Have you ever attended a public gathering with lots of souvenir vendors where you didn’t see something in bad taste? This is a page from a calendar offered at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte this week:
Perhaps this is something planted by a Republican mole, but it is making the rounds in news stories that gather the totality of positive comments about Barack Obama over the past 4 years to try string together a few to paint an image Obama venerated as the Messiah by his supporters.
For the intellectually challenged: anecdotes are not a poll. I personally consider the calendar photo caption offensive in context.
That is why we need to support Romney, he is trying to unite us all in the common goal of giving the rich a tax break. He wants the parents of that little girl with the heart defect to understand that profits for the insurance company are more important than care for that little girl. Those insurance company profits create jobs, the little girl’s health does not. Doing what is right is not good for the economy so join me in supporting Mitt, his foreign policy experience is high, he is well known throughout England where they affectionately call him Mitt the Twitt.
Well the DNC played the ‘god card’, so naturally the righties must wheel out their false prophet memes.
If Obama wins, I imagine most of their cries will gravitate towards it being voter fraud, hypnotism and all the previously used “reasons.”
Doc,
I’m not a Christian and I would agree that the caption is in extremely poor taste. I don’t like moonbats any more than I do wingnuts.
While I remember the crazy right accusing Obama supporters of believing he was a Messiah, I never saw it. I’m sure there must have been some overspill from that though. Perhaps there’s a couple of people out there that believe our president is a Messiah. If there are, they are marginal and not influential. The graphic presentation is very disturbing though.
I smell a false flag op. I cannot believe an Obama supporter created that image. It’s constructed in a Breitbart-ish style, using Karl Rove technique, and that’s the tell. Indulge me in some deconstruction:
If it is a stealth attack, it is brilliant. The slur gets maximum traction:
If you attack a weakness, you waste effort: your opponent is already perceived as weak. The best you could do is make him weaker, a dubious gain. Attacking his strengths is good, but you’re paddling upstream. You can’t just point to a strength and say “Nuh uh!”
Best is turning a strength to a debility.
The use of “your messiah” referring to Obama was ingeniously evil. It should be punishable by death, in my opinion, but the law is the law. Pity. I tried to but I could never find a single quote, article, campaign sign, bumper sticker, or any other expression of an Obama backer that referred to him as a “messiah.” it is an invention, a killer zombie of a phase unleashed by the Right Wing Hate Squad.
Some of you (Doc?) are old enough to remember the spitstorm of scorn and fury after John Lennon said the Beatles were “bigger than Jesus.” Nothing is more infuriating to many Christians than claims to Divinity. And surely that’s fair enough. But pretty much nobody ever does so, and even rarer is many people proclaiming their leader “Messiah.”
In this image several things imply that, pretending to honor BHO while damning him. The text on the right echoes “This day a child is born [unto you].” And of all possible Bible quotes, what could be more objectionable than the one used? Bad enough to be a new messiah, but seeming to elevate the President over Jesus Christ by saying God sent His “only begotten Son”? The heading “Heaven Sent” under BHO’s birth certificate plainly makes those words seem to be speaking of BHO. Anyone buy that his political supporters think that way? Anyone? Beuhler?
Speaking of which, wouldn’t that document be included in this image by a detractor of the President, not a fan? Why not a Hawaiian scene, or a picture of him with his parents? Is there anything less human and positive to use?
Plus, the background is black. Not that that’s a racist visual pun, just that it is ominous, somber, even funereal. And in the faux snapshot of the President in the Oval Office, he is in his shirtsleeves and appears to have his feet up on the desk, both things for which he was excoriated by the right-wing media, even after debunkers quickly located pictures of Bush and other Presidents doing the same.
Am I wrong? Is it beyond the Hate Machine (I almost said ‘beneath,’ but that’s impossible) to have produced this calendar for the sole purpose of guaranteeing this image would fly through the Innertubes, infuriating the Birther rubes?
I don’t see anything wrong with your theory…
No. No it is not.
If you are correct, then it is not offensive—it is evil.
I agree. What US presidential candidate is going to refer to themselves as the messiah?
Sorry about the runny italics. It was only supposed to be “over Jesus Christ” but I’m writing on a phone and for some reason I couldn’t change it.
No way is this something done by an Obama supporter. Obama supporters don’t refer to the president in these types of terms, but you hear it 24/7 from folks at world nut daily and free republic!
