Actually, Obama is Running a Positive Campaign

This week, CMAG crunched the numbers a bit further, breaking them down by partisan affiliation. And that revealed something interesting: Democrats are running a largely positive campaign, while Republicans are running a mostly negative one:

• Democratic presidential advertisers aired 35,936 ads. Of these, 70 percent (25,092) were positive and 30 percent (10,844) were negative.
• Republican presidential advertisers aired 27,857 ads. Of these, 27 percent (7,584) were positive and 73 percent (20,273) were negative.-  source 

But apparently Bob Schieffer didn’t get the memo above.  **= Ametia’s comments.*

Transcript from June 3 Face The Nation interview:

Chief campaign strategist to Pres. Barack Obama defends Bain Capital ads and insists the president’s campaign has been largely positive

BOB SCHIEFFER: And good morning, again, and welcome to FACE THE NATION. David Axelrod is the senior strategist for the Obama campaign. He joins us at the table. Well, when you tried to talk about your strategy up in Boston; the Republicans organized a rally to try to drown you out. So we’ll– we’ll let Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican Party talk in a minute, but we’ll give you a chance to say what you have to say first. What about that rally up there?

DAVID AXELROD (Obama Campaign Senior Strategist): Well, look, we went up there to make a point about Governor Romney’s economic record. Governor Romney offers himself as a job creator, a kind of economic oracle, and he’s saying these same exact things that he said ten years ago when he ran for governor of Massachusetts. And what happened? Massachusetts plunged to forty-seventh in job creation. They lost manufacturing jobs at twice the rate of the country. They grew jobs at one-fifth the rate of the rest of country. It wasn’t the record of the job creator. He had the wrong economic philosophy and he failed. And I was disappointed that they chose to send a bunch of campaign staff to try and drown out the speakers. But you can’t drown out the– the record, Bob. The record is very clear.

BOB SCHIEFFER: The New York Times says that the weakening recovery is a serious liability for the President’s reelection. Romney, as you just said, said the job numbers out Friday were devastating. Is the President going to have to do something here that he hasn’t tried before? Is he going to have to do something to jump-start this economy?  *NO, CONGRESS IS GOING TO HAVE TO  PISS OR GET OFF THE POT, AND HELP JUMPSTART THIS ECONOMY.*

DAVID AXELROD: Bob, first of all, obviously the– the numbers this month were disappointing. The President said when he took office back in 2009 and– and the country was losing eight hundred thousand jobs a day that it took years to get into this mess and it was going to take long, persistent effort to get us out of it. He took some tough decisions, the auto intervention being a major one, and we’ve had twenty-seven months of private sector job growth now and 4.2 million jobs created or 4.3, but we have to do more. He’s asked the Congress for a series of steps to get construction workers back to work, rebuilding our roads and bridges. To put teachers back in the classroom to help homeowners renegotiate, re– re-finance their homes under these low interest rates, homeowners who are responsible and their homes are under water. All these things would help the economy. What was striking about what happened on Friday was how quick the leaders of Congress were out there wringing their hands. These are the architects of obstruction, and now they’re complaining about the pace of– of the recovery. They should put down their political hats and join us and help solve these problems.

BOB SCHIEFFER: But aren’t you going to have to do more than just attack Congress, I mean?     ***Why aren’t you asking Congress why they aren’t doing their fucking jobs, Bob Schrieffer, hmm?

DAVID AXELROD: It’s not a matter of attacking Congress, Bob, and I don’t think the American people are looking for us to attack each other. They’re looking for us to work together. There are specific steps– you look at this jobs report, what was interesting about it is, manufacturing up. We’ve had five hundred thousand manufacturing jobs created over this recovery. The best record in two decades, largely because of what the President did relative to the auto industry which the Congress and Governor Romney opposed. What was down was construction. What was down was education. The very things that the President has been trying to get the Congress to act on were the things that were down. I think the country is going to demand action. What we have learned is they will only act when the country demands action. Otherwise they’re going to sit on their hands and instead of high-fiving each other on days when there are bad news they should stop sitting on their hands and work on some of these answers.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Let me just ask you–maybe this is kind of philosophical question–but it occurs to me that the President got himself elected with a very positive campaign that basically appealed to our better angels.  *** No; it’s your imagination and tired streotype of portraying the president as the “MAGIC NEGRO.”

He talked about hope, he talked about change. But this time he just comes right out of the gate with a very negative ad, an attack on Mitt Romney. Isn’t– I wonder, doesn’t he have to talk about what he’s accomplished and what he hopes to do–   ***  BAIN IS A PAIN.  And you don’t want President Obama to focus on it, huh, Bob?

DAVID AXELROD: You know, Bob–  *  I’d smack the shit out you right now, but I’ve been taught to respect my elders.*

BOB SCHIEFFER: –before he talks about what the other guy is trying to tear down.  *Get a grip grandpa; The president and hsi campaign are not going to sit back and not challenge the liar Mitt Romney or his surrogates.  GTFOH*

DAVID AXELROD: Well, let me just correct one thing. We’ve run probably twenty-five, twenty-seven million dollars of advertising in this campaign and virtually all of it has been positive. A lot of attention was given to an ad one particular ad but if you let–

BOB SCHIEFFER: The Bain Capital.       * Ye, Bain Capital, the funky, smelly ELEPHANT in the room.*

DAVID AXELROD: Bain Capital. But if you– but if you live in the states where our advertising is running you have seen a steady stream of ads over the last month talking about the things that have happened over the last three and a half years, talking about all the hard work we’ve done together as– as a people to move out of the mess that we were in when the President arrived. So– so I– I just have to challenge your premise.

