I can’t believe Politico hasn’t written about this yet:
Mondale recalled that President Carter, as his standing in the polls slid, “began to lose confidence in his ability to move the public.” The President, he said, should have “got out front earlier with the bad news and addressed the people more.” He sees a similar problem with Obama: “I think he needs to get rid of those teleprompters, and connect. He’s smart as hell. He can do it. Look right into those cameras and tell people he’s hurting right along with them.”
I didn’t Mondale’s comments were too bad overall, I’m just waiting for the press to jump all over this one.
4tehlulz
>Look right into those cameras and tell people he’s hurting right along with them.
No.
Cacti
He has been taking his case to the people all throughout his Presidency.
The corporate media dutifully minimizes it whenever he does.
Also, too, any advice from the can’t win anything wing of the Democratic Party should be ignored as a matter of course.
El Cid
@4tehlulz: “I feel your pain”?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
“teleprompters”? Jesus fuck. I am consistently amazed at how easily Democrats start parroting RW buzzwords. He’s not a hundred percent wrong, but Obama isn’t hurting, he’s not a lip-biter or tear shedder (and I like that about him), but it is good that he’s getting out more. Maureen and the Davids will agree with Peggy and Bill that he’s overexposed, but that propaganda can be catapulted.
dan
Recession is over! Yay! I feel like the people of Hiroshima must have felt when they were told the bombing was over. Yay!!
Steve
I love Walter Mondale. At the 2004 Democratic Convention, the Minnesota delegation had him cast their votes. He was so totally befuddled he couldn’t remember who he was voting for. He would have been so much better for the country than Reagan! Having said that, I’m not really sure he has that many political lessons to impart to Barack Obama.
BTD
It’s one thing for Bill Clinton, or even Carter, to mouth off about “what Obama should do,” but Mondale lost 49 states.
I think it doesn’t matter, but a little circumspection would seem in order.
eric
@Cacti: correct….I have been singing this same song in every thread. Obama would have to hurl projectiles to get tons of coverage and only then it would be stories about how the post-partisan has become a hyper-partisan out of desperation.
Cacti
@Steve:
Surely you jest.
I think he ought to have a retreat with Mondale and Dukakis to plan election strategy.
Jake5
I love it how bloggers don’t realize they are part of the media and are actually complicit in turning things like this into sensations just by mentioning them. If you really don’t want the press to talk about it, don’t mention it on a popular blog.
Clark
Ah, Politico, where trotting out the advice of George McGovern is a badge of honor only when attacking Democrats.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@eric: They call him a mysterious, America-hating soshulist, they ask Democrats to respond. He points out that Boehner wants to cut social sec and medicare to give tax cuts to the richest one percent. “Did the President get too personal in his attacks?”
eric
@Cacti: I would think that Hart and Edwards could provide special counsel.
gregw
Just got this, beats signing some dumb ass on line petition.
Punchy
Uh…..Whiskey Tird Furball?
Cat Lady
“But when all is said and done, and many will be surprised to hear this: Jimmy Carter got more of his programs passed than Reagan, Nixon, Ford, George H. W. Bush, Clinton or George W. Bush.” No one cares what Mondale says.
Carter’s going to get the last laugh.
Face
Yeah, but he’s not. Employed to the tune of ~$400K, plus millions and millions in book sales reciepts in the bank, and lucrative-as-hell speaking career for him in 2012. Maybe even employment to 2016. Not really hurting at all.
Zandar
And people wonder why Feingold’s losing by double digits with the gap in Wisconsin.
cleek
@gregw:
a real procedural punchout. a rules-based ruckus. a deliberative donnybrook. filibust’rin’ fisticuffs! parliamentary citations at ten paces !
Rock
Our country’s economy and ability to support a middle-class is circling the bowl, and people discuss the President’s acting ability. Is this what it was like in Rome in 378?
MikeJ
@gregw: John McCain wants to put our troops in jeopardy by cutting off funding while they’re in a war zone?
