The political playbook of Team Obama is very simple: Every voter is assigned to an interest group and is addressed through the prism of issues deemed relevant to that interest group.
A minority female, a nonminority male, a transgender, a senior citizen, a gun owner, an unemployed voter, a homeschool parent, etc., are all targeted with different messages based on their needs and interests.
This is called identity politics, and it divides up the electorate. The importance is simple: The same politician changes his or her message depending on the audience they address to increase their intensity of support.
Robin SmithSounds good. This tactic is exactly how you market services and goods. For instance, you don't market prenatal vitamins to a female over 45 years of age. A Volvo is not the car of choice to market to a male under 40 years of age due to its emphasis on safety.
After a while, the patchwork of political messages laden with promises and soaring rhetoric are likely to cross the seam with a conflict, and the exposure occurs. This politician has no core values and says what's necessary to get elected. Hence, the high level of distrust in government these days.
Nationally, Barack Obama and his "progressive" Democrats have successfully employed this game plan.
Yet, when applied to congressional races, gubernatorial races and local races, it fails. There, the inch-deep, symbolism-over-substance politician is more quickly exposed and typically either loses the election or the public suffers from severe buyer's remorse once the politician is in office.
The Obama machine that has successfully won two presidential elections in an impressive fashion has an abysmal rate of success in getting his fellow Democrats elected.
In November 2010, after Democrats lost "six seats in the U.S. Senate, 64 seats in the U.S. House, six governorships, and about 700 seats in state legislatures," headlines were filled with declarations such as "A Clear Rejection of the Status Quo" (Pew Research Center) and "Political Divide Deepening" (Washington Post).
In 2014, Obama's Democratic playbook left only 18 governors of the 50 states in the hands of Democrats, the U.S. Senate shifted dramatically to Republican control for the first time since 2006, and the U.S. House picked up 14 additional GOP seats for the majority.
Last week, Team Obama and his progressive Democrats were mobilized and monetized in Israel to unseat the ruling party, the Likud Party. And, they failed again.
The American nonprofit OneVoice is now under U.S. Senate scrutiny for its interference in an international election. The organization receives almost $350,000 in federal grants awarded by the U.S. Department of State. During the heated Israeli election, OneVoice worked directly with the political organization V15 (Victory 15), which operated solely to defeat the Benjamin Netanyahu campaign and Likud. V15, by the way, was directed by Jeremy Bird, Obama's deputy national campaign director in 2008 and his national field director in 2012.
Team Obama, again, employed the tactics of identity politics in dividing the electorate into segments. Those segments attempted to marginalize Netanyahu for his fierce protection of Israel from hostile enemies on his nation's border that wanted the country to cede land. The message from the opposition crowd, similar to the frequently deployed blame-America-first tactic in foreign policy and immigration, was "blame Israel" for the hostilities from Iran and other countries who want to "wipe Israel off the map."
Elections have consequences. Those who campaign constantly and thrive on the politics of division are ineffective leaders. Obama's losing record is a testament to the facts.
Robin Smith, immediate past chairwoman of the Tennessee Republican Party, is owner of Rivers Edge Alliance.