Doc,
A few minutes on the magic Internet produces the name of the person who did the calendar: James Hickman.
His profile on Amazon, where the calendar is available for $15 (on backorder at the moment), reads as follows:
“my name is james hickman and i am my own success story. i’ve been in four mental institutions and five group home. by yhe time i was 13,. i never thought my life would be like this from notorious bad boy to in and out of prison, to top american book seller, imagine that ! life after prison.”
http://www.amazon.com/keep-dream-calendar-james-hickman/dp/0979552001
It’s interesting to note that NewsBusters has two versions of this story on its site: The one you link to in your text and a shorter version with Hickman’s name in it. Strange.
And here is a YouTube video from March of this year that purports to be Mr. Hickman handing out calendars in Atlanta:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdq7QoActZg
There can only be one messiah and since Obama was elected, the previous one must have stepped down.
Ok… but this does sound like what the fearful are pushing. 😉
Hard to call. Hickman’s story is extremely fishy. I’ve heard of a few other instances of black actors being paid to do or say things that are videotaped and used against the President.
One has a fellow purportedly in line for Unemployment checks saying “I’m gettin’ them Obama bucks!” Another says “I got my Obama phone!” referring to the much-maligned free phone program actually started in the Bush years.
Anyone read the comments on Hickman’s youtube video? Hoo boy, some stellar human beings there. But I think the Hate Machine is behind these fake-reality efforts, to produce exactly the negative reactions on display.
I am no expert on religious matters, but can anyone prove scientifically that Obama is NOT the Messiah?
Speaking of the DNC, while the “Romney bounce” from the RNC was almost unmeasurable, the Obama bounce from the DNC is looking quite respectable. Gallup daily tracking has him +4 and even Rasmussen has him +2. Neither of those yet include the full effects of Bubba’s amazing speech on Wednesday or Barack’s own pretty good one on Thursday. And Gallup has the Prez at 52% approval.
Bubba is already signed up to campaign for Barack in Florida, were he is very popular, which should carry that state for Team Blue. Without Florida, the path to victory for Rmoney is choked with weeds. Let’s see after, 4 more years of Obama, we get Hillary in 2016. By 2024, Chelsea can run and I think Sasha and Malia are old enough by 2032….
I think the Messiah is supposed to be Jewish.
misha? misha? Are you there?
I believe Thomas Brown’s analysis is quite convincing. Particularly telling is the photo with his feet up on the desk. It is a plant, a political dirty trick. Note that in the linked article, the author claims that it was the “hottest selling item” at the DNC. Bullshit.
“Where’s your Messiah now, Moses?”
– Billy Crystal channeling Edward G. Robinson
What was the “hottest selling item” at the DNC……and environs?
Yes, you can’t be the anti-Christ and the Messiah in the same millennium. God, she has very strict rules about that. 😉
Why do I smell He, Lying Lucas Smith?
Way too complicated, in my opinion. Simpler explanation is that Mr. Hickman saw a way to make a few bucks. If he’s really selling the calendars for $15 he could be making $10 on each one.
The American free enterprise system at work!!
If he can be the world’s least observant Muslim, then why couldn’t he be secretly Jewish?
A septic tank exploded in your neighborhood?
I’d bet on “buttons.” That’s the keepsake I brought back from the 2008 convention to give to all my friends. As for official swag, the item that was de rigeur would be the T-Shirt.
I might as well. I was just interested in how “sponsor” knew the calendar wasn’t.
I have some very, very good news for my birther friends. The tracking polls are showing a very healthy bump for Obama after the DNC vs little or no bump for Romney after the extremely mediocre RNC. Once the full impact is felt in a couple of days, Obama may be ahead by a margin similar to the final 2008 result. Nate Silver, using a golf analogy, says that it appears Obama and Bubba hit an eagle, while Romney and Ryan bogied the hole. The bottom line is that barring the almost unimaginable of 3 fabulous debate performances by Romney and 3 disastrous ones by Obama, Romney has an exceedingly diffiicult task ahead.
So, you guys should have 4 more years of happy birthing ahead of you, after which you can look forward to a term or 2 of Hiillary Clinton. Maybe you can start some rumors that she was born in Kazakhstan (for all that anyone cares)….
Barbecue.
I can go for that!
Maybe Orly will suddenly “remember” how they grew up together in Moldova?
