My Politico column is on the Obama campaign’s glossy brochure. What drove its release?
It’s the panicked realization that his campaign’s attempted destruction of Mitt Romney hasn’t worked and isn’t enough to win. The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll this week found that 62 percent of people want major changes in a prospective Obama second term. Four percent — that’s almost down to Obama administration officials and immediate family — want more of the same.
So the president needed someone to get on QuarkXPress to paste together “a new plan” and then run down to FedEx Kinko’s — pronto. But he couldn’t hit print during debate season, lest he give his opponent another target. Surely Romney would have loved to cite the risible document as Exhibit A for Obama’s status-quo presidency.
If the pamphlet works, it deserves to join the ranks of the classic picture books of all time, right up there with “Go, Dog. Go!” and “The Very Hungry Caterpillar.” In an amusing touch, it has a table of contents — as if readers would have trouble navigating the extensive volume. It’s a wonder the campaign didn’t include a guide to the dramatis personae at the beginning — Barack Obama, Barack Obama and Barack Obama — like it were a critical edition of “Anna Karenina.”