Isn’t that treason? Or isn’t that what was said if a Democrat contemplated voting against military funding?
steviez314
THIRTEEN ELECTORAL VOTES.
That’s all I have to say.
Allan
Getting rid of the teleprompters sure enhanced Phil Davison’s stump speech, you betcha.
Zifnab
@Cacti:
And he’s been doing his damnedest to side step them. Obama has a bigger internet media presence than any other candidate I could name. But, at a certain point, you can’t escape the assholes without simply running your own campaign commercials.
The Democrats need to get serious about their media game. Air America was a start. DKos was a better start. But when Rupert Murdoch owns the WSJ, you’re already working from a substantial disadvantage.
cmorenc
@Face:
If Obama does indeed succeed in being reelected in 2012, by the time he leaves office in 2016, he’ll have physically aged during his eight years as president from age 47 to age 74. Once he’s ex-President, I hope he takes a few pages from Bill Clinton (minus the too quickly unzipped pants around women) and has a rollicking good time being a senior statesman for the country and the Democratic Party, literally going from whichever of one party to the next across the country, as the company and event interests him.
Josh B.
Dear Former VP Mondale:
When the President wants electoral advice on how to successfully carry his home state and the District of Columbia, we’ll give you a call. Until then, feel free to pour yourself a nice tall glass of STFU.
Thanks-
The Reality-Based Universe
Elizabelle
@Punchy:
It’s a tribute to Megan McArdle of The Atlantic. Usually wrong and can’t work with numbers very well, but never in doubt.
BJ had a thread a few weeks back on the magnitude (megantude) of her errormongering.
wasabi gasp
Yeah, tell ’em how he lives in a Boeing down by the river.
Linda Featheringill
Mondale is still around? He must be even older than I am, if you can imagine such a thing.
KG
@gregw: I can’t say how disappointed I am in McCain. I really thought he was the best man in 2000. But this last decade has not been a good one for him.
Maude
Why is it that losers think they ought to be telling a winner what to do?
Mondale lost, Obama won.
Linda Featheringill
@gregw:
I have contacted McCain about DADT. And the rest of the Rep Senators.
Yeah, it took half a day. Felt like work. But I got through to them all.
[Is that enthusiastic enough?]
Keith G
Well meaning if said in private. Said in public…awkward.
I will give Walter a pass as he is from, and still lives in, a different time.
In 1976, I worked with Ohio’s Democratic Party and and did prep work for a Mondale visit to an African American church in Columbus.
Great event. He stopped and chatted with us for a moment in an anti room while the chapel got “warmed up”. He was very attentive and kind. With “We Shall Overcome” echoing from the rafters of that old church, Mondale gave a spirited exhortation of what Democratic leadership was about.
I believed.
Jay B.
Shorter Balloon Juice commentators: A former Senator, VP and Presidential nominee should shut the fuck up about giving advice, Obama should listen to me instead.
Oscar Leroy
Yeah, we should wait for that, because. . . well, just because.
Look! the MEDIA! Aaaaiiiee!
Chuck Butcher
It seems to have been noticed around here that the office of the Presidency is somewhat Constitutionally limited. It also seems to have been noticed that the Pres. has previously demonstrated a real ability to reach people. Out of all the Branches of govt the Pres has a huge advantage in communicating with the people.
Oh fucking “Duh”
Oscar Leroy
@Jay B.:
To be followed in a minute or two with “ooooh I’m so tired of these Democratic circular firing squads!!!”
Oscar Leroy
What message has Obama tried to give that THE MEDIA has worked to surpress?
fasteddie9318
I know what he should do! He should appear live, standing in the middle of the Oval Office, then without a word tear his shirt off and flagellate himself with a discipline. Would that be enough to show that he cares?
Platinum Member
Enjoyed Jimmy setting those boys from Massachusetts effigies on fire last night. Long overdue. Now if someone could just get Barney.
gbear
@Jay B.:
Very much in agreement with you.
joe from Lowell
Barack Obama is not hurting right along with us. Barack Obama is fine, making a ton of money, secure in his job. For Barack Obama to say he’s out there suffering right along with us would be a condescending, pandering, obvious lie meant to manipulate us as if we’re children.
