Yes, it was a political train wreck. First Thoughts nicely summarized the official launch of President Barack Obama’s political campaign:
*** Obama’s terrible campaign week: The campaign roll out over the weekend went well. Despite Republicans talking about the empty seats at Ohio State, he still draw four times the crowds (if not more) than Romney. But then Biden’s gay-marriage comments stepped on that roll out. Yesterday, when Obama traveled to Albany, he looked energy-less, almost like he realized what he was proposing was going nowhere or what he was proposing would get no attention thanks to Biden and gay marriage. And to top it off, some felon gets 40% in West Virginia. This is not how they envisioned the campaign roll out week going. It’s reminiscent of all the bad day AFTER primary days Romney accumulated this year. The good news for the Obama White House: a pretty good national security feat in Yemen; of course, now they have to clean up the mess that’s been created by the public leaking of the fact the CIA and its allies had a double-agent working for them.
As I’ve noted in other posts, the Democrats have a habit of reverting to an old pattern. They get upset at someone who’s running for President over an issue or two and decide to teach their party a lesson. They are then pushed into the political wilderness as Republicans get their hands on the levers of power and appoint Supreme Court justices, use the bully pulpit, put GOPers into the bureaucracy and ease the public’s acceptance of conservative ideas foward an inch by an inch. You can see the inklings now of some Democrats refusing to give money to the Obama campaign over his not coming out squarly for gay marriage or sitting on their hands. Republicans generally don’t lose their sights on the Supreme Court or, in the final analysis, their ideological long game. It looks like some Democrats are ready to teach their party (and themselves) a lesson again.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.