Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 10:35 pm
Check out all of these totally bummed out, unenthused Obama supporters in St Petersburg, Florida today for Obama’s rally. Man, if only Obama had passed out free mitts! He mighta been a contender.
Click on image to enlarge:
And this:
Riding the pumped up wave from his convention, Obama appeared in St. Pete with former Republican Florida Governor Charlie Crist, much to the further annoyance of conservatives, who have denounced Crist as the anti-Christ for refusing to join them in their unapatriotic attempt to destroy America’s economy in order to punish the American people for electing President Obama.
The mainstream media is very busy concern trolling the clearly hyper patriotic and all-American Democratic Convention, which managed to take back foreign policy, social issues, the military, the troops, and keeping Americans safe from the Republicans. It wasn’t just that the Democrats put on a good show, it was that the show was a joyous celebration of the last four years of their policies. This administration has been champions of our veterans, taking care of our troops, protecting women’s rights, getting rid of DADT, giving DREAMERS a chance, trying to put American back to work, championing and protecting our manufacturing industry, honoring the American ideals of opportunity and hard work, civic responsibility — including taking care of the weakest among us — and economic fairness.
Perhaps the media didn’t notice it, but the chants of USA! USA! at the DNC were not to celebrate the war machine or big oil as they were in past Republican events; but rather cheering the people who serve our country — whether they be troops, teachers, or firefighters. This subtle but important difference lent the occasion a spirit of joy and togetherness. It was indeed a celebration of patriots- countrymen and women, coming together to celebrate the best of their beloved nation.
So terrified were Republicans by the swell of proud patriotism and inclusion at the DNC that they’ve been desperately rooting underground for ways to depress the spirit. What else do Republicans do but depress spirit these days? They can’t have you people feeling good. Misery loves company.
Romney, who claimed he did not watch the speech but still felt qualified to criticize it, falsely suggested that President Obama “hardly even mentioned the economy and jobs”. According to C-SPAN, the economy made up the largest segment of Obama’s speech.
But of course, since Republicans killed over 1,000,000 jobs by refusing to pass Obama’s Jobs Bill, they figure this is a win for Romney to now blame Obama for their deliberate obstruction.
At the DNC, Clinton said, “Last year the Republicans blocked the president’s job plan, costing the economy more than a million new jobs.”
This is, it turns out, quite true:
Two independent economists — Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics and Joel Prakken of Macroeconomics Advisers — had estimated that Obama’s proposed American Jobs Act would add more than 1 million jobs. Zandi claimed it would add 1.9 million jobs; Prakken 1.3 million. Senate Republicans blocked the $447 billion measure, and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell denounced it as “a charade that’s meant to give Democrats a political edge” in 2012.
But we never hear the media ask Republicans about their jihad against job creation. The media lets Republicans rattle their well-rehearsed talking points about blaming Obama for the economy and jobs, but they never ask why Republicans ran on jobs in 2010 and then never proposed one single jobs bill, and indeed killed Obama’s jobs bill — forcing Obama to break it down into little, itty, bitty parts so that Obama could at least force them into voting yes for jobs for veterans. They didn’t want to be on record as voting against jobs for veterans, but Republicans were happy to let the rest of America burn for their cause. By the way, the jobs bill for veterans has been exceptionally effective. Kinda makes you wonder how well the rest of the country might be doing if only Republicans had signed the actual Obama jobs act.
For years we’ve been hearing about the enthusiasm gap for Obama, as Republicans once again manage to get the media to carry water for the only narrative that might help them. You see, Obama is personally very likeable. The polls show him with a large lead over Romney in likeability. So Republicans need to destroy that image. They’ve gone about this in a number of ways, and spent the last four years lying about the President and attacking him over absolutely ridiculous charges like his super, duper long form birth certificate and his never proven anti-Colonial beliefs and imaginary death-panels.
The media duly reported all of these things as if they were relevant and worth debating, and now they’re duly reporting that indeed, their spreading of these inaccurate smears did in fact peel off some of Obama’s support.
Huh.
No matter — the people still trust this President, they are still fired up and what they really, really want is for Republicans to stop obstructing democracy. The people elected Obama in 2008 because they wanted the policies he ran on. The Republicans refused to allow the people what they voted for and now they want the people to be mad at Obama for that, when in reality, the people should be asking Republicans why they hate democracy so much.
Since we can’t get the Republicans to stop having secret meetings wherein they plot the demise of the country in order to keep Obama a one-term president, our only course of action is to show them the door this election and see what this President can get done without an obstructionist Republican Party blocking every policy that we voted for.
And it’s not as if the Democratic Party is not a big enough tent to still have vigorous debate; the party has conservative Dems, liberal Dems, recovering Republicans, and just about every American represented within it now. Except for the fundamentalist crazies basing economic policy on an adolescent fanboy novel (hello, Paul Ryan) who are currently running the House of Representatives into the ground. And hey, we could do without them for a while.
Yes, folks, get a good look at the enthusiasm gap and how Obama is “falling flat” when he speaks to the American people as if they are grown ups who can handle the truth. Oh, and that’s just one more thing the Democrats stole from the Republicans — they are now the grown ups in the room, the folks who pay the bills first, the people who tie policy to rhetoric, and the only people working for the actual American people.
Hands waving, people crying, women cheering, chants of “four more years” — it’s all so flat, according to the media. I mean, heck, wouldn’t you rather be on Ford field with Romney and his woebegone, angry and confused followers who still don’t know who he is or what he stands for, but they do know that he is their only choice if they really, really hate what they’ve been told about the fictional Obama.
Bad chair.
Photos: Oliver Knox, White House Correspondent for Yahoo News, via Camera+ for the iPhone
Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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