Obama's re-election campaign won't be pretty

President Barack Obama speaks about the American Jobs Act, Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2011, at Fort Hayes Arts and Academic High School in Columbus, Ohio.

/ AP Photo/Tony Dejak

This post originally appeared on Slate.

President Obama's top campaign advisers held a briefing for national reporters yesterday in Washington, D.C., an early attempt to persuade the media that victory is possible, or even likely. The inevitable PowerPoint presentation gave the impression of a gathering army and plenty of options. Slides showed that there had been 1 million conversations with voters, 90,000 meetings, and that 45 percent of donors were new ones who had not given in 2008. A screen full of maps showed the five different ways Obama could win the election, either through a "Western path" where he won states such as Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico, or a "Florida path."

The collective message was that the Obama team has built something big enough to withstand the deluge of bad data and historical trends that are working against the president: the high unemployment rate, an average approval rating that is seven points below the key benchmark of 50 percent, and a vast majority of voters who think the country is going in the wrong direction.

A USA Today/Gallup analysis of swing states that came out this morning showed Republicans are more enthusiastic than Democrats. The president's swing-state poll numbers are worse than they are among the general public. Both Romney and Gingrich lead Obama in those states.

President Obama's strategists, of course, had their own numbers showing that Obama was doing better in those states. They quibbled with the USA Today/Gallup findings, prompting one reporter to joke that Susan Page of USA Today, who sat typing on her laptop, should get 30 seconds to respond.

The second task of the presentation was to convince us that the Republican nominating fight has become extremely ugly. There has been a lot of talk about which GOP candidate the White House would rather run against. In this briefing, Obama's aides took shots at both Gingrich and Romney, though David Axelrod's characterization of the former speaker was the most colorful. "Just remember the higher a monkey climbs on a pole," Axelrod said, quoting an expression a Chicago Alderman taught him, "the more you can see his butt. So, you know, the speaker is very high on the pole right now and we'll see how people like the view."

Ultimately the Republican nominee doesn't matter, said the president's men, because the GOP nomination is an ever more extreme contest controlled by the far reaches of the Tea Party. "They're mortgaging themselves for the general by tacking as far as they are," said Axelrod, pointing to hard-line stances against illegal immigrants that will hurt with Hispanic voters and the competition to support a Paul Ryan budget plan that fundamentally changes the nature of Medicare.

Candidates have always appealed to their party bases in primaries and successfully courted more ideologically moderate voters in the general, but this time, the Obama team insists, the swing is irrevocable--no going back. They seem to believe that if they can de-legitimize the nominating contest, the winner will gain nothing from victory.

They say that the message that the president will carry to victory is the one he outlined last week in Kansas. In it Obama argued for a shared effort to restore national greatness based on the idea that everyone should have a fair shot at the American dream.

But this sounds familiar, doesn't it? That's because we've seen this play over and over again from the president. This year alone we were introduced to the new Obama in his September jobs speech, in his April rebuttal to Paul Ryan, and in his January State of the Union address. In December 2010, the president said America faced a "Sputnik moment." Last week the president used Teddy Roosevelt as his historical touchstone, and offered the same high stakes, saying American faced "a make or break moment."

The Obama team pointed out that this is not a new message. Axelrod mentioned Obama's early working history helping those displaced after steel mills shut down, and speeches the president had given in 2004 and 2005, as well as during the 2008 campaign. But this also makes the current promises sound familiar. After each of these speeches, the claim was made that the president had finally taken the field to fight, that his standing would improve because he had thrown off the attempt to make bipartisan deals. "We were in a position of legislative compromise by necessity. That phase is behind us," said Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer in September.

The briefing suggested a pretty rough campaign. When Axelrod was asked whether there were any vestiges of hope left over from the 2008 campaign, he said that the focus on fairness was in the same vein: "It is a hopeful vision of the future of broad prosperity." But it's hard to see how voters are going to see any hope at all. Polls show that people already have the lowest opinion of government they've ever had. They've heard these promises from President Obama before. Are they going to be more receptive to his message that he can change Washington and make it effective for them when he hasn't been able to for four years? It's all the other guys' fault, the president's team will argue.

Perhaps, but the other guys are not going to change even if he's re-elected. Not so, says Axelrod. An Obama re-election will liberate Republicans by showing them the folly of standing with the Tea Party. Once Obama has set them free, they will join with him to tackle the real problems of America. That seems like a stretch, especially if the Obama team is effective in so diminishing the Republican opponent that Republicans can write off the loss as simply the result of a bad nominee, not a fatal flaw in their party's message.

More from Slate:

Four Things That the New NBC/WSJ Poll Tells Us
Apocalypse Newt
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[boondoggles]

My friends, Obama has no base except for people who are not smart enough to realize what is going on. He is going around our country trying to play the blame game on the republicans in the house and senate and has set them up every turn to fail by saying before a bill is even going to pass that he will veto it. Nevermind that Reid most of the time will not even bring a bill before the senate primarily because he has 22 dem senators up for reelection and he does not want their constitutients to know how they voted. The majority of Americans see thru this:what does concern me is he is sending masses of people into states to register the minorities to vote and lol he will have hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots cast for him. The only way this man has a fighting chance of winning is by fraud. He got on the primary ballot in Indiana by having fraudulent names signed for the Indiana democrat presidential nominee so he is not beneath trying to once again as he did with the fraud acorn ballots cast in 2008 try to get extra votes that way. Contact your congressman and tell them right now to start assuring that the military ballots go out in time. In 2010 he and the dems disenfranchized the military in some states by not getting the ballots to them in time. Be a poll watcher, make sure you volunteer to drive people to the polls, help them to get registered to vote. We cannot stand on our laurels and think because he has low poll ratings he is going to lose. The man will try to do the same thing he did in 2008 and we need to be on our toes doing our job as well.

