Dennis Lennox: Post-partisan Obama a threat to Republicans

 

Dennis Lennox is active in Republican politics in Michigan and is the elected drain commissioner in his county government, an office that dates to the 14th century when Geoffrey Chaucer was appointed as commissioner of dikes and ditches. He has worked on presidential, congressional and statewide campaigns. You can follow him on Twitter by clicking here.

The GOP must be careful not to play into the hands of the White House’s new strategy to cast President Barack Obama as a pragmatic voice opposing, as they call them, the extremes partisans of the Democratic and Republican parties. 

The image of a  post-partisan, centrist-driven president who is more concerned about sound public policy worked in 2008, when Obama was successful in capturing self-identified independents and enough moderate-to-liberal Republicans — headliners by the likes of former Governor William Weld and Susan Eisenhower. Many conservatives will say good riddance to what they call Republicans-in-name-only, but the fact remains that a party cannot realistically win nationally when it writes off upwards of 15 states.

It takes independents, who are drawn to support Lincoln Chafee — the liberal former Republican senator, who opposed both the Republican and Democratic parties to win the governorship of Rhode Island in November. These swing voters are the same demographic that propelled Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate after winning a by-election in Massachusetts last year. It’s also what helped Governor-elect Rick Snyder win in Michigan with 58% of the vote. By comparison, Obama won Michigan, a traditional swing state, with 57%.

In a recent poll, Obama would win Michigan in 2012 with only native son and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, whose father was a popular governor of Michigan, coming close to picking up the home of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.

With Obama playing up his independence from party orthodoxy in the first skirmishes of his re-election campaign, his numbers are increasing, according to a Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll released late Wednesday. As with the Michigan poll, only Romney comes close to defeating the president.

Obama’s new strategy is boosted by phony criticism from Democrats in Congress, who are gleefully playing along. The Democratic charade is then of course picked up by right-wing talking heads, who claim it’s an example of liberal frustration with the Obama administration.

This gives conservatives, and by extension Republicans, a false feeling of security.

For Republicans to win, they must also play the pragmatic card and not allow Obama to rebuild his winning coalition. It’s very much what propelled the victories of Prime Minister John Key’s National Party in New Zealand and the center-right coalition of Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt in Sweden.

If Republicans can’t focus on what matters to swing voters, Obama will coast to re-election with the help of middle-class suburban voters in swing constituencies, such as the one held by Democrat Congressman Gary Peters in metropolitan Detroit.

This is the demographic drawn to Obama’s reborn pragmatism. These are same voters who supported Republicans in the mold of Snyder, Weld, Brown and popular common sense Governors Bob McDonnell of Virginia and Chris Christie of New Jersey.

To defeat Obama, Republicans must take a page from the solutions-based electoral strategy of these sensible conservatives. 

Comments

[Steevo]

I'm not convinced it's been phony criticism from Democrats with the possible exception of a few party higher-ups. I am sure a lot of criticism from outside DC is genuine.

I believe stronger than ever Republicans need to focus on the folks who got them a majority in the House and more seats in the Senate; the so-called Tea Party voters. Thrift, delayed gratification and personal responsibility helps define the pragmatism.

The average of 9 major polls for the president's ratings currently has him at 45% approval and 48% disapproval. With slight fluctuation it's basically the same since the end of July and within his all time low range.

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