“Obama is President Pariah in these final weeks of the 2014 midterms. Vulnerable Democratic candidates don’t want to be seen with him,” writes Dana Milbank in the Washington Post.
This past Sunday, about 20 minutes into President Obama’s rare campaign appearance for Maryland’s gubernatorial candidate Anthony Brown, an exodus began as attendees raced out to beat the lines for shuttle buses to remote parking areas. As Mr. Milbank notes, although the exodus wasn’t intended as a protest, the overall effect was not unlike what happens when baseball fans start filtering out in the seventh inning with the home team is down by five runs. The game’s over. Read more here:
Obama emerged to a thunderous cheer and the strains of U2’s “City of Blinding Lights,” and his speech was interrupted by shouts of “We love you!” and “You’re the best!” But he has been off the trail for a long time, and his speech drifted discursively from Brown, to his own record and agenda, to the ills of the Republicans, back to Brown and then back to the Republicans. Finally, he arrived at a “you’ve got to vote” riff.
This had the sound of a peroration, which started the race for the shuttle buses. But, oblivious to the thinning crowd, Obama kept going, about the need to fight cynicism and to advance the American dream.
So it goes for President Pariah in 2014: Even among the faithful, Obama’s magic can’t match the urge to get a jump on traffic.
Debbie Young
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