The Never-Ending Campaign

There’s an interesting article in The Politico today titled “100 days: What Obama wants you to read.” Basically it’s the White House’s PR push to make Obama seem as sparkly and successful as possible when the media critiques his first 100 days in office.

I’m glad they’re focused on the real issues.

Regardless of if you liked his politics or not, George Bush didn’t give a damn about the media. He didn’t care what they thought about him, he ignored what they said, and he didn’t hand out “made-to-order anecdotes and what-it-means analytical insights” to sway what the media wrote about him. He governed the country as he saw fit, and if the media didn’t like that or reported negatively about it, who cares, let the people decide.

I can justify public relations agenda building during a campaign, that’s integral, but once you’re in the White House I think you have to let the media play the part of watchdog, without trying to deceive them into your success. These aides that are compiling all this pro-Obama propaganda for the media are payed with tax payer dollars now, can’t they use them more effectively? And if they can’t, let’s fire ‘em.

This all traces back to Obama’s never-ending campaign. Despite being in the White House, and having it secured for at least four years, Obama is still trying to raise funds and build a positive agenda in the media. That will all help him when he seeks reelection in 2012. His team will justify it as smart politics, I’ll simply call it a waste of taxpayer money and brains that could be used solving something else.

I think as of right now that’s one of the big mistakes the Obama campaign has made. Generally speaking, in recent history, the public has had disdain for political campaigns. The people running in them is a different story, but in general people have grown tired of their length, their negative tone, and their lack of honesty. They may have liked a candidate, but the act of campaigning is largely a turnoff.

This past election the Obama team did a masterful job of running a campaign; it was smooth, efficient, and obviously effective. However, I think their heads have gotten a little too big. They think that because they ran such an effective campaign with a positive candidate, that somehow they’ve changed the public’s view of campaigning. It’s a very arrogant belief.

If anything people have more disdain for campaigns after the 2008 cycle, it was the longest campaign in history and the candidates spent the most money in history. And for the public neither of those are positives. This campaign has made the act of campaigning even more negative.

If the Obama team doesn’t realize that they’ll be, as weird as it sounds, heading into 2012 with a negative already on their shoulder’s.

The fact that the 2008 campaign never ended.

–jb

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