BOB SCHIEFFER: So you’re saying you’re running a positive campaign? I mean, what– what about this Bain ad–  *THE BAIN AD is VALID, DUDE!*

DAVID AXELROD: You’re just talking about advertising–

BOB SCHIEFFER: Yeah, well I mean, you know–

DAVID AXELROD: Yes, I think we are–

BOB SCHIEFFER: Bill Clinton of all people said the President that– said Mitt Romney had a sterling record as a businessman.  *Me thinks your  old decrepit arms should be tired by now, carrying those pails of water for His Mittness!*

DAVID AXELROD: I saw– I saw that interview, Bob.

BOB SCHIEFFER: What about that?

DAVID AXELROD: Well, look, what he said was he had a– his business record and the fact that he was a governor qualify him to be president. He went on to say that his economic views would be disastrous for the country and I agree with him on that. No one’s arguing whether Mitt Romney is qualified to be President. What we’re arguing is whether he’s qualified to call himself a job creator. That’s not what he did in his business, that’s not the purpose of his business. And it’s certainly not what he did in Massachusetts where they had one of the worst economic records in the country. So when you hold yourself out as an economical oracle and say to people, trust me, I know how to move the country forward, and your record says something else, of course, you’re going to be challenged for that.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you this: I do notice that this weekend and most of this week the President did not talk about Bain Capital. Does that say that– should we take from that, that maybe some of this criticism that people in your own party have been making on that attack that perhaps it’s not working and you’re going to dial back a little on that?  ***  Did our whining stop the President from speaking on Romney’s record at Bain; I hope so.**

DAVID AXELROD: No. Let– let– first of all it is part of a piece which is, is Mitt Romney’s background, are his ideas the ones that can move our economy forward? And, you know, the– the particular– some of the instances we raised, take the one about the steel company in– in Kansas City, they– they– Mitt Romney and his group bought that company, they put eight million of their own dollars in a– for a seventy-five-million-dollar company, immediately borrowed a hundred and twenty-five million dollars and the next year took thirty-six million back out of that money for dividend. The– the company ultimately went bankrupt, workers lost their benefits, creditors lost out, and they walked away with millions of dollars. That may be a successful business strategy for them and it made money for them and their investors. But that’s not an economic strategy that’s going to rebuild the middle class in this country, that’s going to grow our economy in the long run and that’s the point we’re making.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Let me change the subject just a little bit. You were mentioned in two new books about foreign policy. In fact the authors of both those books are coming up later in this show.  *Let’s move on, ’cause I don’t really want to hear about Bain now. too much TRUTH-TELLING!*

DAVID AXELROD: Mm-Hm.

BOB SCHIEFFER: In one account, it says that you were present at a national security meeting when the President was making decisions on which terrorist we were going to track down–

DAVID AXELROD: That’s not true.

BOB SCHIEFFER: –and kill.

DAVID AXELROD: That’s not true.

BOB SCHIEFFER: And it’s you– you’re just simply saying it isn’t true.

DAVID AXELROD: I’m flat-out asserting that that is not true. There were meetings– I know there were weekly meetings dealing with terrorist threats and planning around it but I did not attend those meeting.

BOB SCHIEFFER: So because the chairman of this– of the House Intelligence Committee, who is a Republican, I know is concerned that you were there.

DAVID AXELROD: Well, let me allay–

BOB SCHIEFFER: And you’re just saying flat out–

DAVID AXELROD: Let– let me– let me allay his–

BOB SCHIEFFER: –you weren’t there.

DAVID AXELROD: –concerns, Bob–

BOB SCHIEFFER: Okay.

DAVID AXELROD: –because that’s not true.

BOB SCHIEFFER: Okay. One other thing it’s in one of these books and that is that you and the– the attorney general had a chest-to-chest shouting match because he thought you were interfering in things that his department was doing, and that Valerie Jarrett of all people came up and said you need to take this out of the hole here. What about that?

DAVID AXELROD: Well, first of all, let me say, Eric– Eric Holder is great friend of mine. We actually went to the same high school. So we may have gone chest to chest back in the day. But we– you know, we have a strong relationship and I’m not going to get into the details of that other than to say I respect him. I obviously never tried to interfere in anything that he did, never talked to him about a governmental matter or a Justice Department matter in all the years I was in the White House.

BOB SCHIEFFER: All right, David Axelrod, thank you for coming. And for–

DAVID AXELROD: Thank you for having me.

BOB SCHIEFFER: –answering the questions.

DAVID AXELROD: Okay.

To recap: 

Media-  Obama Camp Speaking on Bain =Pain

Obama Camp- Mitt Romney’s runninng on his experience at Bain & as Governor as a job creator.  His behaviors & practices  prove otherwise. 

FAIR GAME, bitches!

**Check the latest and greatest:  John McCain’s Entire 2008 Opposition Research File on Mitt Romney.  Thank you, Political Carnival!

Now Bob Schieffer why don’t you dig through these files and interivew Mr. Romney, and ask him the TOUGH QUESTIONS.