The DNC KenyanCommieMooselimbDidn'tBuildIt MegaThread!

[CountDeMoney]

Let's kick it off with what is obviously the most compelling issue of this entire campaign, shall we?

Obama facing mounting questions over 'you didn't build that' remark

CHARLOTTE — After being pummeled for days at the Republican National Convention for his remark that business owners "didn't build that," President Obama heads to the Democratic National Convention in North Carolina this week facing mounting questions about how he will respond to charges that he is hostile to free enterprise.

On Sunday, senior Obama advisers suggested that they will not address the anti-business allegations directly but will instead try to turn the tables on their GOP rivals by accusing them of being dishonest about what Obama meant. David Plouffe, a senior White House adviser, said in an interview Sunday on ABC News that Republican Mitt Romney's campaign is engaged in a broader pattern of dishonesty and is "built on a tripod of lies." Plouffe cited accusations that Obama has gutted the work requirement for welfare and "raided" Medicare to pay for the nation's new health-care law as other examples of untruths coming from the GOP.

The Obama team thinks that it has effectively dealt with the "build that" attacks and that the issue is overblown — the "drill, baby, drill" of 2012, a rallying cry for the right but ultimately one with limited appeal in the broader electorate.

Nevertheless, there are signs that they see a vulnerability. Obama has not repeated the words that sparked the controversy, and he has toned down the broader argument — that government help is essential to business success — in the six weeks since he ad-libbed the line near the end of a long campaign swing. His speeches have been shorter, with fewer references to wealthy Americans. He is more cautious about portraying the choice that he quite forcefully described that night between Romney's worldview and his own.

Adviser David Axelrod, traveling with the president in Colorado on Sunday, said the public will come away from the convention "with a very clear sense" of Obama's values, including his faith in private enterprise.

"It's striking to me how enamored they are with that theme and how ineffectual it's been," Axelrod said. "You look at the polling and they've spent millions and millions of dollars on it and it may thrill their base. But it hasn't expanded their base because people understand that the view they're imputing to the president isn't his view. I don't feel like we have to respond to their dry holes." Obama campaign advisers say internal polling shows that the GOP attacks have not shifted public opinion.

The "build that" accusations reached a fever pitch last week at the Republican convention.

Obama made the comment in July in Roanoke, saying: "If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business — you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."

Republicans have typically quoted only the last part — "If you've got a business, you didn't build that" — prompting most independent fact checkers to conclude that the line was taken out of context. That's Obama's argument, too; his advisers cite numerous speeches with similar language about the important role government plays paying for roads and bridges and other infrastructure to help businesses grow and prosper.

Republicans say that, even in context, it's not clear whether Obama is referring to businesses or infrastructure when he states, "you didn't build that." They say the overall speech reinforces a narrative about Obama — that he places too much faith in government — that resonates with voters.

"We need a president who will say to a small businesswoman, 'Congratulations!' " said Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R), one of several speakers to cite the line in Tampa.

The tactic has certainly resonated with the Republican grass roots. Throughout the GOP convention, and even sporadically at Obama rallies across the country, activists have displayed "I Built That" T-shirts and signs. On Sunday, a huge banner on an airplane hangar greeted the president in Sioux City, Iowa, where the airport code is SUX: "Obama Welcome to SUX. And We Did Build This."

During the original 42-minute speech in Roanoke on July 13, Obama used no teleprompter, instead relying on notes and at times injecting lengthy and impromptu riffs about the role government has played in building this nation. He talked of an elderly veteran who relied on the G.I. Bill to go to college and a single mother who got an education with grants. He criticized Republicans for wanting to cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans at the expense of government programs that benefit the middle class. But in this instance, he lingered on the point.

He blamed the GOP for what he described as undermining the American contract that allows all people to succeed if they're willing to work hard. He talked of "rich people," "millionaires" and "wealthy investors." At times he seemed to lecture his audience about the stark choice he sees in this election, waiting for the crowd to quiet so he could continue.

