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Playinghardball

(11,665 posts)
Sat Apr 28, 2012, 10:33 PM Apr 2012

Romney team frets that Obama is ‘too cool’ for America

A pair of Romney advisers have dreamed up a novel attack strategy against President Obama, according to a post at BuzzFeed. At a panel hosted on Saturday by the Washington Post, high ranking campaign aides Eric Fehrnstrom and Peter Flaherty said that the problem with President Obama is that he’s just “too cool” for America.

Fehrnstrom and Flaherty joined many conservatives in criticizing the president for his performance Monday night on Jimmy Fallon’s show “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” to “slow-jam the news,” delivering a Barry White-meets-John F. Kennedy disquisition on corporate greed and its effects on student loan debt. Fehrnstrom said that jamming with Fallon and his house band The Roots undercuts the dignity of the president’s office and the seriousness with which the student loan crisis should be discussed.

“I don’t think that’s something to slow jam about,” he said.

Buzzfeed said that the president’s performance, like most of his talk show appearances, was “marked by a hip sense of irony, mild sarcasm, and just a bit of swagger.” The website went on to assert that Romney’s aides know that their candidate “could never pull off” these kinds of warm, personable appearances and are therefore hoping that they can paint the president as the arrogant “cool kid” in school as opposed to Romney’s ingenuous underdog.

Calling the average American voter “more clunky than cool,” the article says that the two powerful strategists are hoping to pitch their campaign’s message is such a way as to make Romney’s awkwardness “endearing, and even relatable.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/28/romney-team-frets-that-obama-is-too-cool-for-america/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story%29

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cali

(114,904 posts)
16. I actually think this is pretty much what it appears to be
Sun Apr 29, 2012, 08:35 AM
Apr 2012

Romney's strategists know how personable and appealing the President is and they know how wooden and unappealing Nitt is. They need to change that dynamic. Are they willing to use dog whistles to do it? Sure.

HughBeaumont

(24,461 posts)
2. The RMoney team should fret more about how supremely out-of-touch their pet doucheler is.
Sat Apr 28, 2012, 10:37 PM
Apr 2012

GiftTastic can't sneeze without making "Uncle Moneybags" anecdotes and Scrooge McDuck "advice" while asserting an economic platform that amounts to "Bewsh 43 on Steroids". He's going to put people out of jobs before he even gets into office . . . . satirists and comedy writers, that is.

nobodyspecial

(2,286 posts)
3. Good luck with that
Sat Apr 28, 2012, 10:39 PM
Apr 2012

hoping to pitch their campaign’s message is such a way as to make Romney’s awkwardness “endearing, and even relatable

Nobody is going to relate to $10,000 bets, car elevators, selling stock to pay for college or borrowing $20,000 from parents to start a business.

NYC Liberal

(20,136 posts)
8. All of them have been trying it ever since Bush did it successfully with the "Bushism" stuff.
Sat Apr 28, 2012, 11:16 PM
Apr 2012

At least, as terrible as Bush was and all else aside, the Bushisms were good for a laugh.

Arrogance and cluelessness about how most people live cannot be spun into something positive. They will simply have to try to deny it.

Arkana

(24,347 posts)
4. You're right, Mr. Fehrnstrom.
Sat Apr 28, 2012, 11:07 PM
Apr 2012

Obama should spend more time insulting small-town bakeries and posing with black people while singing Baha Men songs.

Aristus

(66,371 posts)
5. With five homes, a car elevator, and more money than God,
Sat Apr 28, 2012, 11:09 PM
Apr 2012

Mitt Romney is kind of hard to pain as an underdog...

LeftofObama

(4,243 posts)
13. Interesting!
Sun Apr 29, 2012, 08:22 AM
Apr 2012

I was watching MSNBC last week and I saw Haley Barbour talking to Andrea Mitchell. He was spouting this "cool" stuff. He must have just gotten his talking points faxed to him from the rnc.

GoCubsGo

(32,084 posts)
14. Endearing? Relateable?
Sun Apr 29, 2012, 08:32 AM
Apr 2012

Are you fucking kidding me? Sorry, but I can't relate to a multi-millionaire, who has five houses, horses that cost way more than my house, and throws thousands of people out of their jobs to line his own pockets even more. There is nothing "endearing" about this pompous turd.

P.S., I don't think the "average American voter" appreciates being called "clunky".

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