V16, N5 Thursday, Sept. 9, 2010 Falling out of love with Obama Blue Hoosier state turns on president as economy sputters By BRIAN A. HOWEY STORY, Ind. - There was a barn sale in the bucolic hills of Brown County on Sunday and as people milled around the tables of used tools and clothes the talk turned to politics and, ultimately, President Obama. “He’s the worst president ever,” a woman said. Why would you say that? “He’s against capitalism,” she responded. This is not an isolated dynam- ic in the Hoosier State where Barack Obama carried with 51 percent of the vote in 2008. Whether it was The NRCC is running the TV ad (above) tying a speech before the Rotary Club in U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly to President Obama Wabash, at a pub in Fremont, or at a and Speaker Pelosi. At right, President Obama funeral service in Mexico, Ind., when went on the offensive in Parma, Ohio on the topic turned to the president, Wednesday, answering in a speech charges there was open contempt, disgust made by House Minority Leader John Boehner. Continued on page 4 Obama at low ebb By BRIAN A. HOWEY INDIANAPOLIS - Obama wept. No, this isn’t news media fawning. It really hap- pened at the American Legion Mall in Indianapolis on the UA look around the American night of May 5, 2008. Some 21,000 Hoosiers gathered at the park to listen to Stevie Wonder and economy suggests itXs time to !"#$%"#&'%&%[$&)%*'#+*',-&'.%*,!/"%0'1-% Sen. Barack Obama in his race against break out the brandy. By any Hillary Clinton and the Bayh machine. measure growth is anemic - Hoosiers had seen the sheen of the campaign: Barack and Michelle at a alarmingly so ...V !12$%"&))%&!%3&'[#)4%5&'67%8"11!,$9%:;/6 - ets at Riverview Park in Elkhart, visiting ! G" Su Dsw the family homestead in Kempton. Most cYP !wv ww syw %% HOWEY Politics Indiana Page 2 Weekly Briefing on Indiana Politics Thursday, Sept. 9, 2010 remember the Obama campaign as a as he put it, then he doesn’t know me juggernaut. But he was really on his very well.” heels when he came to Indiana. Vic- A couple of hours after that tories in Iowa, South Carolina, Super press conference, Obama was on the Tuesday and an 11-primary winning phone with Howey Politics. “Is there streak had faded into losses to Clinton ever a point where this is worth all of in Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania. While !"#%*#'81$&)%8&/',[/#8FP%H%&86#47%$1!% Obama was smothering Clinton on the knowing that I was talking to a presi- Howey Politics money front and she was lending her dential candidate in the dumps. Indiana campaign money, the word seeping Obama hid his emotions is a non-partisan newsletter out was that he couldn’t win a big, well. He was friendly, conversant and based in Indianapolis and industrial state. He even lost Massa- seemed interested during the entire published on the campus of chusetts after Ted Kennedy’s endorse- 20-minute phone call. “Well, when you ment. run for president, one of the things Franklin College. It was founded Now he faced primaries in the you sign on to is the fact the Ameri- in 1994 in Fort Wayne. red states of Indiana and North Caro- can people want to know who you are lina and his for- and all aspects of Brian A. Howey, Publisher mer pastor, Rev. you,” Obama said. Mark Schoeff Jr., Washington Jeremiah Wright, “Some of them get had resurfaced blown out of propor- Jack E. Howey, editor at the National tion. Some of them Beverly K. Phillips, associate Press Club where 9#!%-&9$,[#4B%I1;% editor he performed and have to take it as Brittany Brownrigg, intern hammed it up and it comes. I think I called Obama a was very clear about “typical politician.” today. My former Subscriptions The book pastor doesn’t speak $350 annually HPI Weekly “Game Change” for me and doesn’t $550 annually HPI Weekly and by Mark Hal- '#\#/!%-.%K,#28B%H!% HPI Daily Wire. perin and John was sad to see what ! Heileman said it was at this moment happened yesterday, yet I don’t want Call 317.627.6746 that Obama was “in profound self- that to be a distraction about what doubt. Even at the lowest moments this campaign is about. The American Contact HPI of the campaign, nothing had shaken people are struggling and they need Howey Politics Indiana Obama’s conviction. But Wright had help.” stolen that certainty from Obama. His But it was a distraction. 6255 N. Evanston Ave. public image was up for grabs.” Obama’s closest friends, Indianapolis, IN 46220 Obama and press aide Robert including Valerie Jarrett, Eric Whitaker www.howeypolitics.com Gibbs agreed that this was “the mo- and Marty Nesbitt, were at the Ameri- [email protected] ment of maximum peril” in the cam- can Legion Mall to buck up Obama. “I !Howey’s cell: 317.506.0883 paign. can’t wait to call you Mr. President,” ! “I know what I gotta do,” Jarrett said. Washington: 703.248.0909 Obama said. He had a press confer- “Look man,” Nesbitt said, !