Obama advisers say the president did not seek to make news that night in Roanoke, and that his message has grown sharper since then because that's what happens over the course of a campaign. They say the speech came at the end of a long day — he did appear tired, and his voice was hoarse — and say if he'd intended to try out a new message, it would have happened at his first stop of the tour.

That evening, Obama spoke nearly twice as long as he has in more recent campaign rallies — a tendency, his advisers said, when he is fatigued. It was a hot, sticky night; more than 20 people in the crowd required medical attention, and at one point, even Obama noticed from the stage, advising supporters to "make sure you're drinking water."

Republicans seem to have noticed that Obama was tired, too. "They're running this guy ragged," GOP strategist Karl Rove said in an interview, adding that the president's "normal filters shut down." The implication was that the GOP will be watching for more such instances for the duration of the campaign.

[CountDeMoney]

Some landmines to think about this week:

Democratic National Convention 2012: 5 landmines

The Republican National Convention in Tampa brought fresh reminders that even carefully choreographed political events don't always go according to plan.

Hurricane Isaac threatened to cancel the whole affair, Ron Paul supporters stirred up trouble on the convention floor — and Clint Eastwood stole headlines from Mitt Romney by conducting a rambling interview with an imaginary President Barack Obama.

Here are POLITICO's five potential landmines facing Obama and Democrats as they gather in Charlotte.

Hurricane Bill

Bill Clinton is starring in a new Obama campaign TV ad, but he's made it clear in the past he doesn't take his talking points from the Obama campaign — he's even said so explicitly.

Clinton's got a prime-time speaking slot on Wednesday night, but Charlotte will be full of chances for him to freelance on camera or speak just a bit too candidly about Obama. Republicans will be ready to pounce on Clinton if he credits himself instead of Obama for positives, or expresses doubts about an Obama proposal. And then there's the possibility Clinton could suggest support for a Republican plan, like he seemed to in June regarding the competing proposals over extending the Bush tax cuts.

Already, Romney's campaign has sought to stoke the old divide between the Obama and Clinton camps by pouncing on every Clinton statement remotely praising Romney. They've used a graphic featuring a red-faced Hillary Clinton with the words "Shame on you, Barack Obama" from her infamous 2008 press conference, and last week it launched a website commemorating Clinton's comment, noting Romney's "sterling business career."

Obama's team, at least publicly, is expressing confidence that Clinton won't let them down.

"Obviously, President Clinton has extraordinary credibility on these issues of how [to] build a strong economy," a senior Obama campaign adviser said. "He faced some of the same forces when he was president that President Obama is facing now, the same opposition to dealing with a fiscal challenge by asking the wealthy to pay a little more. We believe he's an important messenger and, obviously, he's going to play a significant role in our convention and beyond our convention."

Rebuilding "You didn't build that"

Republicans built a whole night in Tampa around rebutting Obama's "You didn't build that" line. Democrats are putting in prime time the woman from whom Obama cribbed the line.

That's not the only potential trouble from Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic candidate for Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat and the woman who headed the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The Harvard Law professor is a political novice who will be making her debut on the national stage. And even though she'll be in Charlotte to pump up the president, her main focus will be her own election prospects, and what plays in Massachusetts — and to the Daily Kos crowd — isn't always what moves moderates around the rest of the country.

As candidates like Todd Akin and George Allen know, it takes only one on-camera slip-up to cause a fatal distraction. But Warren poses a special risk for Obama: Will she handle the flood of interviews without hijacking Obama's message to middle-class voters or alienating what remaining Wall Street donors the campaign still counts as friends?

That's not even getting into how Warren would respond to questions about her shaky campaign rollout, which for weeks was distracted by her claims of Native American heritage.

Actual class warfare

The Occupy Wall Street movement largely died out in the public eye after police departments, particularly in New York, forced them to abandon the public spaces they'd occupied.

Still, a ragtag group of anti-capitalist protestors are aiming to make noise at the Democratic convention, which could include protests out on the streets and flare-ups on the convention floor during the main speeches.

