Why Obama Is Having Trouble With His Bain-Bashing Message

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


The Obama campaign has had a few missteps recently thanks to high-profile surrogates declining to join in on the Bain-bashing message that’s central to Obama’s message. So why does Obama persist in bashing Mitt Romney’s years as a private equity manager at Bain? Why not choose some other line of attack? Because, says Ezra Klein, the Obama campaign has a fantastically sophisticated program for judging which messages resonate with voters, and what resonates with voters are attacks on Bain Capital. Unfortunately, Obama has more than just voters to contend with:

The problem that I don’t think the Obama campaign anticipated, or has even really known how to deal with, is that the message voters want is not the message political elites want. Top Democrats, who have friends and funders in the private-equity community, need to defend their allies. Pundits and reporters know people in these worlds, pride themselves on being above superficial populism, and so tend to bristle at ads featuring laid-off workers who blame Bain. And then there’s Wall Street itself, which is plugged into the media, has a lot of money, and thus can make its voice heard. That’s the thing about hitting the powerful. The powerful can hit back.

The good news for Obama, I think, is that Democratic Party elites will fall in line once they figure out that Bain bashing works. Sure, you’d just as soon not piss off your rich friends, but hey. Politics is politics. Nothing personal, you know? See you on the links in December.

What’s more, contra Ezra, I think this stuff does matter. He’s right that the state of the economy is by far the biggest factor in this year’s election, and if the economy tanks too badly then nothing Obama does will matter. But there’s no longer anything Obama can do about that. All he can do is hope that the economy will be just good enough to keep things close, and as long as things are close all he needs is to pick up two or three more points of support. If his Bain-bashing message gains him those points, it will indeed be almost nothing. Two points out of a hundred! That wouldn’t even show up in the statistical noise of a poli-sci election model!

But it would also win the election for him. Statistically, it might be invisible. In the real world, it could be the difference between victory and defeat.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate