In a political party or campaign, one has to have surrogates but one must choose those surrogates wisely. An effective surrogate can say things that you, as the campaign, can’t say, and can advance story lines around the edges to force your opponent to respond and even get off their game. But a bad surrogate can end up getting in the way of your message, even embarrass you and knock you off your game.
And then there are the surrogates you didn’t deputize, but who step up to speak for you anyway as if you did. Those tend to be the most counterproductive. Ironically, they tend to think they’re the most effective. They step up to help, but mostly hurt.
Sen. Harry Reid, as the Democrats’ leader in the Senate, is probably a deputized Obama campaign surrogate. He’s too high profile to be left out of the loop. But that doesn’t mean he’s good, persuasive or even particularly effective and it doesn’t mean he runs the campaign’s playbook effectively. Lately Reid is looking like the non-deputized, shoot-off-his-mouth type of surrogate, accusing Mitt Romney of not paying any taxes for 10 years because some guy Reid can’t name swears that it’s true.
Given the chance to clean up the mess he’d made, Reid made more of a mess, doubling down on the accusation and then lamely insisting that Romney prove that it isn’t true. That’s not how things work.
Is Reid acting on his own, or on orders from the Obama campaign? Well, on more than one occasion now the Obama campaign has advanced the “felon” nonsense against Romney, so Reid’s character assault fits with the campaign’s overt tactics. Coming from the campaign of a man who has admitted to committing multiple felonies — Obama’s past hard drug use, specifically — that’s an unwise move. For one thing, it opens the Obama camp to questions of his own past and character. Some particularly aggressive GOP surrogate could swear that they know a guy who used to get his blow from Barry Obama, and using the Reid standard, it’s up to Obama to prove the anonymous allegation false.
But Reid’s tax gambit has forced the Obama campaign to admit, on television, that they “don’t have any proof” of anything they’re flinging against Romney after Stephanie Cutter promised to provide proof in mid July. That’s embarrassing, though it’s debatable whether Stephanie Cutter is even capable of feeling shame or knowing when she looks like a fool. She has never worked outside a political campaign and evidently does not know the meaning of the word “credible.” Or “sane.”
The Obama team, Reid and Cutter etc, have no proof that Mitt Romney has done a thing wrong. But there is proof that Obama was a hard drug user, and there is proof that his economic plans are a total failure.
And there’s proof that for all his noise and bluster, Harry Reid is among a group of top Democrats who haven’t released their own tax returns. The obvious thing to infer, using Reid’s own standard, is that he hasn’t released his tax returns because he hasn’t been paying any taxes or has something else to hide. Reid used the tax return issue to insist that Romney isn’t fit to hold office at all. Well, Harry, right back atcha. Ditto for Nancy Pelosi and DNC chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, neither of whom have released their own tax returns. Romney can now say “You show me yours and I’ll show you mine” and effectively shut the Democrat leadership up. Harry Reid took the Obama campaign’s ball and sprinted all the way to a touchdown. Too bad he ran the wrong way.
The upshot of all of this is that the Democrats look dishonest, creepy, desperate and hypocritical. It’s obvious that they’re creating all this hubbub to get away from having to admit that they don’t have a clue how to improve the economy and have nothing positive to run on. As an Obama surrogate, Harry Reid was supposed to put Mitt Romney on the defensive, but has instead focused negative attention back on the entire Democrat leadership. Oopsie.
Update: Reid scored so big for the Dems that Jon Stewart mocks him and the “Sideboob Gazette” aka Huffington Post.
I have often wondered why there is such a demand for Romney’s returns, that if he doesn’t publish them then he has something to hide.
After all, the IRS already has the returns.
So the government already has them; maybe Obama has already paged through them. But they cannot go public with that knowledge without breaking the law, I guess, so they cannot formally use them as a whip without Romney’s releasing them.
Apparently, some people are speculating that Obama and the FBI have found that it’s not that he hasn’t paid his taxes, it’s that he may have invested with something along the likes of Enron or Bernie Madoff.
For the Love of Life Orchestra! And since when is it a crime to become the victim of grifters? My daughter’s religious high school lost a million dollars of donated funds after being persuaded to invest with Madoff! The mamzer had an employee whom he maintained entirely for the purpose of suckering Orthodox Jews and their charities. And weren’t we all called upon to feel sorry for the Enron workers who’d invested their pensions in the company stock? This is taking guilt by association to the point of utter lunacy.
If Team Obama has illegally accessed Romney’s tax returns, but can’t come up with a legal scenario to get them released other than pressuring Mitt into doing it himself, I’d guess if we get down to desperation time on the final weekend of the campaign, you may see something similar to what happened in 2000, when George W. Bush’s DWI arrest in Maine was released on the Friday prior to the Tuesday election.
It was early enough to create a commotion and affect the final vote numbers some, but late enough so that questions about who accessed the records and why they were released then didn’t get into the public discussion. A Nov. 2 document dump to the New York Times or some other outlet of Romney’s tax returns would become the only story covered in the final days of the campaign, where the focus on the contents would far overshadow coverage of questions about illegality of releasing IRS tax information. It’s definitely something Team Mitt needs to game-plan for (possibly with preemptive warnings about illegal release of Romney’s tax information) in the run-up to Election Day.