[boondoggles]

Obama can get on the train of running highly negative ads against the republican nominee and no doubt he will, but I would hope the republican nominee runs negative ads on fast and furious, Solydra, green energy companies that went bankrupt where the taxpayers were paid after his campaign donors, 20% unemployment no matter how they try to cook the numbers, business after businesss going bellyup because Obama is running our country like Hugo Chavez putting stranglehold regulations on them that are not only costly but unjustified Look at Gibson guitar for an example. Lets see 45 czars he put in place paid for by the American people. Jeffrey Imelt as jobs czar when he shipped GE jobs overseas. The man has nothing to run on so yes it will be ugly. But two can play that game and I don't think he is going to like it when Newt and Romney go after him and they will.

[LtSmily]

Looks like Washington wins. Looking through posts you see the divisiveness and name-calling from both sides of the imaginary fence. Whatever happened to what's best for America instead of being a brain-dead party supporter no matter what? There has not been a serious leader in over a generation now, and this article proves that no one with any moral/ethic stance will not run for National office. Why would they, even if you are squeaky clean, the other side will outright lie to place a seed of doubt in the voter's mind, then the party lemmings will flood forums with the unsubstantiated lies as substantiated truths. Has America really fallen this far?

[Streetlighting]

I would consider voting for Obama, if I wanted another 4 years of more war, more spending, more debt, more molestations at our nation's airports, more warrantless wiretapping, more assassinations of American citizens without due process, more unemployment, more devaluation of the American dollar, and more corporatism. I'll pass on Obama...

[martinvanmilk]

So what you are saying is that Obama has been acting like a republican. So you think voting for an actual republican will do anything different?? Omg.

[gep1955]

The campaign has to be ugly in that Obama will try to scare the public on how bad its going to be under a republican president to dodge the fact of how miserable it already is under his presidency.And the corrupt liberal press will help him every step of the way.

BTW...two top hurricane scientists resign after 20 years of trying to predict hurricane seasons. After review of their computer models they determined it was all useless. If they can't predict weather 7-8 months out, trying to predict weather 10-20 years out (global warming) is a total sham and a fraud. No coverage of this in the tree hugging press.

[karlejohn]

I see an Obama Dynasty holding power for the next Sixteen years. Eight years, then eight morer years for the First Lady.

[crybabyobama]

Remember the booing the nascar crowd gave moochell, we hate her husband more.

[martinvanmilk]

Nascar crowds are generally accepted as being total morons without passports.

[crybabyobama]

what ever happened to.. I deserve 4 more because I did this, this and that right, America is way better after 4 years of me!

The 33% increase in homeless children, massive increase on food stamp users, and high rate of joblessness across the country means socialism sucks.

Make the middle class poor enough to depend on welfare, and you get a larger DEM base.

Something tells me the middle class is not hoping for more of obamas change.

[USSAmerikan]

So we have somewhere in the vicinity of 15 percent real unemployment (some analysts guess it's closer to 20%, but I'll give O the benefit of the doubt)... We also have a president that instead of trying to get those folks employed used up his political capital (and two-year Democrat lock on both the House and the Senate) on debt generating pie-in-the-sky social programs (Obamacare is highest in that wall of shame), job-killing green measures, attempts at taxing the very companies that are the key to getting unemployed Americans hired and somehow he has a chance? Let's see: about 8 percent of those who became unemployed during Obamanomics will likely vote for someone who'll get them hired. The midfield folks who were duped by the "Hope and Change" and "no more lobying" lies will also be voting for anyone else (Mickey Mouse has a better chance with them than the incumbent). Of course there are the gun control folks who'll be reminded about the Obama administration's "Fast And Furious" scheme to permeate Mexico with high-powered assault rifles and ammo (The same rifles and ammo that crossed the border back into the US and got a bunch of law enforcement Americans killed)... Last but not least, Americans will be shown the current price of gas, alongside the plethora of Obama administration's edicts that have killed the production of American oil... I don't know if some of the folks commenting here are looking at the same facts the rest of America will be looking at once the real campaign gets under way, but if they do, they'll realize the Democrats' only chance is Hillary.

[myth1958]

John Dickerson is uncharacteristically pessimistic in his assessment this time around, like he's in a club, off the club soda and in a down mood. President Obama and his team aren't at the same pity party, however, and have much more enthusiasm for their case in 2012 (natch). I have to think that they're holding back a desire to sing and dance on the tables, because Newt, Mitt or Ron, Barak's opponent won't withstand the scrutiny and attack ads coming next year. All of them will get grilled like salmon running against Obama because they'll also be running against themselves and the wackadoo ideas we've seen from them all over the past few months (plus, of course, in their political pasts). Mr Obama has valiantly struggled against all odds to get any reasonable piece of legislation passed, and I suspect more than a few GOP seats will turn over, giving a second-term Obama a running start getting things done. He will: he's that type of guy.

[Socialization]

Non sense. Obama will be easily defeated. He is no leader.

[payback108]

Wheres a budget if obozo is so smart

[Socialization]

Defeating Obama will be very easy.

[CitizenMikeM]

Only if he's playing "liars poker" with the Republicans.

[Socialization]

No he has no chance just defending the truth about his failure.