President Obama needs to come up with a better excuse for avoiding Wisconsin

During an interview at the White House on Monday, Democratic President Barack Obama told WBAY, Green Bay’s ABC affiliate, that he was not able to come to Wisconsin to campaign in support of the effort to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker because he has “a lot of responsibilities” as president.

Here’s video of President Obama explaining how his responsibilities as president kept him from coming to Wisconsin.

I think President Obama’s excuse for not spending a single minute in Wisconsin supporting public employees or the effort to recall Gov. Walker is absolute crap with a capital “C.” While I certainly appreciate that the president has “a lot of responsibilities,” those responsibilities didn’t stop President Obama from attending three campaign events at the Bachelor Restaurant in Minneapolis on Friday, June 1st, according to his official schedule. After attending those three campaign events, President Obama then flew to Chicago to deliver remarks at two campaign events at private residences in Chicago.

Interestingly enough, the state of Wisconsin just happens to be sandwiched between Minneapolis, Minnesota and Chicago, Illinois, so it defies logic that President Obama had enough free time to attend FIVE campaign events in those two states but just couldn’t find the time to make a stop in Wisconsin.

I’m insulted that President Obama seems to think those of us who’ve been fighting Gov. Scott Walker and his attacks on collective bargaining rights for public employees are stupid enough to believe his excuse for not wanting to “put on a comfortable pair of shoes” and stand with so many hardworking public employees who helped get him elected in 2008. As I’ve written elsewhere, I may vote for President Obama in November, but that’s about all he’s going to get from me this year, because I’m not going to be fooled into believing he’s willing to stand strong and fight efforts to weaken organized labor, whether here in Wisconsin or nationally.

But hey….if President Obama wants to renew my faith in him as a man who’s willing to stand with workers, I hear there’s a bunch of folks walking a picket line in Milwaukee…maybe President Obama could pull those “comfortable shoes” of his out of the closet and stand with those folks.

You can read more of my thoughts on President Obama HERE, HERE, and HERE.

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24 thoughts on “President Obama needs to come up with a better excuse for avoiding Wisconsin

  1. You don’t expect President Obama to tell the truth do you? It is pretty simple really. The recall was a lost cause with or without Obama’s presence and he didn’t want to harm his reelection efforts by associating with a lost cause. I can fault Obama for lots of things but not that one. Once you begin to realize that Obama is a narcissist, this kind of behavior makes perfect sense.

    1. Denis “the Menace”

      There is a narcissist in the race for the Presidency, Denis. I’ll give you that. It just isn’t the President.

      Narcissism is thinking that NASCAR fans will be able to relate to you if you tell them that some of your best friends own NASCAR teams. It is thinking that having a car elevator at one of your many homes is commonplace, and no big deal. It is thinking that no one will notice that you are now decrying a health care law for which a health care law you pushed for as Governor of Massachusetts was the template. It is thinking that having to live off of the income from your investment portfolio during college is “roughing it”.

      Speaking of narcissism, no discussion of it would be complete without the mention of President Obama’s predecessor in office, whose failed policies brought us to the brink of economic disaster, something from which President Obama saved us, despite unprecedented Republican obstructionism. Narcissism is also thinking that you could pretend to fly the jet that brought you to the aircraft carrier, then strut about like a peacock in your flight suit, flight helmet in hand, codpiece prominently displayed, under a banner that read, “Mission Accomplished”, with respect to a war that dragged on for years and years thereafter, without anyone noticing.

      That said, the decision of President Obama’s re-election campaign regarding the extent to which the President would get involved in Wisconsin recall elections was clearly a political decision. Go figure. Political strategy employed during a political campaign season. That never happens, right?

      Denis, you and every other knee-jerk wingnut here need to stop gratuitously and inaccurately dogging the President, just because Zach opened up the door with this post candidly expressing his Wisconsin-centric concerns.

      President Obama is one of the most intelligent, patriotic and honorable men you will ever see in the Oval Office. He is also African-American. Your President is black, homeboy. Get used to it. Obama versus Romney? Not even a close call.

      While Zach and Phil’s bitterness over the President’s failure to actively involve himself in the Wisconsin recall elections is understandable, who exactly do you think they are going to vote for in 2012? Spoiler alert. It isn’t the vulture capitalist, whose picture appears next to the definition of “narcissism” in the dictionary, and who wants to double down on George W. Bush’s failed policies, with a sprinkling of “what is good for Bain Capital is good for America” fairy dust included for good measure.

      1. Actually he is only half African American ZB and I am OK with that as well as his skin color, height, weight, gender and even his protruding ears. It is the content of his character that I am having difficulty getting used to.

      2. “President Obama is one of the most intelligent, patriotic and honorable men you will ever see in the Oval Office.” I read that line last night I finally have stopped laughing.

        1. Either you’re “d.ante” or you’re “dante,” but you’re not both, especially not with multiple email addresses. Choose an identity, lest I be forced to implement moderation.

