Patterico's Pontifications

11/26/2011

Obama’s not-so-secret weapon

Filed under: 2012 Election — Karl @ 9:59 am



[Posted by Karl]

According to the AP’s Julie Pace, it might just be the Sheriff:

A year from Election Day, Democrats are crafting a campaign strategy for Vice President Joe Biden that targets the big three political battlegrounds: Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida, states where Biden might be more of an asset to President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign than the president himself.

Doug Powers goes right to the Biden Blooper Reel; I’ll simply note that last month, the AP’s Julie Pace was reporting that Michelle Obama might be her husband’s not-so-secret weapon.   I don’t mean to pick on Ms. Pace in particular.  After all, the Tribune Co. and New York Times were writing similar pieces before the 2010 midterms — and we know how well that turned out.  TIME did the Michelle O story in 2010; NBC’s Andrea Mitchell joined Pace for 2011.

The obvious cheap shot would be that Obama’s not-so-secret weapon is the esatblishment media.  But it’s not just bias, it’s laziness, as evidenced by all the stories written about Laura Bush as a secret weapon, despite a similar lack of evidence.

It may be more useful to read the Biden spin is light of the larger debate on the left between analysts like William Galston, who thinks Obama’s path to victory still runs through the Rust Belt, and those like Ruy Teixeira, who argues that demographics make Virginia, Colorado and North Carolina more appealing targets for Obama. Alec MacGillis thinks Obama is adopting the latter strategy, but sees it as a false choice.  But maybe it just looks like Obama is focusing on the latter group of states because the best Obama can do in the Rust Belt right now is to send Joe Biden.

–Karl


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