"Actually, Obama is Running a Positive Campaign " Obama 70% pos, 30% neg; MR 27% pos, 73% neg

[Pirate Smile]

Actually, Obama is Running a Positive Campaign

On CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday, President Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod, took issue with Bob Schieffer’s suggestion that the reelection campaign is being driven by negative ads. Schieffer looked positively flummoxed by Axelrod’s claim that the overwhelming majority of the ads run so far have been positive. “So you’re saying you’re running a positive campaign?!” Schieffer asked, incredulously. “I think we are,” Axelrod replied.

That may be hard to believe, given the tsunami of attention that greeted the president’s negative ad about Mitt Romney’s tenure at Bain Capital. But Axelrod is right.

According to Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group, a total of 63,793 ads have been broadcast since the start of the general election campaign on April 10th. Through May 24th, those spots were almost perfectly split between positive and negative: 51 percent of them were positive 49 percent negative. This week, CMAG crunched the numbers a bit further, breaking them down by partisan affiliation. And that revealed something interesting: Democrats are running a largely positive campaign, while Republicans are running a mostly negative one:

Democratic presidential advertisers aired 35,936 ads. Of these, 70 percent (25,092) were positive and 30 percent (10,844) were negative.
Republican presidential advertisers aired 27,857 ads. Of these, 27 percent (7,584) were positive and 73 percent (20,273) were negative.
 

So why, if Obama is running overwhelming positive ads, does the media coverage leave the impression that the campaign has been overwhelmingly negative? Axelrod provided a clue. He said that the positive ads have been running mostly in the battleground states–where national media big wigs like Bob Schieffer don’t see them.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-06-03/actually-obama-is-running-a-positive-campaign

There goes our "liberal" media again.

[elleng]

1. However its perceived,

Dems MUST counter all the negative B.S. repugs run, as well as provide positive substance. Must set record straight about bain, rmoney's lack of relevant experience, AND impossibility of knowing what he will do, as one never knows where the wind will blow.

[Mutiny In Heaven]

3. To put a spin on a well known expression

Forget about possession, perception is nine tenths of the law.

It really hurts my brain that the GOP are able to mould perception that runs counter to reality. It's astonishing, it's ridiculous and it's disgusting. So, so sad.

[elleng]

8. I agree, Mutiny.

See Bill Moyers Today now, discussion w Jonathan Haidt.

[otohara]

20. MSM Perpetuates The Big Fat Lie

.... Unaccountable punditry run amok 24/7

[MannyGoldstein]

2. Two reasons for this

1. The campaign has been primarily been about Obama's effectiveness as the incumbent.
2. Obama is hamstrung on attacking Romney as a parasite since his proxies (Booker, Clinton, ...) won't attack the parasites that pay their bills.

[Mutiny In Heaven]

4. To address point #2...

That is sadly inevitable, I think. For me, the best line of attack will be to make Romney into a joke figure. Change tact and go heavy on his inability to stick to a position for more than five minutes. Paint him as weak, indecisive and do it to a backdrop of farcical music.

Once someone is perceived as a figure of fun it is very, very hard to recover from. You can wrangle your way out of a straight battle on the issues, recovering from the notion that you're an utter joke is much tougher.

They made Jimmy Carter into a joke, Walter Mondale was seen as useless, Howard Dean became a laughing stock post-scream and if I may use examples from Britain, Michael Foot, Neil Kinnock, John Major, William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Gordon Brown all, at one point or other, gained the perception of political loser during the media dominated period the last 30-odd years have been, and one tarred with that brush, all were finished.

[MannyGoldstein]

5. Obama can go after Romney as a parasite - but first

he must destroy a Democrat who gets out of line.

Obama has a record of being conciliatory toward all (except the crazy Left as he defines us). Until Democrats, Republicans and corporations know that they cross him at their own peril, he'll get nothing done.

[Mutiny In Heaven]

6. In theory you're right

But the Democratic Party is rife with people who just love to go off message, especially, it would seem, when you question business ethics in any way, shape or form. If Obama tells them to shut up, he'll be portrayed as a loose canon, a dogmatic lunatic. If the party could just, for once, show something approaching the unity the Republicans do, this would be a breeze. But they can't.

[MannyGoldstein]

7. I think it can be done

Or at least tried.

LBJ inherited an obstructionist Congress. Know how he got civil rights legislation through?

[treestar]

9. Imagine how much more he could have gotten

Had he not been an asshole.

Those pics show him to be a bully - why are you touting that?

[MannyGoldstein]

10. LBJ didn't get much done?

The Civil Rights Act

The Voting Rights Act

Universal single-payer health care for everyone 65 and older (Medicare)

Universal single-payer health care for the indigent (Medicaid)

National Endowment for the Arts

Public Broadcasting

Major consumer and environmental protections

And tons of other stuff

[treestar]

11. And he could have done more had he not been an asshole

Most people resist someone who treats them like that. They do all they can to oppose that person. LBJ had a huge majority in Congress and he squandered a lot of advances that could have been made by alienating those people.

Would you want to be treated that way? You're saying you'd go along with a person who treated you like that?

And yet nothing President Obama gets is ever enough. Why isn't LBJ getting crap for what he failed to get by treating people like shit?

How is it possible for a liberal or progressive to boast the LBJ was a bully and show those pics like it's a good thing he did?

[MannyGoldstein]

12. In your opinion, how much has Obama gotten done

compared to LBJ? Do you think civil rights legislation was a downhill cakewalk with southern Democrats? Here's what LBJ did when he was told to drop it, he'd lose: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002631385

Do you really think that great things get done without some pressure and ruffled feathers? Can you point to a few?

We'll never know for sure, but if Obama had acted like LBJ, there's be no Congressional obstruction today. Republicans would be terrified.

[treestar]

17. Obama had no where near a similar Congress

Obama would not act like that, he is not an asshole.

Republicans would not be "terrified."

You are actually praising bullying and keeping other people in fear to do what you want, even though they want to do it, and advocating that for people's elected representatives.

[Arkana]

14. That stubbornness is a double-edged sword.

It kept us in Vietnam when a less-bullheaded man might have listened to the anti-war movement.

And Lyndon Johnson benefited from a much less restrictive filibuster rule, a senate that had nearly 70 Democrats in it, and a House that had over 300 Democrats at one point--not to mention 10 years of being the friggin' Senate Majority Leader, where he learned how to be the wheeler and dealer that he was.

Punching people in the face LBJ-style will only get you so far. Eventually even your friends get sick of it. LBJ's did. Read one of his biographies and you'll see what I mean.

[MannyGoldstein]

15. Then how about this guy:

No wimp, either.

[Arkana]

16. Benefited from no filibuster rule, MASSIVE majorities in both houses of Congress,

and an alliance of convenience between Southern segregationist Dems and Northern liberals.

And when I say massive, I do mean massive. 73 Democrats by the end and only 24 Republicans, and 322 Democrats in the House who were all riding an anti-Republican wave of popularity after the crash.

And FDR still had to deal with a pissy conservative court that nearly struck down the centerpieces of the New Deal.

The situations are NOT the same. Don't compare them.

[treestar]

18. +1

Most people, it brings out as much resistance as possible, and then the next time, you are working from a person who already hates you.

And Congresspeople are not people who are going to be in "fear" of a President and give in to him. And why should they? That would undermine the separations of powers.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

19. why does media coverage leave a pro-repuke impression?

well, I don't know but it would be the same reason that Yahoo "headlines" always slant pro repuke, like today's:

GOP's secret debate weapon
When Republicans need to get inside the brain of a Democrat, they call possible VP pick Rob Portman.