There is one other factor in the Republican’s favor, the fundraising gap.
There is a gap, but, at least in August, Obama outraised Romney. I would never say money doesn’t matter-a seriously underfunded camaign is in trouble- but once both campaigns have passed the threshhold of being competitive (which both presidential campaigns have long since done), the law of diminishing returns sets in. Just ask Governor Meg Whitman and Senator Carly Fiorina.
Agreed. The August numbers just came out over the weekend:
Romney Campaign: $ 111 million
Obama Campaign: $ 114 million
Of course, that doesn’t include the obscene amount of Super-PAC type money flying about from third parties, particularly on the GOP side.
But as you pointed out, the law of diminishing returns really hits home here. There is only so much available air time for ads in the first place and it reaches a saturation point (which I argue it already has in our “battleground areas”), where people just tune out or get turned off by it.
More importantly, Obama’s campaign was smarter with their earlier money and purchased many of their slots well in advance (and got the cheaper pricing as a result), so I’m not sure there is much more that Romney’s side can do, regardless of how much additional dollars they get to throw at their candidate.
From what I’ve heard, Obama’s pre-purchases included a lot of slots leading all the way up to the election itself, so it is not like Romney’s blitzkreig can keep Obama’s campaign off the airwaves at all. Further, Obama has devoted a lot more of his money to building an even more powerful ground-game operation than his stellar one in 2008…where Romney’s campaign has surprisingly not done that much in these regards…and it is now a little late for them to effectively play catch-up on that level.
The bottom line here is that we are looking at such absurd record-level dollar amounts on both sides that I think the whole concept of “financial advantage” is rendered moot. As much as they are spending, they are still both raising enough that the liklihood of either campaign “going broke” in the next 60 days is fairly implausible.
I forgot to provide an article citation for these stats. There are numerous reports out there, but here is just one:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/10/obama-outraises-romney-for-first-time-in-months/?on.cnn=1
As much as I dislike playing Devil’s Advocate: I don’t think the right means that Obama supporters have literally referred to him as “the Messiah”, just that the (alleged/perceived) degree of adoration has, in their view, reached pseudo-religious levels. (Of course birthers may still mean it in the former sense.)
Some political comments over here in Europe during the 2008 elections may have painted a similar picture. We are just not used to US presidents being treated like pop stars.
For the record, I also think the calendar looks like a plant. The dissonance between wording and imagery gives it away.
“But in the end it turns out that too much money can turn against a candidate—male or female—and that it does not spare you the burden of having to connect with the voters. ”
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2010/10/the_meg_whitman_lesson.html
For the sake of completeness, here is a promo for the calendar that shows 12 pages. Based on that, I’m calling “Well meaning nitwit.” Lame, yes. Offensive, no.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzOvLVCFhto
Thanks Paul,
I’ll agree with your characterizations of “well meaning nitwit” and “lame”, but I think that it probably still rises to “unintentionally offensive” to some…
If this guy really is pro-Obama, I have no problem with anyone who finds the thing offensive. BUT, one should consider how many Republican candidates have been “called by God” to run for office, or said to be God’s choice for the office. Implying that their opponent is an enemy of God himself.
Romney’s ‘Ground Game’ is to build a new “Etch-a-Sketch” factory and turn them out like Legos, so every American voter can get his own personal copy of the Romney platform and legislative plan.
LOL!
To be fair, President Obama doesn’t have the voter suppression laws in his favor like Romney does.
Note: Oscene amounts of SuperPAC cash may be driving up the cost of airtime in local markets. Why does the GOP hate the little guy so?
Hehe.
I have no evidence there is such an effect, but dumping outside money into a specific market should inflate prices.
Unless there is appropriate regulation in place.
Now wouldn’t that be ironic? Small-town advertising saved by big gubbamint reger-latin’ … from the trepidations of the raving adherents of Job-Creationism! LOL!
From what I’ve read on political insider blogs, when they explain such things, amounts to this:
There is definitely a supply/demand factor to the pricing of all ad buys in all markets. So yes, as you note, heavy demand for ad slots will cause the price of those slots to increase as a result.
There does seem to be some sort of “discount” on the rate for the two main political parties, but NOT for any of these outside groups and Super-PACs.
Further, a lot of these articles have noted how strategically smart it was for Obama’s campaign to not only do such a heavy ad push over the summer (to define Romney before his convention), but also to dump so much of their money on locking up their future ad purchases in advance.
