Jonathan S. Tobin of Commentary read the latest Rolling Stone so you didn’t have to; he found some interesting clues about President Obama’s re-election strategy:
President Obama used a fawning interview in Rolling Stone to make it clear that he thinks his re-election will depend on mobilizing his liberal base. Because he must try to find a way to motivate erstwhile supporters who lack the enthusiasm for him that they showed during his 2008 victory, the president is counting on a twin strategy of demonizing Republicans and tilting to the left on domestic issues.
The starkest illustration of this came in his answers to questions about climate change in which he promised to make this article of faith for the left a central issue in the coming campaign. This may play well for the readers of Rolling Stone. But given the growing skepticism among ordinary Americans about the ideological cant on the issue that has spewed forth from the mainstream media and the White House, it may not help Obama with independents and the working class voters he needs as badly in November as the educated elites who bludgeoned him into halting the building of the Keystone XL pipeline. This conflict illustrates the contradiction at the core of the president’s campaign.
The president’s campaign staff is correct in their estimation that he cannot be re-elected without energizing the liberal base and generating better than average turnout rates among the young voters and minorities who put him in the White House. These voters are understandably disillusioned with a presidency that has had few achievements and disappointed with the fact that Obama kept in place many of the Bush administration security policies. Convincing them that the “hope and change” they expected in the last four years will come to life in the next term is no easy task. Because he cannot run on his record, the president’s only hope of bringing out his supporters is by making the election a referendum on the Republicans, who must be portrayed as ideological extremists while Obama gives indications that although Guantanamo is still operating, he’s still the same liberal they voted for in 2008.