<;8,$#88%=0[/#>%?@ABCDABCAEC ence in North Carolina and said of “There’s nothing you can do about Rev. Wright, “The person that I saw Rev. Wright. He’s a suicide politician. 2010, Howey Politics Indiana. yesterday was not the person that He had plastic explosive strapped to All rights reserved. Photocopy- I met 20 years ago. His comments his vest and he said ‘I’m blowing up were not only divisive and destructive, everybody.’” ing, Internet forwarding, fax- but I believe that they end up giving ”Game Change” reported that ing or reproducing in any form, comfort to those who prey on hate. all of them started cracking up, mirth- whole or part, is a violation of They certainly don’t portray accurately ful tears streaming down their faces. federal law without permission my values and beliefs. And if Rev. As the thousands of Hoosiers from the publisher. ! Wright thinks that’s political posturing, trudged through the rain-slickened HOWEY Politics Indiana Page 3 Weekly Briefing on Indiana Politics Thursday, Sept. 9, 2010 streets, David Axelrod appeared, reporting that Obama address was any feeling for what has happened to our was 12 points down in Indiana and the race was tightening country during the seven-and-a-half-year war whose ‘end’ in North Carolina, “Get Axelrod out of here,” Obama said. he was marking.” “He’s a downer.” Rich concluded, “And yet here we are, slouch- Every presidential campaign has such “downer” ing toward yet another 9/11 anniversary, still waiting for moments, as does every presidency. a correction, with even our president, an eloquent Iraq Obama would lose the Indiana primary to war opponent, slipping into denial. Of all the pro forma Clinton, but by less than a percentage point. Gary Mayor passages in Obama’s speech, perhaps the most jarring Rudy Clay was able to hold up the Lake County returns was his entreaty that Iraq’s leaders ‘move forward with long enough to deprive Hillary of a “momentum” victory a sense of urgency to form an inclusive government that speech at the Murat in time for the East Coast newscasts. is just, representative and accountable.’ He might as well She would declare, “Tonight we’ve come from behind, have been talking about the poisonous political deadlock in we’ve broken the tie and thanks Washington. At that moment, there was to you, it’s full speed to the White no escaping the tragic fact that instead of House.” But Obama trounced bringing American-style democracy and her in North Carolina, won more freedom to Iraq, the costly war we fought delegates that night, and nobody there has, if anything, brought the bitter was buying into the rhetoric. taste of Iraq’s dysfunction to America.” Obama had beaten expectations, Most Democrats haven’t given particularly with Evan Bayh and up on Obama, but here in Indiana there the Indiana Democratic establish- is a certain dismay that a candidate who ment backing Hillary, and he had was so good at articulating substance in “overcome his real nemesis - Rev. “teaching moments” during the campaign Wright,” as the book put it. has become so tone deaf, unaware of how The Obama presidency he comes off. Commentators after the is now enduring the low ebb the H'&P%8*##/"%2#'#%/',!,/&)%10%!"#%=K&)%=0[/#% candidate felt in Indianapolis. setting, where Obama looked small behind The U.S. unemployment the desk and his cadence was truncated rate is 9.6 percent. There is no &$4%[!0;)B political capital for a second stim- Throughout “Game Change” the ulus, boxing in President Obama reader is reacquainted with the soar- on the sagging economy. The ing rhetoric of how Obama was intent housing and commercial real es- on changing the culture in Washington, tate markets are still ticking time reaching out to Republicans and dealing bombs with no clear solution. with issues instead of “kicking them down Democrats have yet to articulate the road.” a cogent defense of the compli- Over the weekend in Milwaukee, Candidate Barack Obama at the American cated health reforms. Where in Obama seemed pathetic, at one point Legion Mall in Indianapolis on the eve of 2006 he gave life blood into the stating, “they talk about me like a dog.” the 2008 Indiana primary. (HPI Photos by A. Indiana campaigns of Baron Hill, Some Democrats saw in that a deliberate Walker Shaw) Brad Ellsworth and Joe Donnelly, tactic to reinvigorate the Democratic base.