It is more than a year to Presidential Election Day 2012, but this week figures to be an important week on the road to the White House.
Tonight is a Republican candidates' debate and tomorrow comes Barack Obama's "job speech" and an attempt to reverse his slide in the polls due primarily to public disappointment with unemployment
What is already in is the Democratic Labor Day rally where Teamster union president Jimmy Hoffa made headlines by speaking in martial tones: “President Obama, this is your army, and we are ready to march.”
To workers, he said: “Everybody here’s got a vote. If we go back, and we keep the eye on the prize, let’s take these son-of-a-bitches out and give America back to America where we belong.”
This style of rhetoric emanating from the Democratic Party that preached civil discourse aroused even the White House press corps. ABC White House correspondent Jake Tapper had a long encounter with Press Secretary Jay Carney, Tapper wanted to know why the president did not disavow or disassociate himself from Hoffa's comments, particularly when in the 2008 elections Obama's opponent John McCain did offer an apology when harsh comments were made by his supporters about Barack Obama.
This type of language is becoming increasingly common in Democratic rallies. Vice President Joe Biden, who a short time ago referred to Tea Party members as "terrorists", displayed similar stridency in addressing the AFL-CIO. Biden told his audience "You are the only folks keeping the barbarians from the gates…the other side has declared war on labor's house."
Here as well, the White House was criticized for not disassociating itself from the tone of the remarks. Conservative radio talkshow host Rush Limbaugh has a different interpretation. People who are waiting for Barack Obama to disassociate himself from the remarks are naive, because Limbaugh feels it is Obama himself who put Hoffa up to it.
While Limbaugh may have gone a bit overboard in suggesting that Obama specifically coordinated the remarks with Hoffa, he may have a point about the Democratic strategy. The tactics on both sides effectively reflect the dismal showing by Obama in the recent polls.
The Republicans are increasingly concentrating their attacks on the issue of Obama's competence rather than on the issue of specific policies. An attack on policies arouses supporters of the policies, while competence is technical.
Attacking Obama as incompetent is also a convenient way of getting around Obama's likability. He may be a great guy, but he is in over his head, they intimate.
It is currently in the Republican interest to cool things down and let the voter decide on the basis of his evaluation of Barack Obama's performance and his own situation. Republicans can get people to ask themselves: Have things gotten better or worse since Obama took office? Judging by the polls, if the campaign is framed in this manner, the Republicans should have little problem.
For the Democrats, strategy is reversed as they have to energize their base, dismayed by the administration's record. It has reached the point that even liberal pundits are displaying buyer remorse about pushing a person who has no tangible record of accomplishments.
It is therefore necessary to rally traditional Democratic voters by convincing the base that this is a holy war against people who are anti-labor or want to lynch blacks. Sometimes this strategy works, as it did for the Spanish Socialist Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez in the 1992 election, but it is basically the strategy of a party that feels that it is losing.