"Definitely more energy has gone into criticizing Democrats because the failure of the Obama administration is what in a sense gave rise to Occupy," said Michael Levitin, the editor of The Occupied Wall Street Journal. "Protesting at that convention is a given. But the crackdown by Democratic mayors across the country and, I think, the massive amount of security state that's developed around Charlotte show the lack of receptivity from the Democratic establishment."

There's also the danger of speakers or delegates going off the Obama campaign's all-for-the-middle-class script. Opportunities abound, from repeating the summer's initial criticism of the campaign's attacks on Bain Capital by some prominent Democrats to off-message adventures from anti-war protestors or unwanted critiques of Mitt Romney's Mormon faith.

The Obama campaign insists it doesn't foresee any trouble keeping the convention's three days within pre-approved lines.

"We're talking to governors, senators, representatives, people who are not publicly elected officials, CEOs," the senior campaign official said. "And no one has really expressed an interest in talking about anything other than what is at the heart of this campaign, which is, what the middle class is fighting for, struggling for, the challenges we face and how to get out of it."

Not a sell-out audience

The Obama campaign drew 14,000 people to Ohio State University's basketball arena for the campaign kickoff in May.

The problem was, the arena seated 18,000. News reports were full of stories of college students being frantically recruited to fill the rest and a photo of the empty upper deck led the Drudge Report.

Like in 2008, the Obama team is shifting venues for his speech on the final night. And that only means more potential opportunities for cutaways and live shots of reporters standing in a section of empty seats to distract cable TV viewers from what's going on at the podium at Bank of America Stadium.

Or worse: With North Carolina Democrats giving away tickets to anyone who asks, Obama could find himself speaking to sections of Republican hecklers or other protestors, aiming to disrupt his big moment.

In recent months, Obama's campaign has been pushing tickets on North Carolinians. Before a Joe Biden rally in Durham Aug. 13, organizers offered convention tickets for a mere nine hours of campaigning. Two weeks later, the campaign was offering tickets to anyone who asked and stopped by one of Team Obama's offices. There was little vetting who could score a ticket — a state GOP operative who signed up online with his real name said he received a phone call inviting him to pick up his ticket at a Charlotte office.

At a recent background briefing with reporters, six senior Obama campaign officials pointedly declined to predict, when asked, if the president will look out at a full house when he formally accepts his party's nomination. Instead, one adviser touted the campaign's ability to receive contributions via text message and another described the milieu of people who will appear onstage.

"We don't think we're going to have turnout problems," was as close as any of them came to predicting a full house.

Can Charlotte cut it?

There aren't enough cabs. There aren't enough hotels, and the ones they do have are too far from the convention site. The biggest tourist attractions are the NASCAR Hall of Fame. The airport, though a major US Airways hub, is dank and dreary.

Charlotte is the smallest metropolitan area to host a major party convention since the 1988 RNC in New Orleans — and just on the precipice of cities large enough to stage such a major event. That's clear from the hopeful branding campaign of the region's convention and visitors bureau — "Charlotte's Got a Lot" — to the city's relative lack of hotel rooms. There are 15,000 hotel rooms within 30 minutes of the arena and stadium, a fraction of what is necessary to hold the 40,000 people expected to converge.

And that's not to mention a lack of union buy-in, a smaller corporate footprint, given the Obama campaign's ban on corporate giving to the convention – which will result in fewer big parties — and unprecedented traffic issues for convention-goers spread across the region.

Bill Ritter, who was the Colorado governor when Democrats met in Denver — a city of similar capacity to Charlotte before its convention preparations — said his city would never have been considered as a DNC host before 2008 because it didn't have sufficient hotel space.

In addition to the heavy car traffic, Ritter said his biggest regret was the security that left some people still waiting to get through magnetometers when Obama began his convention speech at Denver's football stadium.

