Democrats make positive statements about Moderate Republicans to hurt them

Democrats make positive statements about Moderate Republicans to hurt them

Obamahugrepublicans

This pattern of "help" is becoming too obvious for people to ignore.

Democrats are hoping to put their imprint on the 2012 Republican presidential primary with an unlikely weapon: the hug.

Leading Democrats have spent the past few weeks embracing several leading likely GOP candidates and showering them with praise for holding Democrat-favored positions on an array of key issues.

President Obama credits former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney with creating a model for Democrats' health care reform law that includes an individual insurance mandate.

"With a little assist from the former governor of Massachusetts, we said that health care should no longer be a privilege in this country," Obama told supporters at a fundraiser in Boston last week.

Members of the Obama administration have been praising former U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman for his role as part of their diplomatic team, before he decided to call it quits to possibly run against his former boss.

"Working well with me will be a great asset" in the GOP primary, Obama joked earlier this year.

Huntsman, a former governor of Utah, favors same-sex civil unions and has supported the Democrats' effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through cap-and-trade and stimulus plan to spur economic recovery.

Former President Jimmy Carter, a liberal figure anathema to many Republicans, said Huntsman was "very attractive to me personally."

And then there's former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who drew unlikely applause from congressional Democrats last week after calling Republican Rep. Paul Ryan's controversial plan to overhaul Medicare "radical."

"Newt and I are considered political opposites, but I couldn't agree more about what he said Sunday about House Republicans' plan to end Medicare," said liberal Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, who organized a conference call with reporters to talk about Gingrich.

"It was refreshing to hear such candor from a top Republican," he said.

Democratic strategists say the public affection for Republicans is a deliberate attempt to highlight GOP moderates at a time when many primary voters are looking for conservative ideological purity. . . .

White House attacking Trump to give his candidacy credibility?

White House attacking Trump to give his candidacy credibility?

2012RepublicanPrimary Birtherclaims demonizingrepublicans Obamahugrepublicans

I simply don't believe this claim:

"There is no issue that irritates the White House more than the birther issue," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics.
"They view it as a symbol for those who refuse to acknowledge Obama as a legitimate president," he said. "The fact that someone as prominent as Trump is bringing this up is a source of real frustration."

I think that the Obama administration is attacking Trump precisely to give his candidacy credibility:

The White House stopped just short of dismissing Donald Trump as a clown Sunday - calling him a "sideshow" act with "zero chance" of becoming president.
Chief Obama adviser David Plouffe unleashed a barrage of stinging comments on Trump, who has recently trafficked in fringe conspiracy theories about Obama's place of birth while taunting America with hints of a presidential run.
"There is zero chance that Donald Trump would ever be hired by the American people," President Obama's chief adviser David Plouffe told ABC's "This Week with Christiane Amanpour."
Plouffe noted Trump's surprise second place showing in a recent poll of New Hampshire voters with glee.
"I saw Donald Trump kind of rising in the polls and given his behavior and spectacle the last couple of weeks, I hope he keeps rising," Plouffe said. . . .

Note the past Obama practice of praising those Republican presidential candidates whom they want to hurt:

President Barack Obama has come to praise his Republican challengers - and to bury them.
Over the last few weeks, Obama and his top allies couldn’t seem to stop applauding several of the GOP’s potential 2012 contenders.
To listen to them tell it, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is a health care visionary and U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman is a loyal foot soldier of the administration.
The political calculus behind that praise is straightforward: by wrapping their arms around some of the GOP’s most credible and deep-pocketed potential challengers, Democrats undermine the party’s attempt to win over its conservative base in the primary.
Obama aides deny that they’re wading into the Republican contest, but they’ve sought to intervene in GOP politics in the past, if on a smaller scale. Part of the benefit of sending Huntsman to Beijing was the hope that it would remove a moderate and wealthy Republican from the 2012 field, just as appointing Rep. John McHugh (R-N.Y) as Secretary of the Army and attempting to place Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) and former Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) in the administration would have freed up GOP-held seats. . . .