Quite the opposite. Reid scored BIG. The objective wasn’t a direct attack on Mittens, but instead a drumbeat for the MSM to pick up on. MSNBC, CNN, and The Letter Networks will beat that drum and repeat the line incessantly.
You need to click on the update.
– his source and his source has knowledge of tax evasion (not avoidance), then Reid admitted to committing a crime.
Reid is not wrecking the strategy at all. He is working it. All he has to do is assert it. It is innuendo. It works on low-information voters. It does not even have to get them to vote for Obama, as long as they at least are not motivated to vote for Romney.
Of course, it turns off a huge segment of the population, too, but on the whole, they probably figure it is a net gain.
Besides, what have they got to lose at this point? Innuendo and smear is all they have left. They have reached the bottom of the barrel. Bitter dregs is all they have.
Huh? Are you suggesting that co-workers would NOT know whether you had paid your taxes? I thought EVERYBODY you work with had access to those.
Boy, I feel so stupid…
We so need a “like” button. And a “ROFL” button.
“Boy, I feel so stupid…”.
Good. That matches up with the way everyone else feels about you too.
Prior to Obama’s election (no genuflection required on mentioning his name) I saw a video clip of a man claiming that he had done something with Obama in a limousine (and not something that even a Democrat would be proud of). This was not while Obama was in school but during his political career. I do not know if it was true, partially true, or in fact a bald faced lie (but if so I would think that given Obama’s desire to seal his past this video would not have been posted).
Based upon the above article, would it up to Obama to disprove that claim? If I were Romney or a surrogate I would definitely be looking for that video.
If Obama was a Republican, just think about how much traction the Larry Sinclair claims would have gotten.
Y’know, some guy (TOTALLY trustworthy, of course) told me that Harry Reid was really into gay sadomasochistic bondage and bestiality, with the occasional kiddie porn. I don’t have any evidence, but I think he should have to prove that it’s not true.
Sorry, guys – I was wrong. Harry is NOT into gay sadomasochistic bondage and bestiality. Someone even MORE trustworthy set me straight. He’s into necrophilia.
My bad. I hope you’re all as relieved as I am.
The guy who told me about this said it was actually bestiality. But the sheep looked like Debbie Wassermann Shultz, so it doesn’t count.
Wait…what!? Reid actually knows principals at Bain? He hob-nobs with capitalist plutocrats? Reid, a Democrat, is a tool of the Corporations, Banksters, Oil Companies, The Richest 1%? I’m dumbfounded, I tell ya!
I think you rubes missed the point Stewart was trying to make. Stewart was basically telling you that the GOP is the party of nonsensical accusations, of unverified rashes of BS. He was angry that a Democrat would think he was allowed to play the same games your smallish, religious cult plays on a daily basis. You are Birthers, tenthers, nutjobs – we know you have nothing but BS and lies to send around to your cult members. Reid was wrong to believe he could advance an unproven theory the way your cult has perfected.
Yeah, ain’t it a shame? We righties can get away with ANYTHING. Everyone out there trusts us with their news, their lives, and their daughters’ honor. People will believe whatever we say. And best of all: THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. We own your private parts, jackwagon, and live rent-free in your otherwise empty head! FUN FUN FUN!
We now return PJMedia’s readers to their regularly scheduled sanity.
Ever notice how lefties resemble nothing quite so much as indignant 6-year-olds who’ve just learned that they’re not getting a pony?
You can just see them waving their impotent little fists in the air and whining “It’s Not Fair!” at the top of their little lungs. They’re so cute!
It does wear a bit after a while. Five minutes, say.
You’ve got 4 minutes left in which to be adorable, Steve-o (what a CUTE little name!). Don’t squander them.
I see many of you think the way I do. Harry was just following orders. Bam and Axelrod ordered Geithner to have some one he trusts at the IRS go over Romney’s returns with a fine tooth comb. They did and found exactly what Romney already knew they’d find, that for one or more years, he paid little or no taxes.
Then, they needed a way to make this public. How better that a crooked politician under the cover of congressional immunity.
Harry knows that Romney won’t call his bluff.
Preston says: “Some particularly aggressive GOP surrogate could swear that they know a guy who used to get his blow from Barry Obama, and using the Reid standard, it’s up to Obama to prove the anonymous allegation false.”
It’s happened! Rush said yesterday: ” RUSH: “Folks, I just got a phone call in the break. You know, I don’t talk on the phone much, but I was told, “You’ve got to take this phone call.”
I said, “Okay.” I had two-and-a-half minutes. I got on the phone with somebody who said they went to school with Barack Obama at Harvard. And the guy told me that Obama got the lowest grades that any Harvard graduate ever got and that a bunch of professors gave him B’s and C’s when he didn’t even show up to class. And then he hung up. Now, this guy from Harvard said that Obama had the lowest grades anybody ever got at Harvard, had professors that covered for him and he wasn’t even there. I said, “Can you show me any proof of this?”
Obama Got Worst Grades in Harvard History — and It’s Up to Him to Prove He Didn’t