During MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes on Wednesday night, the show’s panel fretted over the droves of Democrats that ran campaigns against President Barack Obama in the midterm elections (instead of embracing him) and that led The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel to wonder if such a tactic affected turnout among certain demographics due to “the dissing of a President.”
Vanden Heuvel first brought up an article where Democratic leadership in Congress sought the President’s help on something (she said it was legislation; the New York Times story she referred to cited ambassadorship approvals) only to be refused any help to show as an example of how many in the Democratic Party have been harboring “a lot of resentment” toward Obama. [MP3 audio here]
Despite stating that she didn’t have any “hard evidence” to prove her point, The Nation editor and publisher lamented that even though “the President hasn’t stood with the party, fought the party battles”:
[T]he President hasn’t been, you know, somebody who will inculcate fear in some of these people, so they're ready to dis him and I think there’s no – I haven't seen hard evidence, but I do think significant components of the rising American electorate, African-Americans, young people, single women, you know, they may not have liked the dissing of a President.
Host Chris Hayes exclaimed immediately that he agreed 100 percent with the point and Columbia University’s Dorian Warren did as well.
The New York Times’s Josh Barro added that the President put himself in that position in not being “a fierce advocate” or “a cheerleader for himself” for his progressive agenda while vanden Heuvel added that he’s been “a bad salesman.”
Toward the segment’s conclusion, however, Hayes backtracked and said that he believed the premise of Obama being any of those things wasn’t true in regards to his “economic record” (pointing to how Obama has often been out giving speeches on the topic) and ObamaCare.
“I mean, the idea that he hasn’t been out there selling it just isn’t true. He’s been out there selling it,” he said.
The relevant portions of the transcript from MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes on November 5 is transcribed below.
MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes
November 5, 2014
8:42 p.m. Eastern[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: How to Lose an Election]
CHRIS HAYES: Here's the problem: Republicans have run four races against President Obama, 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2014. They've lost the two times that Barack Obama ran a race back against them and the two other times when no one ran back to defend Barack Obama, the Republicans won. I mean, that to me seems like the basic thrust here, right? If you have one side saying Barack Obama is terrible, he screwed up everything and the other saying me like, I sort of agree, but I’m going to go to Washington and vote for him anyway.
KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL: There's an interesting story in August about President Obama. Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi come to him and say, you've got to help me with this bill, this bill and he said it's yours. So, I think there's a lot of resentment in a Party where the President hasn't stood with the party, fought the party battles and also, the President hasn’t been, you know, somebody who will inculcate fear in some of these people, so they're ready to dis him and I think there’s no – I haven't seen hard evidence, but I do think significant components of the rising American electorate, African-Americans, young people, single women, you know, they may not have liked the dissing of a President. That they –
HAYES: I 100 percent agree.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY’S DORIAN WARREN: Yeah. Yep. Exactly.
VANDEN HEUVEL: And I think – yeah –
HAYES: I think I agree.
JOSH BARRO: But I think the President also put himself in a position for that to happen. I mean, Barack Obama wasn't exactly a fierce advocate of Barack Obama's agenda –
VANDEN HEUVEL: A bad salesman.
BARRO: – Not just a bad salesman but also like seemingly disengaged. He wasn't out there being a cheerleader for himself.
HAYES: I don't think that's true about two things. I don’t think it’s true the economic record, which I think if, look, I mean because – look, we get the rundown every day. We come into the editorial meeting, what’s the President doing and it’s like, oh, he's giving a speech somewhere, about economic record and the other thing that I don’t think it’s true about is the Affordable Care Act. I mean, the idea that he hasn’t been out there selling it just isn’t true. He’s been out there selling it.
