Politico's Vandehei: Obama Campaign 'Insanely Political', Buffett Rule 'Total Gimmickry'

April 12th, 2012 8:06 AM

Va-va-va-VandeHei! NewsBusters has frequently documented Politico's Dem-friendly tilt.  But there was a pronounced flying pig moment for Politico this morning as its executive editor Jim VandeHei: ripped the Obama campaign as "insanely political;" described the Buffett Rule as "total gimmickry;" and opined that President Obama has given up on promoting any big ideas in favor of targeting various demographic groups.

Vandehei made his suprisingly candid comments on today's Morning Joe in the context of a Dana Milbank column in which the Washington Post, never accused of being a conservative, also denounced the Buffett Rule as gimmickry.  View the video after the jump.

Watch VandeHei's refreshingly frank commentary.

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Do you think the Buffett rule is gimmickry?

JOE SCARBOROUGH: I do.

BRZEZINSKI: I don't.

JIM VANDEHEI: It's total gimmickry.

BRZEZINSKI: Oh, come on.

VANDEHEI: It's 1% of what you need to get, to actually take care of the deficit.  And there's a big danger for President Obama in that they've become so insanely political in an insanely political culture. Almost everything they do now is either, is targeted at a specific sub-set of voters that they want to win.  Everything's going to be about Hispanics and women.  Watch every single day. You're going to see some event, some message, aimed directly at them.  Not about having a serious policy debate; he's not offered tax reform when he could have offered tax reform. Did not offer budgets when he could have offered budgets.  So you might love the guy, and there's many things that I get that people like about him as president. But in this season, he's made the calculation to be extremely political, because they think it's going to be a close election, and they need to target these demographics.  The idea that the Buffett Rule, that that is going to do anything to change the problems that the country has, either with the tax or the pile of deficits is [inaudible].