My Monday column takes on the notion that the Democrats shouldn't have ballyhooed the killing of Bin Laden.
You might have noticed how the Democrats last week weren't afraid to ballyhoo the Obama administration's tenacious pursuit and killing of Osama Bin Laden. This pivotal event in the president's first term represented what could be the beginning of a major shift in the perception of the Democrats as an inept, wimpy faction that tends to mishandle foreign policy and national security endeavors.
In spite of the Bush administration's ineptitude on this front, there continues to be a massive "strong on national security" polling gap in favor of the Republicans. Back in 2010, a year before Bin Laden was killed, the Republicans were crushing the Democrats on this front by a margin of 27 points, 59 percent to 33 percent. Even with the killing of Bin Laden and the ending of the Iraq war, the Democrats lag behind the Republicans by a full 10 points, according to Rasmussen (admittedly, a Republican-leaning polling outfit, but you get the idea).
So there's still a lot of work to be done on this issue even though, by all empirical accounts and given the Obama record versus the dismal Bush record, the Democrats should be crushing it on the national security polling front. The difference is obviously not the actions and policies of the respective administrations, but specifically in how they talk about national security and foreign policy successes. If it was just successes minus a political PR effort, the Obama Democratic Party would be out-polling the Republicans but, as of right now, it's just the president who's leading Mitt Romney by around 9 points on this issue. Not enough, obviously, to change the broader party perception held by voters that still shows Republicans as stronger on nation security and foreign policy. I suppose eight years of "bring 'em on" hubris, jingoism and lies from the Bush/Cheney's PR apparatus regarding the false notion of "keeping us safe" has stuck with voters.
The only way to overcome such a gap is for the Democrats -- not just the Obama administration -- to boast its national security posture. Hence all of the Bin Laden death talk last week... Continued here.