"The lines were too long, and even with security foremost in their mind, there has to be a way to move those lines more quickly so no one is left outside listening," he said.

Plus, there's no roof at the Bank of America Stadium — and some forecasts call for rain.

[HVC]

They should have a senial old democrat on too, just to even things out.

[Eddie Teach]

They should have a senial old democrat on too, just to even things out.

[derspiess]
They already have one.

[/derspiess]

[Martinus]

I can't believe GOPtards are running with the "you didn't build this" remark - to anyone who saw the speech, it's obvious what he meant (i.e. that roads, infrastructure etc. which helps businesses wasn't built by the business owners). Can't they really latch on to something remotely true?

[Tamas]

Obama has only worked in the public sector, and as thus highly suspectible of just not having a clue about the real world

[Eddie Teach]

I can't believe GOPtards are running with the "you didn't build this" remark - to anyone who saw the speech, it's obvious what he meant (i.e. that roads, infrastructure etc. which helps businesses wasn't built by the business owners). Can't they really latch on to something remotely true?

Just good politics on their part. It was a blunder and they're milking it.

[Jaron]

Let's get Bill Cosby up on stage.

[CountDeMoney]

I can't believe GOPtards are running with the "you didn't build this" remark - to anyone who saw the speech, it's obvious what he meant (i.e. that roads, infrastructure etc. which helps businesses wasn't built by the business owners). Can't they really latch on to something remotely true?

They're simply following the Costanza Rule(tm).

[Tamas]

I can't believe GOPtards are running with the "you didn't build this" remark - to anyone who saw the speech, it's obvious what he meant (i.e. that roads, infrastructure etc. which helps businesses wasn't built by the business owners). Can't they really latch on to something remotely true?

the bread you ate today was not made by you. That doesn't mean that the baker is free to limit your freedom and take all your money.

[garbon]

I can't believe GOPtards are running with the "you didn't build this" remark - to anyone who saw the speech, it's obvious what he meant (i.e. that roads, infrastructure etc. which helps businesses wasn't built by the business owners). Can't they really latch on to something remotely true?

Just good politics on their part. It was a blunder and they're milking it.

[CountDeMoney]

the bread you ate today was not made by you. That doesn't mean that the baker is free to limit your freedom and take all your money.

muffinwtf?

[garbon]

the bread you ate today was not made by you. That doesn't mean that the baker is free to limit your freedom and take all your money.

muffinwtf?

I'd guess that makes more sense in Hungarian.

[Syt]

Bakers - the pariahs of Hungary.

[CountDeMoney]

And perhaps the biggest landmine of them all:

Jobs report to nip at convention's heels

Ten hours after President Barack Obama accepts the Democratic nomination for reelection, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will toss a stink bomb into his post-convention party.

The August jobs numbers are due out Friday morning, just as Obama will be seeking to capitalize on his convention momentum. The timing guarantees that Obama's post-Charlotte, N.C., campaign swing to New Hampshire, Iowa and Florida will battle for headlines with the barometer of economic recovery.

It will be a moment of reality for Obama, who has spent months on the campaign trail reminding swing-state voters that he inherited an economic mess. He's warned them that GOP nominee Mitt Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan, share the tax-cutting ideas that Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, held when the economy tanked. And he's invoked the job growth that resulted when former President Bill Clinton raised taxes on the wealthy.

The jobs report will immediately turn the focus away from the forward-looking message Democrats will push in Charlotte. For a day, at least, the successes the Obama campaign has touted on health care, reproductive rights, gay marriage and immigration will go by the wayside as the jobs numbers suck up the political oxygen.

One thing is clear: No matter how many jobs the nation created in August, Republicans will say it's not good enough, turning the political conversation back to Obama's stewardship of the economy rather than extending the friendlier territory he'll seek out this week.

Obama surely will respond to the jobs figures Friday at the start of a three-day trip campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki said will focus on explaining the difference between his plan and Romney's.

