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 President Obama’s media blitz Sunday is not working. With follow-up polls showing support for his health care measures plummeting, some pundits suggest that the public is tired of hearing Obama’s same message over and over again.
Obama avoided taking his message to Fox News viewers, favoring instead more liberal audiences at ABC’s “This Week,” NBC’s “Meet the Press,” CNN's "State of the Union," CBS's "Face the Nation" and the Spanish-language "Univision." The back-to-back recordings of his message were recorded Friday. With few exceptions the message was the same on every channel.
President Obama wanted to focus on health care but he also had to respond to questions about Afghanistan, race, the media, and ACORN.
Only George Stephanopoulos of ABC asked about the ACORN fraud. When asked for his opinion on the bills passed by Congress to halt funding to ACORN, the President replied, “Frankly, it’s not really something I’ve followed closely. I didn’t even know that ACORN was getting a whole lot of federal money. . . . This is not the biggest issue facing the country. It’s not something I’m paying a lot of attention to.”
Although ACORN may not be the most serious problem facing the Obama administration, the President’s failure to be proactive on this issue will likely cost him greatly at the polls. The dollar figures are a lot more than Obama wants to admit. About $8.5 billion of bailout money was slated to go to ACORN.
Obama has close ties to ACORN. He worked as a lawyer and organizer for ACORN before being elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1996. In that campaign he listed ACORN at the top of his supporters, and ACORN continued to be a major supporter. During the presidential election Obama’s campaign gave ACORN $800,000 for new voter registration.
Obama denied in the ABC interview that his health care plan breaks his campaign promise not to raise taxes on the middle class. Requiring everyone to have health insurance or face a fine of up to $3,800 per family, Obama claimed, is “absolutely not a tax increase.” After Obama accused him of making things up, Stephanopoulos read the definition of “tax” from Merriam-Webster’s dictionary. “George, the fact that you looked up [in] Merriam’s dictionary the definition of ‘tax increase’ indicates to me that you’re stretching a little bit right now,” Obama replied.
All uninsured people will be required to opt into the plan paying up to 20% of their income before subsidies. People who are now in insurance plans will be taxed one third for amounts they pay above $8000. By 2013 when the proposed plan goes into effect about 25% of insured persons will be subject to the tax, according to Fox News.
Even MSNBC thought Obama should have interviewed with Fox News. According to The D.C. Writeup, “The most logical move would be to appear on Fox, considering they draw millions of viewers more than their cable news rivals. If he needs to clear up perceived misconceptions related to messaging, Obama should have appeared on the cable network with the largest audience, and audience that coincidentally holds those same 'misconceptions.' That would be the perfect place to clarify the tough questions, providing he could
answer them. But, alas, he passed on the opportunity."
Obama is becoming more unbelievable to more people. He has seriously blundered in not taking into account the seriousness of the ACORN fraud, particularly because of his close ties to the organization. He has said nothing new about his health care plans and is failing to reach the people who will make a difference in getting the bill passed. As long as he targets liberals he won’t get the public support he needs. As liberal as the Democratic Congress might be, they still have to face public opposition when they go back to their ridings. To get the kind of public support he needs Obama must abandon his socialist agenda and his liberal friends.
More on this subject can be read at:
http://www.abcnews.go.com
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0909/27378.html#ixzz0RnrAELRN
John Fisher teaches communications and does research in the area of mass media and political decision-making.
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