      1. When you say “a pair” I assume you mean testicles? Because he has been lacking those his whole damned Presidency. Stand up and fight for SOMETHING President Obama. Jesus Christ! I watch shit like this and know I can never vote for him again.

        1. What are you going to do, Paul? Stay home? It’s just another way of voting for RMoney.

          Take your own advice, Paul. Grow up, grow a pair, and give President Obama another four years with a Congress that will actually help him implement his vision, instead of trying to obstruct him at every turn.

  2. Why can’t he just be honest. He like most of America knew what the unions were doing was just a joke and they had no support from anyone in their actions those 16 months. Obama was not going to be connected with a movement that was about nothing more then their own self serving interest. It has been about the only time in his presidency that he actually showed he had a brain.

  3. In the meantime this morning’s paper says Romney is now leading the polls in Wisconsin…

  4. On a certain day in November, I also have a lot of responsibilities. I shall tweet him to tell him so.

  5. Okay, so our prez missed the historic recall event. Frankly, I was more p.o. when he didn’t join the Madison protest. He certainly had no excuse back then.

    But I believe the prez’s presence for the recall wouldn’t have closed the gap significantly for Barrett to pull off the win. And maybe, Zack, we don’t have the “rest of the story to be revealed by future history. Add the fact that Romney is more important than Walker at this time, I’ll give our prez a pass.

    I remain a loyal Hillary fan and a true blue progressive, but beg to dissent.

    1. Duane, thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. You’re right that we don’t necessarily know “the rest of the story,” but I find it highly disappointing that our Democratic president couldn’t be bothered to show his face here in Wisconsin ONCE during all the protests and the subsequent recalls.

  6. Great post, but by holding out the possibility of renewed “hope” or “change that you can believe in” (to throw around a few empty catch phrases), you come off as a Charlie Brown Progressive. Considering another kick at Obama’s football in November? You have my condolences.

    I’ll make sure to tweet my support to Obama in November. But I’m not going to connect “the arrow of futility” next to his name.

    BTW, whether Pres. Obama’s presence would have changed the outcome of the recall election is irrelevant. Red Herring. The point is that (and I hate to say this), unlike Scott Walker, Pres. Obama and the Democrats have once again shown that they don’t really stand for anything.

    http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/06/07/facing-facts-in-wisconsin/

    I won’t bother going into the rest of Obama’s failures to those who voted for him, and the rest of the country. If you’re curious, here’s a decent summary of the issues:

    http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/05/barack-obama-the-great-deceiver.html

    The only reason for continuing to nominally support Obama (at least outside the voting booth) is to help get out the vote for Wisconsin Dems in November. That’s it.

    1. @ Stroebs

      Dude, you’re no progressive, so stop with the fake “good faith progressive” analysis, and fake concern about progressives wasting their votes by voting to re-elect President Obama.

      Your comments have a distinct rightwing, “false flag” stench to them.

      @ all my progressive brothers and sisters here

      President Obama is our best hope for the future. Re-elect him, and give him a Congress that helps him implement his vision for the country, rather than continues to obstruct it for the most vulgar of partisan reasons.

      The alternative is to elect the candidate that Stroebs is actually supporting, the elitist vulture capitalist from the party of the 1 percent whose candidacy he or she is actually trying to promote here by disingenuously disparaging the President in the way that he or she has, to date, around Blogging Blue

      1. This is “our best hope for the future”?

        That is really depressing. . . .

        But wait, that’s for YOUR future.

        I have my own best hopes for my future, thankyouverymuch.

  7. Folks let look at this from a reality side. While the President is Democrat he does REPRESENT the United States of America which means he is president of ALL the people. For him to attend such a divisive issue would have been the worse thing he could have ever done, yes in campaigning he said he would be there but in honest reality did you really think he would do such a stunt.

  8. Let’s not forget he wasn’t anywhere to be found during the demonstrations at the capitol either, and used the same excuse. I wish he would admit that it was a tactical decision and get on with it.
    I will be voting for him in November because we have so much more to lose with Romney. That’s all he’s getting from me. But I’m surprised no one is taking a big lesson from this – put your energy into local elections. The crap going on in Washington is just state legislation writ large, the states have been working on and successfully passing scary legislation for years and now Washington is just tying the bow on the package. Republicans figured it out years ago – get your people into local and state positions and take down the opposition while they’re focused elsewhere.
    I live in Washington County, land of Glen Grothman and Don Pridemore, and they work hard to get their people onto everything from the town board on up. It is crazy politician central here and it didn’t happen overnight. If the State Dems had any sense they would start refocusing and fast.

  9. Oh, and it appears we are about to get NAFTA’d again, courtesy or our president, by way of the Pacific. Sigh. Because it worked so well the first time.

  10. Zach, my guess is that Obama was scared of the whole Recall deal and what it might mean for Democratic candidates and possibly him, later on, if our Recall had worked completely. Think about it, if Recalls become a standard tool how that will effect the political think tanks of America.
    The compromise was to let the recalls happen but to have them mostly loose in the elections. Every thing is quantified.

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