Rush Limbaugh calls Obama 'Barack Hussein Kardashian.' What's he mean?
Is President Obama the first Kardashian president? The question comes up because radio provocateur Rush Limbaugh insists that is the case.
On his show Wednesday, Mr. Limbaugh talked about this week鈥檚 Obama fundraising sweepstakes for dinner with the first couple, Vogue editor Anna Wintour, and actress Sarah Jessica Parker. He played the ads Ms. Wintour and Ms. Parker have cut to promote Obama鈥檚 candidacy.
Then El Rushbo opined that this coziness with the New York celebritocracy shows how remote Obama is from ordinary people.
鈥淗e is [the] celebrity of the United States. He is not the president, and his whole team鈥檚 out there pushing this. Barack Hussein Kardashian is what he has become,鈥� .
Ouch. Limbaugh is not just calling Obama a celebrity here. He鈥檚 calling him a lightweight. Can you picture Kim Kardashian reading a CBO report? Only if each reference to 鈥渄eficit鈥� were replaced with the word 鈥渟hoes."
You鈥檒l notice that Limbaugh did not call him 鈥淏arack Clooney.鈥� That would have left a different impression. More ... suave.
Well, we鈥檝e got a couple of opinions about this. First, it appears that Limbaugh has gotten whatever talking point memo the Republican National Committee sent out for the week. The RNC and Romney surrogates have been hitting the 鈥渙ut-of-touch-celebrity鈥� theme hard. The RNC even produced on the subject.
Second, we鈥檙e not sure this approach works for the GOP. Romney supporter Donald Trump, who knows a thing or two about the limelight, has said as much, pointing out that Republicans are just making Obama look good in comparison with the less-smooth presumptive GOP nominee.
John McCain tried it, and it didn鈥檛 help him.
On the whole, voters still personally like Obama more than Romney. Romney鈥檚 favorables have gone up as he gains full nominee stature, but Obama鈥檚 are still 8 to 10 percentage points higher, depending on the poll.
Plus, voters tend to judge Obama as being more prone to understanding their problems. As George Washington University political scientist John Sides wrote earlier this year, Romney has an of about 10 percentage points, with voters picking Obama as the person who 鈥渃ares about people like me."
Celebrities are above all that, aren鈥檛 they?
In any case, Mr. Sides notes that all this stuff about the personality of presidential candidates is kind of a sideshow, when compared with the electoral effects of voter perception of the economy, and whether or not it is improving. Republicans might be better off to focus like a laser on jobs, as opposed to the president鈥檚 supposed resemblance to a reality TV star whose latest accomplishment was winning a record for world鈥檚 shortest marriage.
鈥淚n general, be wary of any claim that there is a single path to victory, particularly if that path involves a candidate鈥檚 personality,鈥� wrote Sides in the New York Times FiveThirtyEight polling blog.
