photo from the CNN
Just as the Republicans are busily attacking each other, Obama is busily building his campaign apparatus “behind the scenes”. As this CNN article suggests, “As the GOP primary race goes into its third official month, the biggest winner appears to be the president.” This sentiment is further bolstered by the recent poll showing that Obama’s job approval rating is nearly 50%, the first time in months.
It seems to me that as the Super PACs have made Americans be bombarded with all those attack advertisements, the public have now come to generalize Republican candidates less as individual candidates, but more as a group that is characterized by infighting and “dirty-work”. This situation is of course favorable to Obama, for it allows him to focus on building his campaign rather than on engaging in (unnecessary) bickering. Meanwhile, the negative public perception of the GOP is expected to help differentiate Obama as a public-oriented candidate.
Just as various polls suggest that Obama’s support has surpassed that of his Republican opponents, one may forget the fact that Obama has also openly endorsed the Super PACs. However, Obama’s’s position is different from that of the Republicans. Instead of courting donations from billionaires, Obama targets the grassroots for small donations. As such, Obama has framed his support for the Super PACs as not only a pragmatic tactic, but also as a kind of grassroots mobilization, which seeks to maintain the very people-powered politics.
Although Obama’s support from independent voters has now rebounded, it is too early to conclude that he will be the winner in the election. This is because the Republicans will be more able to consolidate their power and compete with Obama once they have their nominee elected. Nonetheless, the backfire of Super PACs against the Republicans at this stage is an interesting reflection that too much competition, especially within a party, would ironically divert public support away.
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Also, the fact that the USA political system is really a two party system (with a third party at times, but that’s rare) really contributes to a ‘zero-sum game’. It’s not necessarily true that the GOP’s loss would be Obama’s gain. But a lot of commentators point out how the GOP’s indecisiveness on a leader is making Obama’s reelection prospects look better.
I guess the idea of “zero-sum game” is accommodation by the voters’ “binary thinking”, which is prevalent in every aspect of life as well as in politics. The voters are probably overwhelmed by the information in the Republicans’ attack ads, to a point that they shift their focus to the only democrat candidate Obama, rather than to individual Republican candidates.
Right! In other words, too much exposure to what’s really a confusing political selection process doesn’t seem to bode well for the GOP.
Competition for leadership is a component of many democracies, but in this case, too much of it seems to discourage potential voters. This seems especially true if you consider that much of the population is not well informed of politics in general.