Will all the right-wing hatred of Obama actually "innoculate" him in November?

[Proud Liberal Dem]

Fox News and the right-wing "Tea Party" has piled so much hatred on President Obama since he was elected POTUS in 2008 and have thrown the proverbial kitchen sink at him many times over and yet he has maintained consistently high personal favorability ratings and decent approval numbers (or at least certainly not abysmal ones). Now comes word that the Koch Brothers and other monied interests (i.e. Super Pacs) are planning to unleash even more of their nuclear arsenal on President Obama during the upcoming election season. My question is, what more can they say about President Obama than what they haven't already? What else are they going to invent to attack him? What's left?

They have no "dirt" on him and/or his Administration despite their attempts to blow Solyndra and/or "Fast & Furious" into major scandals, the whole "birther" argument- aside from a few real loons- has been thoroughly discredited and no credible candidate wants to touch it with a ten foot pole, he's not the "unknown quantity" that he (arguably) was back in 2008 and has a real record of accomplishments and governance to run on, the economy is recovering, albeit slowly, so they can't say that he's wrecked the economy with his policies, he hasn't had any foreign policy blunders and has actually had several successes. What happens now with Iran is anybody's guess but I have little doubt that he will handle whatever happens in a responsible manner (I don't think he wants more and the public seems to be worn out with war too).

Are they basically planning on running against "Barack X" (as Bill Maher aptly put it) and hope that enough people don't notice that "Barack X" doesn't even exist? Of course, running against "Barack X" is essentially what they've been doing since day one IMHO and it's clear that enough people haven't been fooled into believing that this fictional person even exists. How is the right-wing going to put their candidate up against Barack Obama in a debate and make him look like "Barack X"? Have the right-wingers, the Rush Limbaughs, Sean Hannitys, et. al spewed so much venom at and about Barack Obama that most people will largely tune it out and/or stop being affected by it- like it's become "background noise"? Last I heard, ratings for right-wing "hate radio" are largely on the decline and, heck, Glenn Beck even ended up being too crazy for FOX NEWS!!


Despite the pervasive nature and influence of the right-wing and even the mainstream media apparatus, I think that most people, when they hear President Obama adress, really can't believe what the right-wing is saying about him is true and any additional attempts to smear him are ultimately going to be futile.

Thoughts? Opinions? What do you think the GOP and their business allies have waiting in the wings for Obama during the GE? The same smears, lies, innuendos (just more of them), or something new that we haven't seen before?

[unblock]

1. yeah, because once bigots get it out of their system, they're models of tolerance and acceptance

[Proud Liberal Dem]

4. I'm not quite sure what you are referring to

That wasn't the point of my OP, at least AFAIK.

[unblock]

6. negative smears generally reinforce over time rather than running out of steam.

they've got a ready-made negative narratives for anything bad coming out of the white house.
fabricated out of whole cloth, of course, but the narratives are out there.
they will continue to reinforce them.

democrats in general and obama in particular must be nearly perfect because any misstep is not seen as an isolated incident (even if it is) because of the negative memes republicans keep pushing. any scandal fits into a story that's already there. even if it was crap before, if there's any truth at all to a future scandal, it seems to fit a pattern, so its impact is much greater than it would be without those narratives.

for this reason, republicans will keep pushing the narratives.

as long as there's nothing to it, those who believe will continue to believe them; those who don't will continue to ignore them.

but if there's an actual scandal, we'll lose a lot of support. this is why democrats often can't survive scandals.

republicans will not let up. there's nothing to be gained for them by treating obama with respect. it's simply not in their playbook.

[Live and Learn]

2. I think that once President Obama starts campaigning

and people hear from an intelligent and sensible being instead of the clown show they have been forced to listen to there will be a collective sigh of relief heard throughout the country.

[DCBob]

3. Probably. They have been bashing this guy for 3+ years and his approvals are fine.

Most people like the President and the over-the-top hate bashing just comes off as political sour grapes.

[Gman]

5. The harder they pressed to impeach Clinton, the higher his ratings went

IIRC, he was upwards of 80% approval at the height of the impeachment. There is this thing called "diminishing returns" that the RW doesn't get.

[Ebadlun]

8. Short term it helped Clinton

However, they succeeded in propagating the meme that the WH had become in some way sullied, which helped GWB a couple of years later and ushered in a period of total Republican dominance. Laughable, yes, but enough people believed it.

[Douglas Carpenter]

7. That’s pretty much what happened with Clinton and I suspect it is happening with Obama

I think that if the Monica Lewinsky affair had been the first scandal that the Republicans brought up to try to bring down Bill Clinton - it would have really damaged him and might have even lead to him being forced to step down from office. But by the time the Lewinsky affair became public - the American public were just about fed up with the Republican Party's endless fishing expedition and relentless crazy attacks - When the Republicans finally had something that was more or less true that could plausibly be used against him - nobody wanted to hear it. It's kind of like having a crazy gossipy neighbor who rages constantly against some nice quite person in the neighborhood with every conceivable accusation and insinuation imaginable - then finally after years of this one of the accusations turns out to be more or less true - by that point it's like the boy who cried "wolf" - nobody wants to hear it and nobody is interested.

When all is done and said even most of those who disapprove of President Obama's policies are not going to believe that he an evil man with some hidden sinister agenda. They are only making themselves look crazy or disingenuous.

[KharmaTrain]

9. The Poutrage Has Become Background Noise

Except for the political junkies who watch the cables for the "reality show" that they claim is "news" the majority of Americans have long tuned out the partisan noise for what it is...noise. While negative advertising has been shown to work, it has to has some grain of truth to grab onto...which hasn't been the case with their attacks on President Obama.

The rushpublican's biggest problem is who they are. They're the ones who have the negatives they ignore at their own peril. Many still read their press clippings of 2010 and think an off year election is somehow a mandate of things to come. The longer their demolition derby of a primary season goes along the worse damage they do to whomever is the candidate who will spend as much time trying to unite their party than trying to go after President Obama.

I'm hoping the Kochs spend like drunke sailors and get little for their return. The negative tone will become a turn-off without some kind of positive message in its place. The more they spend, the more they expose themselves and become an issue among themselves. While the economy improves, economic disparity WILL be a big issue this year and the resentment to the very rich is very real in this country.