house for you,” she says — by which she must mean the seats near the kitchen. Either those, or the ones at a table featuring whichever Condé Nast editor is getting canned next.

Podhoretz then gets to the heart of the pitch:

Then comes the kicker: “You have to enter to win. Enter right now at BarackObama dot com, slash New York Night.”

And there we have it. The Obama campaign has become a raffle. The winning prize is dinner with Wintour and those other people (movie star, president, his wife). And as in all raffles, you present something valuable of yours as the means of entry.

In this case, that means personal information about yourself for the Obama campaign to capture and then pester you within an inch of your life between now and November.

Here’s why this is interesting. Sweepstakes contests of this sort are a specific and old-fashioned form of direct marketing. They use a shiny prize to lure in rubes who can’t possibly win for the purpose of capturing their names on a mailing list that can then be turned around and sold to others.

The pitch is off-pitch. The hilariously wrongheaded tone and ridiculous use of Anna Wintour suggest a surprising tone-deafness at Obama HQ in Chicago.

Pundette then adds:

Afterthought: I failed to grasp, until talking with husband as we drove to the bus stop this morning, the most absurd and even insulting aspect of Obama's "New York Night": that it's an attempt to appeal to Women. This is what the Obama campaign believes matters to women voters:

Stylish clothes (and accessories!)
Fashion magazines
Celebrities who wear glamorous clothes (and accessories)
Actresses, especially actresses who star in TV shows about "relationships" and  expensive clothes (especially shoes)

And you thought women cared about kids, jobs, the high cost of gas and groceries, and all that boring stuff.

Too much fun.  Read the full posts.

Hope has changed

American Crossroads has been producing one great video after another.  This one riffs off Hope & Change and the Obama quote “If you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone you should run from.”

Watch for yourself.



Using The One's own words is so effective.

Hat tip to The Lonely Conservative.

Obama's Strategy

Stolen from Grouchy Old Cripple in Atlanta.

Fundraiser in Chief

From Keith Koffler at White House Dossier:

With Republicans steamrollering ahead with a group of well-fed Super Pacs and an increasingly successful money effort by Mitt Romney, President Obama Friday will attend six fundraisers, a possible sign of budding desperation for a campaign that is lagging far behind its initial fundraising expectations.

Obama will travel to Minneapolis, where he will ensconce himself at the Bachelor Farmer Restaurant for three successive fundraising events. Afterward, he moves on to Chicago for a fundraiser at the Chicago Cultural Center and then two events at what appear to be separate private residences.

In April, Obama’s fundraising total actually declined by nearly $10 million from the $53 million he took in during March.

Meanwhile, Romney raised $40.1 million in April, nearly on pace with Obama.

Before heading to Minneapolis, Obama will hold an event at the Honeywell Golden Valley Facility in Golden Valley, Minnesota, where he will call on Congress to pass his “To Do List” of economic proposals.

And, of course, that speech at Honeywell will be an "official" visit, thus paid for by us, the taxpayers.

Michael Ramirez of IBD nails that one:

 

Most transparent....ever

From BuzzFeed Politics comes news of the physical shakedown of donors....or at least their electronics:

In the latest attempt to crack down on potentially embarrassing digital leaks from presidential fundraisers, President Barack Obama's campaign has begun asking donors attending small fundraisers with the president to turn over their cell phones before entering.

Pool reporter David Nakamura of the Washington Post reported that at a $35,800 a head fundraiser at the home of Blackstone COO Hamilton “Tony” James in New York City Monday night, the 60 attendees were asked to place their phones in plastic bags by the door.

An Obama aide called the move it "standard operating procedure," but veterans of a range of other campaigns said they'd never heard of the practice, which is common in secure White House spaces where there are concerns of espionage, but unknown in contexts in which only political secrets are discussed. The new prevalence of sophisticated audio and recording capacities in mobile devices owned by virtually anyone wealthy enough to write a check to a political campaign, however, has put a new pressure on campaigns concerned with staying on a public message.