"The president will head right back to the campaign trail after Charlotte to continue laying out for the American people the choice in this election and the difference between his vision for moving the country forward and the Romney-Ryan plan to take us backward," she said.

She added: "We have long said we want the economic recovery to move faster, and the president has laid out steps to make that happen, but without a plan for the middle class and a sole focus on extending tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires, the Romney-Ryan ticket doesn't have a lot to offer working families regardless of the jobs numbers."

But with Romney polling higher as a steward of the economy, selling Obama's economic competence is a tough challenge.

Take what happened a month ago: The July jobs figures beat expectations with 163,000 jobs created. But the unemployment rate ticked up from 8.2 percent to 8.3 percent. Romney used the latter figure to blast the report as "another hammer blow to the struggling middle-class families of America."

Republicans followed his lead, as they are certain to again this week. And with Ryan on board, the GOP ticket will have twice the opportunities to blame the president.

Romney spokesman Ryan Williams said the campaign will use the jobs numbers to remind voters of Obama's economic record, including the August 2011 jobs report, which counted zero new jobs.

"Barack Obama is the first president in modern history to preside over a net job loss, and we intend to highlight the failure of his economic policies during and after the convention," Williams said.

Expectations are the August numbers won't be much different than July's, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. He predicted BLS will report August job growth was around 150,000 jobs.

"It's better than what we were getting in the spring, but it's not good enough to bring down unemployment in a consistent way," Zandi said. "The unemployment rate could dip back down to 8.2. It got rounded up to 8.3 [last month], so it's right on the bubble. ... I don't think its going to 8.4. The odds are it's going to be 8.3 or 8.2."

Obama's team will cite the 30 consecutive months of job growth and note that 150,000 new jobs is nothing to sneeze at. But Zandi said the slow recovery from the recession means far more jobs will need to be created before the unemployment rate drops.

"If the unemployment rate was 6 percent, that 150,000 would be considered fine," Zandi said. "Because we've dug ourselves a deep hole, the 150,000 is not good enough. It's not like the world's falling apart lousy; it's just not good enough given where we are."

Taylor Griffin, an economic adviser to John McCain's 2008 campaign, said "there doesn't seem to be any scenario" in which the unemployment rate falls below 8 percent before the November election. But Romney, Griffin said, won't automatically benefit from lousy jobs and unemployment figures — he'll need to explain how he will do better.

"More important is that Romney articulate a distinct vision for how he would operate the economy, how he would run the country," Griffin said. "Romney's task between now and the election is to make a convincing argument that his business experience translates into the ability to run the country better than the president."

Former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, Obama's top surrogate in the state where he'll hold a Labor Day event today in Toledo, said Obama shouldn't allow Romney and the Republicans to be the only ones laying blame Friday morning.

Instead, Strickland is pushing for an aggressive effort to pin ownership of the lackluster recovery on Republicans such as Ryan, who have blocked Obama's jobs plans in Congress.

"His message has got to be, 'I need help in the Congress. So you should not only reelect me and Vice President Joe Biden, but you should give me a Congress that would be willing to work with me to try and increase economic growth in the country,'" Strickland said.

"I don't think the president should or needs to apologize for the actions of the Republican Congress," Strickland added. "I think he should lay the blame where it belongs. We would be in much better position if he had gotten cooperation with his jobs plan."

Tom Perriello, the former Virginia congressman who is president and CEO of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, dismissed the jobs report as less important than voters' confidence that things are getting better.

"Certainly, economic forecasters and pundits are going to look at these reports, but for most people, the economy at their kitchen table is more important than one month's job reports," Perriello said.

The likely 2013 candidate for Virginia governor said he expects swing-state voters will look to their local economies rather than the national numbers.

"Most Americans don't need to see a jobs report to know the state of the economy," he said. "That includes some real pain and some real life. If you're a voter in Michigan or Ohio that have been helped by seeing an increase in manufacturing, you know it. I think Americans are going to look at their own economic experience more than they're going to look at a national jobs report. I think voters are smart enough to see whose got a better plan."