Looks like the ‘sort of god’ has lost his appeal.
Upper seats empty at CSU’s Wolstein Center
About 8,000 people, according to Strickland’s campaign, turned out to hear Obama at CSU’s 14,000-seat Wolstein Center, which left the upper seats empty and fell short of expectations. Obama drew about 35,000 to an outdoor rally at Ohio State University on Oct. 17.With control of Congress and gubernatorial races in key White House battleground states at stake on Tuesday, Obama has been trying to pump up Democrats across the country. He made stops in Philadelphia, Bridgeport and Chicago on Saturday in addition to a recent West Coast campaign swing.
At each stop, Obama has made the same argument that this election isn’t a referendum on Democrats but a choice between policies of the past that led the country into economic trouble and policies that can lead the country out.
http://www.cleveland.com/naymik/index.ssf/2010/10/president_obama_tries_to_pump.html
Obama played to thousands of empty seats yesterday at his final rally before tomorrow’s midterm elections — a frightful Halloween reminder of how far his fortunes have sunk since he packed stadiums in the 2008 presidential campaign
Only about 8,000 people showed up for the rally at Cleveland State University’s 13,000-seat Wolstein Center, leaving nearly a third of the seats empty during speeches by Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.
Shortly before his election two years ago, Obama drew a crowd of 80,000 in Cleveland.
……Organizers of yesterday’s event tried to explain away the row after row of unoccupied seats by saying the president was competing with football, church and Halloween parties.
“In just two days, you’ve got the chance to once again say, ‘Yes, we can,’ ” Obama told the crowd, harkening back to his winning message from the 2008 race.
It was the last stop on a two-day, four-state campaign swing by Obama to energize despondent Democrats ahead of an expected nasty beat-down for the party tomorrow.
Republicans said massive losses for Democrats will be a stinging “repudiation” of Obama’s agenda.
Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate turned Tea Party leader, said it will be “a political earthquake” that will deliver a sharp message to Obama.
“They’re going to say, ‘You blew it, President Obama. We gave you the two years to fulfill your promise of making sure that our economy starts roaring back to life again,’ ” Palin said on “Fox News Sunday.”
The GOP anticipates a takeover of the House and huge gains in the Senate, as voters punish Obama and his Democrats for unfulfilled promises and unending economic despair.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/preaches_to_absent_choir_56NKG8NEYJI3KPYPjfHk5K?CMP=OTC-rss&FEEDNAME=
Note the differrence in the reporting between the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the New York Post articles.
The PEE DEE endorsed the socialist empty suit and still has a tendency to hold back criticism.
Meanwhile, the dedicated, faithful, doe-eyed Obama kiddies have lost their youthful enthusiasm:
Two years ago, the University of Miami could not get enough Barack Obama. The campaign rally he held here felt like a rock concert, his face appeared on T-shirts all over campus, and pro-Obama volunteers registered 2,000 new voters.
Meetings of the College Democrats that attracted 200 people in 2008 now pull in a dozen. New voter registration is way down, too, and free posters of President Obama — once “the Michael Jordan” of politics, as one freshman put it — are now refused by students.
Obama, you’re a burnt-out shooting star, a has been, yesterday’s flavor of the week.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the future of our country in one sentence:
“It’s not the fad anymore,” said Jessica Kirsner, 21, a junior from Houston and vice president of the College Democrats. “It’s not the fad to be politically knowledgeable and active.”
‘Like, it’s just not kewl to be politically knowledgeable and active. That’s like soooooooo 2008’
“They were emotionally invested,” said Peter Levine, director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University. “Somehow that should have been turned into, for Democrats, a revival of progressive policy, and in a neutral way, a revival of democracy starting with young people.”
“So far, it hasn’t happened,” he added.
“Progessive”, as in Cloward and Piven? “Progressive” policies are diametrically opposed to democracy. Levine worked for the liberal think tank, Common Cause, as a research associate and registered federal lobbyist, from 1991-1993. Just so you know where he’s coming from.
……Post-inauguration, no equivalent ecosystem has emerged. Some former volunteers said that was inevitable, because governing is inherently less inspiring than a campaign. “In front of a desk isn’t as good as in front of 100,000 people,” said Alex Riehm, a graduate student at George Washington University who canvassed for Mr. Obama at the University of Florida.
Really, Alex? Is that like reality setting in?
Oh why, oh why has THE ONE not shmoozed with Jon Stewart more often? Why did OFA bore us with all that silly ObamaCare talk?
Others, though, said the administration or Organizing for America, the group that grew from the Obama campaign, could have done more. Why didn’t Mr. Obama, who appeared on “The Daily Show” this week for the first time since taking office, go there more often, they asked? Why did he seem to refocus on young people only in the last few months, with campus rallies? The health care debate seems to have been where the momentum was lost. Even though Organizing for America held campus “teach-ins” with experts to explain the legislation, all the talk about Medicare led many young people to feel alienated and ignored by the president.
Medicare…you know, that boring program for the over 65 crowd on Social Security.
Younger voters said older ones seemed to become the priority. “He made young people feel important, then he got into office and there was no one talking to us,” Ms. Kirsner said.
Damn those geezers. Tell you the truth, many of them don’t like Obama or his healthcare takeover, either.
……A greater degree of focus on the young, the University of Miami students said, would have helped break through the talking points being offered by Republicans. Even on mostly liberal college campuses, the arguments against Mr. Obama have become more common. “The other day, they were blaring Rush Limbaugh in the breezeway,” said Gaurav Dhiman, 20, president of the College Democrats.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/01/us/politics/01generationo.html
Well if that can happen, there may be hope for at least a few of them.
Related post:
http://sfcmac.wordpress.com/2009/10/04/to-the-youth-vote-part-ii/