As in many other industries, costs are cheaper when purchased in advance and those costs increase as you get closer to the actual advert timeslot date. So Obama’s campaign seems to not only be locking in a guarantee of their air play slots in key markets, all the way up to the election, but also getting the best possible advanced bang-for-the-buck price they can for those slots.
It has been noted that the very heavy push by them to buy so many of those advanced slots have caused the costs of the remaining slots to immediately increase in price significantly (that old supply and demand thing again). So this is even more of a strategic advantage – their opponents will now have to pay exhorborent rates to compete in those same time slots in those same markets.
In summary, Obama’s campaign has been much smarter and much more forward thinking in their ad buy strategy and their associated timings. They are getting significantly more bang-for-their-buck as a result.
When you factor in that they’ve been way ahead on the internet ad purchases all year and also have put a lot more advanced investment into their ground game operation, there is simply no question that Obama’s campaign has been much smarter with their spending strategy.
What is even more surprising is just how inept the Romney campaign seems to be in contrast. These folks have had access to nearly unlimited amounts of cash all along as well. Plus, Romney and his inner circle have pretty much been trying to campaign for this gig for over 7 years now.
You would think that they would have learned how to be smarter about it over all that time… or at least study what their successful opponents were doing and try to match it. They had the funds. They had the time. There is simply no excuse for how flat-footed they have been in this arena and still continue to be. They don’t seem to have much more of a strategy, other than massive periods of reactionary TV carpet-bombing…
Never in my life have I seen a challenger with such vast funding resources available to them for pretty much their entire run. Perversely, the Romney campaign seems to be one of the most inept structures I’ve seen in my life as well.
So, why would I want to trust “Mr. Businessman” Romney, when he has only displayed such sheer ineptitude and wastefulness in throwing away massive money at a problem, with one of the weakest cost/benefit ratios to show for it, ever…
Well, G, the Obama campaign had the luxury of knowing they’re going the distance this election cycle …. ever since the last election.
Romney had to lock up the nomination to access the big bucks. A very recent development. Makes me wonder why the RNC wasn’t ‘optioning’ ad time for whoever the eventual candidate would be ….
huh?
Romney not only had a lot of his own personal “big bucks” to play with (he was willing to dip into these funds quite a bit last cycle), but also has always had some level of big-money establishment backers helping to fund him (as well as outside groups). He simply gained more and more, during the course of the primaries; considering how weak the rest of the field was in comparison.
But rest assured, he has not been without an overwhelming money advantage over his opponents at any point in this race – and one that was always at near record levels, comparitive to other historical campaign efforts. So, the lack of foresight in money management and campaign infrastructure building is even more egregious, in light of what he had available to him. Sure, he was able to drop some massive last-minute carpet-bomb negative ad blitzes against Gingrich and Santorum, which helped him eak out a win against them…but even those wins came at quite an unimpressive cost/benefit ratio. So I stand by my assessment that he’s been an extremely disappointing money manager during this campaign.
Not excusing Romney, just pointing out the considerable advantages of incumbency that allowed Obama’s campaign to be so farsighted.
I’m not surprised at Romney’s money management, dumping money on something is the American way! Particularly in the takeover business. Money gets you what you want, if you want something bad enough, just keep throwin’ cash at it …. and preferably other people’s. He runs his campaign like he has run his business ventures and past political endeavors. Who care about his efficiency …. it isn’t his money!
In a true democracy, money doesn’t buy everything. Throughout history, money = power. In our own Founding, much care was taken to keep property safely in power over mob rule. Those “anti-federal” Democrats were seen as nuts. The story of the 1780s is the story of how property, having used popular revolt to achieve its ends, re-asserted itself over populist revolutionary sentiment.
Watching this election run its course has been reassuring. Money will take a person along way, but it only opens the doors. Something has to be on the other side. Some products just won’t sell.
Well said!!!
the romney campaign suffers less from ineptitude than sheer vapidity. since talking honestly about either his qualifications or his plans for office will cost him one or another large swaths of the electorate, mitt and his boosters are unable to talk about anything at all in anything but the vaguest possible terms. yet knowing this, he ran anyway, which suggests (beyond the utter hollowness of his primary opponents) that he believes he can run a campaign on absolutely nothing at all.