I like the fact that Obama doesn’t do things like that. It’s one of the virtues that attracted me to him in the first place.
EconWatcher
I was living in Minnesota when Mondale got his clock cleaned by Norm Coleman–yes, Norm Coleman.
Here was Mondale, former VP of the United States, revered elder statesman and favorite son of Minnesota, going up against an obvious fraud with a fake marriage and principles so flexible he’d make Mitt Romney blush. All Mondale had to do was not act like a jerk and Paul Wellstone’s Senate seat was his.
But some advisor (I think it was David Lillehaug, the root of all evil in MN politics) convinced him to go on the attack in the debate with Coleman. The revered elder statesmen came off looking like a mean but clueless old man. Pathetic.
No, I don’t think Obama needs any political advice from Mondale.
Allison W.
@Cacti:
Surely YOU jest. Obama won his election. And he’s black with a muslim sounding name and a “crazy” pastor.
Allison W.
Obama is not hurting like me. It’s just like Joe from Lowell says. I support him, but I’d call bullshit if Obama said he was hurting like me. What he’s doing is just fine, he just needs to make more appearances. Gives me a break from the usual nonsense.
joe from Lowell
I’m pretty sure Cacti’s comment was snark.
Also, I think Obama’s been kicking ass lately. What took so long?
arguingwithsignposts
The teleprompters were … not … laughing.
valdivia
@arguingwithsignposts:
Loved that you brought that up. Too….funny….
Where are the credenzas?
MortonClancy
I forgot, how many states did Mondale win in the 84 election? Oh, yeah, ONE. LOL
Cacti
@Jay B.:
It’s more a matter of, how much useful advice does someone who hasn’t held an elected office in 30 years, or won an election of any kind in 34 years, really have to offer?
MortonClancy
And DC, too.
That’s worse than Jimma The Pious. At least he won 6 states, plus DC.
Got to get that all-important DC vote.
It sure is good they are starting to revise the history of Jimmy’s time in office. He was so great setting the schedules for the White House tennis courts.
Obama must be following in Crater’s footsteps. He has to be.
fasteddie9318
@MortonClancy:
Back in my almost-became-a-wingnut days, I read Ed Rollins’ autobiography, which although I want to punch him in the face whenever I see him on TV now is actually an easy and kind of entertaining read. Anyway, in it he swears that Reagan could have taken MN in 84 if Nancy Reagan hadn’t heard some scuttlebutt about how Ronnie might lose CA and badgered the campaign into diverting extra resources there. Who knows, but Mondale did only win MN by something like 0.2% of the vote.
ruemara
oh fuck him.
John Bird
Oh, the GOP will jump all over this. The contemporary Republican mind often sees America as a nonstop struggle between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.
Personally, I see it as a nonstop struggle between Andrew Jackson and Stilt-Man, a comic book bad guy whose power is his really long robotic legs.
Obama is clearly Andrew Jackson in this analogy. Katy Perry is Stilt-Man. Need I say more?
Mark P. Kessinger
Nah, the media won’t pick up on it. The only former VP they’re interested in hearing from is Darth Vader.
gbear
That comment is snark, isn’t it? It has to be a joke. You can’t think that just because someone hasn’t been in politics for 30 years that they have nothing to offer. That statement is too stupid for words. Mondale hasn’t exactly had his finger on the pulse of America, but he’s been doing good stuff outside of politics.
joe from Lowell
I’m sure Mondale has a great deal to offer.
I don’t think “useful political advice for a candidate running in the second decade of the 21st century” is part of that deal.
Cacti
@gbear:
The last election Walter Mondale won on his own merits was 1970. The last time he was associated with a winning ticket was 1976.
In the last two elections where he’s topped the ticket or been the candidate, he suffered the worst defeat in the history of the Presidential Election, and managed to lose Paul Wellstone’s Senate Seat to Norm Coleman.
What the flaming hell does Walter Mondale have to teach Barack Obama about voter outreach?