The fundraising sessions are one of the last vestige of privacy for the president outside of the White House, and a rare opportunity for top donors to hear relatively unscripted remarks by the most powerful man in the world, and to ask him questions. Obama's prepared remarks at the events are open press and covered by a small group of reporters, but the "press pool" is escorted out of the room before the Q&A period.

At Romney fundraisers, attendees are greeted to signs of "Please, no audio or video recording," and like Obama events, larger fundraisers are open to reporters; a Romney spokesperson, however, told BuzzFeed that their campaign allows donors to keep their phones during fundraisers.

Former aides to presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Rick Perry, and Jon Huntsman all expressed surprise at the practice, and they've never seen an instance where a campaign asked donors to surrender their cell phones.

The former Clinton aide called the Obama policy "absurd," suggesting that the Obama policy is almost certainly a response to the infamous 2008 fundraiser where Obama described voters in rural Pennsylvania as "bitter."

Yep.  Can't allow the public to know what you really think.  Or at least those bitter clingers.

Hat tip to Legal Insurrection via I Own the World.

Running on Empty

The Obama economy....running on empty.

The Romney campaign has shown that it is willing to throw The One's words back at him, and expose it as hot air.  I only hope they turn up the heat even more in the months ahead.

From Moonbattery and Red State.

Calculator in Chief

The calculating side of Barack Obama came to the fore this past week.  As noted by the ever-observant Richard Fernandez:

Perhaps the cruelest thing about President Obama’s “evolution” on the gay marriage issue was the element of cold calculation. Trapped between alienating the white, liberal gay establishment and dissing the black churches who were anti-gay marriage, he decided to curry favor with the white, gay and moneyed constituency because deep in his heart he knew that no matter how hard he stepped on them the black community would not abandon him.

Having now sided with the people who call these black pastors and congregations “bigots,” especially in North Carolina where two-thirds of black voters supported Amendment One, Obama is not at risk of having them flip to Mitt Romney — but he does risk losing that enthusiasm, fundraising, and organization.

It would not of course have worked the other way. Had he sold out the gay community there would have been hell to pay. The lesson everyone should learn is this: cheat on the girl who loves you the most. She’ll forgive you. Ask Elizabeth Edwards.

Yep.  Follow the money.  I can see Obama and Axelrod crunching the numbers, both votes and dollars, and deciding what way to go.

Calculation was always part of Obama’s rise to power. His priorities appear to have been him, him, him and himself. Anything else was a distant second. After the contents of Jeremiah Wright’s sermons were revealed to his embarrassment, the candidate denied ever hearing anything while attending his church. Then Obama sent an emissary to pay Wright to clam up and avoid the press.

Read the whole article here at PJ Media.

The Obama Store

From the great cartoon website Hope n Change Cartoons:

Campaign Poster

From Maksim at The People's Cube:

Hat tip to Moonbattery.

More Irony

From The Weekly Standard:

President Obama is attending a fundraiser today in New York City that will be hosted by Hamilton E. James, the chief operating officer and president of Blackstone. The financial firm Blackstone is "one of the world's largest private equity fund businesses," according to its website.

But ironically, Obama today is using Mitt Romney's background in private equity as the basis of an attack on his Republican rival.

"In a career of buying and selling companies, Romney’s pattern was to reap quick profits for himself and his investors at the expense of workers and communities," the Obama campaign says of Romney's record in a campaign ad out today. "Sometimes it meant sending American jobs overseas. Other times, it meant cutting wages and benefits. In Romney’s economic philosophy, CEOs and wealthy investors prosper by any means necessary, even when it meant companies failed and workers were left behind. Romney believes in two sets of rules – one for people like him, another for everyone else."

As Politico describes the new line of attack, "The Obama campaign is launching a multi-pronged, multimedia attack on Mitt Romney's record as a private equity buyout specialist."

Yet considering President Obama's New York City fundraiser with private equity money men, it seems more than a bit ironic that Romney is today being targeted with this line of attack.

More of the hypocrisy that is modern liberalism.