GOP antics will not damage Obama one bit

Partisan shots and mini-controversies rarely make a dent. To hurt Obama, the GOP will need a lot more than that

BY JONATHAN BERNSTEIN

Remember the Chuck Hagel fight?

If you’re reading about politics, of course you remember the fight that took up a fair amount of space in the political press over the last month.

Most Americans, however, ignored the whole thing; even among those dimly aware of it, the memory will fade rapidly. And that suggests an important lesson for Barack Obama in this flap: Don’t worry about losing a few news cycles. If it’s just about media flaps, the president has much more room for risk-taking than he may realize.

First, the evidence. There’s very limited polling, but what there is suggests no one was paying any attention. A Quinnipiac poll taken at the beginning of February found a net-unfavorable rating … but with only 14 percent liking the former Nebraska senator, 18 percent not liking him, and an overwhelming 67 percent saying that they didn’t have an opinion. That’s before either of the filibuster votes on the Senate floor, but after his well-publicized Senate hearing.

That’s not unusual. There’s plenty of things that capture the attention of people who are intensely interested in politics, which everyone else ignores unless they have a particular interest in it. Personnel flaps similar to the Hagel nomination are likely suspects. Think, if you remember them, of similar controversies around Van Jones, Shirley Sherrod or Peter Diamond. Each of these was all the talk of Washington for a while, and then it wasn’t. Most people, however, hardly noticed any of them.

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http://www.salon.com/2013/03/02/gop_antics_will_not_damage_obama_one_bit/