Obama Is Defying the Laws of Political Gravity

About Brad Bannon:

Brad Bannon is president of Bannon Communications Research, a political polling and consulting firm which helps labor unions, progressive issue groups, and Democratic candidates win public affairs and political campaigns.

We don't know yet what kind of bump President Obama will get out of the Democratic Convention. But we do know that the GOP convention didn't help former Gov. Mitt Romney much. A new Gallup Poll indicates that Mitt Romney got as much bounce out of Tampa as he would have got with a brick-filled basketball. My guess is that compelling convention speeches by Michelle Obama, former President Bill Clinton, and President Barack Obama will break the deadlock and give the president a boost in the national surveys that come out in the next few days.

Steve Schmidt, GOP strategist and the manager of Sen. John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, stated Thursday night that "I can't imagine the Democrats doing a better job making a case for their candidate."

[See a collection of political cartoons on the 2012 campaign.]

The Internet went Democratic, too. The president's speech generated more tweets-per-minute than Romney's by more than a 2-to-1 margin. The Democratic terrific trio made the GOP terrible trio of Mitt Romney, Clint Eastwood, and Rep. Todd Akin look very bad. This unattractive threesome killed the usual post convention bounce that the nominee traditionally gets.

The Republican confab featured an empty chair with Clint Eastwood and an empty suit in Mitt Romney. National surveys indicate that Mitt Romney is the most unpopular major party presidential nominee in a generation. Why do voters dislike the GOP standard bearer so much? The answer is Romney's cold blooded and calculating corporate personality rubs Americans the wrong way. In Mitt Romney's America, corporations are kings and people are peasants.

Former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland put it best when he joked that "if Mitt Romney was Santa Claus, he would fire the reindeer and outsource the elves." In a more serious vein, Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate captured voter concerns about Romney when she said, "No, Governor Romney, corporations are not people. People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they die."

[See Photos as Obama Accepts Democratic Nomination.]

I know Todd Akin didn't show up in Tampa but his ghost haunted the proceedings. Timing is everything and Todd Akin attempted just before the GOP convention to play doctor and minimize the trauma of rape. The congressman's remarks cast a pall over Tampa as big as the path of Hurricane Issac. Thee conventioneers in Tampa added insult to injury when they followed Representative Akin's lead and ratified the party platform which included a ban on all abortions even in cases of rape and incest and when the woman's life is in danger.

Democrats had their own platform problems but at least Barack Obama had the courage to step in to fix the problem. Mitt Romney did nothing to delete the offending language from the GOP platform even though the former liberal and former governor was a strong supporter of a woman's right to choose back in his Bay State days.

Barack Obama is defying the laws of political gravity this year. But hot air from the GOP is keeping the president afloat.

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Tags:

Todd Akin,

Democratic National Convention,

Mitt Romney,

Barack Obama,

2012 presidential election

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