For all of the talk about how unpopular President Obama is, you'd never be able to tell from the rallies he held on Sunday. In Maryland, for example, he spoke to a packed house with an overflow crowd, firing them up for the midterm election.
Then he went to Chicago to campaign for Governor Quinn, and had a packed house there, too.
Big, enthusiastic crowds, but this is what Reuters chose to report instead:
"You've got to vote," Obama repeated over and over at a rally for Brown in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, near Washington.
Democrats have a history of not turning up to vote in midterm elections.
"There are no excuses. The future is up to us," Obama said.
A steady stream of people walked out of the auditorium while he spoke, however, and a heckler interrupted his remarks.
Obama's help, or lack thereof, may not matter much to Brown, who is 11 points ahead of Republican opponent Larry Hogan, according to an average of polls by RealClearPolitics.
Quinn's race is tighter. He is ahead of Republican opponent Bruce Rauner by 1.8 points, according to the RealClearPolitics average.
Obama is scheduled to spend the night at his Chicago home after the campaign event for Quinn.
What they failed to observe was why some people were leaving. See, there was an overflow room. President Obama spoke to them first. And then they left because they had seen what they had come to see.
Sarah Jones at PoliticusUSA:
“So I’m going to make a long speech in there. But I had to come to the folks who didn’t get a seat. Because this is a group right here that is truly enthusiastic,” Obama said to much applause from the excited overflow crowd, which POOL reported “included more than a few shrieking women and girls.”
President Obama campaigned for gubernatorial candidate Anthony Brown in Maryland Sunday afternoon to a sold out crowd of 8,000, according to the Upper Marlboro Fire Marshall. This meant there were folks waiting in the Wise High School overflow room/gym, so POTUS was kind enough to stop in there and address them before the rally.
“Crowd shrieked again as POTUS wrapped up and made his way to the rope line,” Pool reported as Obama got ready to speak to a sold out crowd of 8,000 at Wise High School. So, many excited fans. Much love. People shouted “I love you!” at POTUS.
Sarah correctly notes that the media is so invested in the narrative that the President is a failure and Democrats are in terrible, horrible trouble in November that they are now making shit up.
Let us know when Republicans are “struggling”, or do we need to keep lowering the bar for them so that picking up a few seats in a historically advantaged midterm is going to be sold as “struggling Democrats”.
At any rate, anyone passing by might have gotten the idea that this is the beltway narrative, so you may soon be reading this as the Huge Obama Fail representative of his entire Year of Fail Six Years of Fail Life of Fail. That certainly would fit in with the media’s continued belief in the Obama voters abandoning their President in 2012 (talk about failing).
Yes, it was odd (because see update, it was folks from the overflow room who weren’t allowed to stay who were leaving), but it wasn’t a narrative about Obama, unless you willfully disregard the shrieking and the sold out rally and the overflow necessity.
See that? He made an appearance in the overflow room, and those people were not allowed to remain in the packed, no-seats-available stadium, so they left.
Wow, yeah. That's some Obama failure. Sure it is.
